James Greenwood - The True History of a Little Ragamuffin

“Indade the hintherence the little craythurs have been isn’t worth the talk you’ve wasted on it; they ’re rather an amusement than a hintherance,” replied Mrs. Burke, lightly.

“Well, you’re a queer sort,” said my father, pleasantly. “There’s no keepin’ a place tidy where there’s a young ’un; at least that’s what I’ve always been give to understand.”

“Tut; it just dipinds on the way of going about it,” replied Mrs. Burke. “When one’s used to tidying a place, the job comes as easy as play. But, there, Mr. Ballisat, I ’ll lave you to judge for yourself how much and how little throuble they’ve been to me, for here’s the sacks I’ve made meanwhiles at fourpence ha’penny each.”

“What! done all the clearing and made all them sacks?” exclaimed my father, running his thumb up the work to count it “Earnt eighteen-pence, minded two kids, and cleaned a place in one arternoon! Dashed, you’re the sort!”

“And not hurried myself nayther,” rejoined Mrs. Burke, laughing; “it isn’t a thrifle of work that frightens Kitty Burke, anyhow.”

Now, as the reader has already been made aware, this was not the truth by a very long way. She had not made all the sacks since she sat down; she had brought in three ready-made, and all she had completed was one and part of another. Thinking that it was merely a mistake on her part, I was about to correct her, but at the very moment of my opening my mouth her eyes caught mine, and, evidently guessing my intention, she shook her head, and frowned in a way that was not to be mistaken. But I didn’t care for her; I owed her a grudge for making me hold the candle, to say nothing about the name she had called me. Besides, my father was there, and she daren’t touch me. So, said I, edging closer to my father—

“What a wicked story-teller you are, Mrs. Burke!”

Her rage was tremendous. She glared at me till she squinted.

“What’s that?” asked my father, turning shortly round on me.

“So she is,” I stoutly replied.

“So she is what? Who are you a callin’ ‘she,’ you unmannered little warmint? She ’s the cat, don’t you know? Now, then, what do you mean by sayin’ that Mrs. Burke is a story-teller?”

I watched his hand stealing to his waist-belt, and I was afraid to open my mouth.

“Lor’ bless his heart, don’t be angry with him, Jim; shure he manes no harm. He was only about to tell you of the purty stories I’ve been tellin’ him to keep him awake till his daddy come home. That’s what he meant by callin’ me story-teller, Jim.”

“Oh, that’s it! I thought he was going to insinivate that you was tellin’ a crammer about the sacks.”

“How do you mane, Mr. Ballisat?” asked Mrs. Burke, innocently.

“Well, I thought the young stoopid was going to say that you were wrong in the number; not that it’s any business of mine, or his’n either, come to that.”

“But the thruth is everybody’s business, Jim,” replied the virtuous woman. Then turning to me, winking and frowning, said she, “See, Jimmy dear, here is four sacks; tell your daddy how many I have made while you have been sitting and watching me.”

What was I to do? Evidently my father was more disposed to believe her than me. I had never tasted the strap myself; but I had seen it laid over my mother’s shoulders till she screamed murder.

“Four, ma’am,” I answered.

“Of course,” said Mrs. Burke, quietly; “that’s thrue all the world over.” And shortly afterwards she gave me a spoonful of sugar.

I think I may say that that was the first deliberate lie I ever told in my life; and I verily believe it was one of the most mischievous. My father being half tipsy at the time, he might have forgotten all about the circumstance by the morning; but, according to my experience of my father’s memory, what transpired in his presence at such times was tolerably accurate. To this day, I believe that when Mrs. Burke demonstrated to him how easily she could earn eighteen-pence, it made a strong impression on him—stronger even than the Irishwoman’s tea-table solicitude and the loan of the slippers. I further believe that the remarks I made tended to raise in his mind doubts as to the truth of her statement, and that the said doubts were completely dissipated by my corroboration of the said statement. If this view of the case is a correct one, I stand convicted of being an accessory to a very lamentable swindle.

At the time, however, I was incapable of this sort of reasoning, and I was inclined even to look gratefully on Mrs. Burke for helping me out of a threatened danger. I was glad that, just in the nick of time, the baby awoke, and put an end to the conversation concerning the sacks.

Mrs. Burke took the baby up, and, composing it comfortably on her lap, begged my father to be good enough to hand her the butter-boat from off the hob; and then she proceeded to feed the little thing, and kiss it, and talk to it in a way that quite went to one’s heart to witness. No doubt it would have gone to my father’s heart; but becoming drowsy, and feeling warm and at his ease, he presently dropped to sleep—a fact Mrs. Burke was unaware of until he began to snore, when she looked up, and with a little toss of her head finished feeding my sister in silence. The operation completed, she carried the baby off to her own room, and after that only came in once, to carry away the tea-things, waking my father by the clatter she made with them.

“What time will you be risin’ in the mornin’, Mr. Ballisat?” asked she, respectfully.

“What time, ma’am? oh, about the usual: why?”

“Bekase of your breakfast. If you’ll kindly give us the hour, I’ll be up and have the kettle biling.”

“Breakfast! Lor’ bless yer!” laughed my father, “I gets my breakfast in the market.”

“And why, may I ask? Shure the bit of breakfast must be more comfortable at your own fireside than in the cowld market, Jim?”

“So it is, but I’m off at five to-morrow morning, and so you see it can’t be managed,” replied my father.

“And why not?” asked Mrs. Burke, opening her brown eyes in affected astonishment. “Is it bekase you are left alone that you are to go out in the cowld widout the dhrap of coffee to warm you? Shure, sir, I should be no dacent woman, though it wor three o’clock instead of five when you went out. Good night, Mr. Ballisat; no fear but the kettle will be biling in time for yer.”

And she kept her word. I slept with my father, and while it was yet quite dark there came a knock at our door.

“There’s the pleseman knocking to say it’s a quarter to five, Jimmy,” said my father, sleepily; “just hop out and tap at the window, my boy.”

But at the same moment Mrs. Burke’s cheery voice was heard outside the room door—

“It’s half afther four, Mr. Ballisat, and the kettle’s biling, and there’s a nice bit of the fish all hot and a-waitin’ for you,” said she; and then she tripped back to her own room, humming as gay as a lark. Presently she was back again—

“May I throuble you to bring out the needle off the mantel-shelf, Mr. Ballisat? I’ve just bethought me I left it there overnight. My silly head will niver save my fingers, which have been itching to get at the bit of work this half an hour.”

“All right, ma’am,” called my father, and then, in an under-tone, and to himself, he muttered—

“’Send I may live! I never come across such a woman!”

The reader, of course, foresees the ending of such a beginning—Mrs. Burke became my stepmother. I cannot exactly state how long a time elapsed from the time of my father burying his first wife to his marrying the second, but it must have been several months—seven, at the least, I should say, for when it happened, my sister Polly had grown to be quite a big child; indeed, I recollect that it was as much as I could do to carry her from one end of the alley to the other without resting. But however long a time it was, it saw no alteration in my sentiments towards Mrs. Burke. It is not enough to say I liked her as little as ever. When I first made her acquaintance I simply disliked her; now I hated her deeply and thoroughly. She hated me, and made no scruple of letting me know it. The very first morning after the memorable day of my mother’s funeral she told me her mind without reserve.