Chapter IV: An Untidy Home

MRS. HUMPHREY'S cottage was in its usual uncomfortable condition of "cleaning up." She had begun "putting straight" in the morning, and she had been at it ever since, off and on. Yet, though evening was come, things were not straight. It would have been a mystery to any orderly housewife, how she managed to be so busy, and to get so little done.

Some men's wives waste a great deal of time in perpetual gossiping with the neighbours, and then of course it is not surprising that their homes should be in a mess. But wasting time in that particular fashion was not one of Janet Humphrey's faults. She did not care for gossip, and she did not care for the neighbours. Indeed, it was rather a subject of complaint among the said neighbours that "Mrs. Humphrey was so unsociable, nobody could get to know her." She rather took a pride in holding aloof, and in not allowing her children to associate with the children around more than could be helped.

Janey, the eldest of the party, the little nine years old maiden of the curl-papers, sat on a chair, in the pink cotton which she had worn at the school feast, nursing the baby; and the baby, a plump infant of nine months, being hungry, was screaming lustily. Jackey and Sukey, aged eight and seven, were quarrelling in the window; and Willie and Tommy, aged five and three, were rolling about upon the floor, with rough heads and smeared faces, each having a piece of bread-and-butter. Janet herself, with a soiled cap and a heated anxious face, was hurrying to and fro distractedly. Some damp clothes hung round the fire, and cooking utensils were scattered uncomfortably here and there, while the china used at the mid-day meal lay still unwashed upon the wooden table.

"Father'll be in directly, and he'll be so vexed not to find things straight." This was Janet's usual observation every evening, as if it were quite an uncommon event for him to find them so; whereas in reality it was a matter of daily occurrence. "Oh dear, dear, whatever am I do? If I'd known it would have taken so long, I'd never have got those things washed out to-day. To-morrow would have done as well. Do stop that child's crying, Janey. It goes through my head. And those children,—if I wash them one minute, they're not fit to be seen the next."

Janet's "minute" was a long one on this occasion, since she had not found time to wash them for several hours. She came forward, and pulled Tommy up with a jerk, whereupon he burst into a howl. "Have done, will you?" said Janet pettishly, giving him a little shake. "Father'll be back directly, and he'll be angry. Where's the soap? O dear,—nobody knows what I have to go through. I don't think there ever was such a set of children. Stop crying this minute, Tommy, or you shan't have one single bit more of bread-and-butter."

Whereupon Tommy wailed the more, and a man's head appeared in the doorway.

"Not ready—as usual!" said Jem.

"No, and shan't be for another hour," said Janet sharply; for the general condition of things made her feel cross, though she was not naturally ill-tempered.

"Then I'm best out of the way," said Jem rather gruffly, and he disappeared.

"There! and he'll go to the public, and get into trouble, as sure as can be," exclaimed Janet despairingly. "Whatever did make me speak like that to him? Well, I must just get on, and make things straight. Stop crying, Tommy, do,—come now, be a good boy, and mother will give him a halfpenny."

The promised bribe took effect, and Tommy's howls lessened. Janet decided to defer the washing for fear of setting him off again. She slipped a halfpenny into one grimy little hand, and a piece of bread into the other, and placed him again on the floor. Then, having given her children an unwholesome lesson on the easiest mode of getting their own way, she turned round, flurried and annoyed, to find herself facing Mrs. Simmons.

"Good evening," said Mrs. Simmons. "I came to bring a few apples for the young ones, Mrs. Humphrey; and I had to make bold to walk in, seeing I couldn't manage to get a hearing through the clamour."

Janet looked and felt ashamed. "I'm sure I'm very much obliged," she said. "It's a bad day with me—cleaning up."

"Why, so was yesterday, wasn't it?" asked Mrs. Simmons, taking a seat, and regarding attentively Tommy's dingy and buttery cheeks.

"Well, yes,—but I didn't get done," said Janet uncomfortably. "I take a bit a day, you see, so as to get through things."

"You don't seem quite through 'em yet," said Betsy, surveying the scene. "I saw your husband going off just now, seemingly in a huff."

"He hadn't any reason. I'm sure it wasn't my fault," Janet said, in a melancholy tone, "I've toiled hard enough and to spare. I'm pretty near ready to drop this minute. Janey came back and told me what had happened, and it gave me such a turn, I haven't felt right since."

Betsy Simmons' rather grim look softened. "Ah,—Poor little Miss Daisy," she said. "And poor Davis too, for the matter of that. Not a bit less one than the other, only the one seems to come nearer to us. Yes, it's an awful thing to have happened, and nobody can know yet if either of the two will get over it. The man suffers terribly, they say, and poor little Miss Daisy just lies still with shut eyes and don't know anybody. Well, well,—I don't doubt it's all for the best,—and she's ready for death, if anybody ever was. I wish I was as sure I was ready myself. But it's an awful thing to be struck down, all in a moment."

"I wish you wouldn't talk so. It turns me quite queer," said Janet.

"You do look as if a cup of tea would do you good," said Mrs. Simmons.

"I haven't had time to get one. There's no getting anything done, with a pack of children about."

"You should train your children to be a help and not a hindrance," said Mrs. Simmons, rising, with a business-like air. "That's what I would do. Why, dear me, there isn't one but might take his share of work, unless it's the baby. Even Tommy isn't too small to pick up scraps, and clear away crumbs. Now you sit still a few minutes, Mrs. Humphrey, and get a bit of quiet, and I'll do for you. I couldn't take a cup of tea, for my part, or anything else, in such a mess as this. You sit still, and just see!"

Janet looked astonished, but obeyed. Mrs. Simmons divested herself of shawl and bonnet, folding the former, and laying the latter neatly upon it. She never flung off what she wore, or tossed articles of clothing anywhere, as some people are apt to do when in a hurry.

Then she proceeded to "tidy" the room. Janet had been "tidying" all day, quite in vain; for the simple reason that as fast as she made one part tidy she made another part untidy. Betsy Simmons, on the contrary, advanced steadily, step by step, placing everything in order, putting away this, hanging up that, pushing chairs back against the wall, collecting stray scraps of paper, string and cotton, and working a rapid transformation. Once Janet protested, "I shall want that directly, Mrs. Simmons; it's no good putting it by."

"Want it! And if you do," said Mrs. Simmons, "what then, Mrs. Humphrey? Can't you get it out again? I shall want my bed by-and-by, but I don't keep it at hand all day in my shop. It saves a deal of trouble, to put everything straight away in its right place the moment it's been used."

"But the children'll only drag all the chairs crooked in another minute," said Janet.

"Chairs are meant to be used," said Mrs. Simmons, in an oracular manner. "But there's no need for them all to stand about the whole day like a set of dancing dervishes. If every child was taught to put his chair back straight against the wall after he's done with it, the world would be over so much tidier."

"Why, I don't do that," said Janet.

"More's the pity!" said Mrs. Simmons.

Having swept up the hearth,—an operation which Janet rarely performed, because it was sure to need sweeping again before long,—Mrs. Simmons brought out water and soap. The missing soap she had accidentally discovered, lying hidden under Janet's bonnet. The elder children submitted with tolerable composure to having their dirty little faces and hands made clean and shining. Tommy, however, had a strong dislike to soap, and Tommy shrieked his disapproval.

"He won't like it," gasped Janet, in dismay.

"Then he'll have to get along without the liking," said Betsy Simmons calmly, as she lifted Tommy into a convenient position.

"Tommy will be a good boy, won't he?" said Janet coaxingly. "Mother will give him a nice bun if he is good."

"Give him a bun for having his face washed!" said Mrs. Simmons. "And a halfpenny for stopping crying! He's like to cost you dear at this rate, Mrs. Humphrey. Haven't you got any better use for your pennies than that?"

Janet sat rebuked; ashamed yet angry. Tommy yelled, but he yelled in vain. Mrs. Simmons quietly soaped him, scrubbed him, sponged him, and dried him. A clean though tearful little boy was presently seated on a chair, and told to "be good."

"He wouldn't let me do all that, now," said Janet.

Mrs. Simmons turned round quite indignantly. "Wouldn't let!" she said. "A baby of three not let his mother do as she likes with him! What on earth do you mean, Mrs. Humphrey?"

"Well, I don't know,—it doesn't seem as if I could manage them like you do," said Janet.

"Maybe not,—because you don't set to work the right way," said Mrs. Simmons. "Give in to a child because he cries, or bribe him to be good, and your mastery over him is gone. But once make him understand that you mean what you say, and that he has to do what he's told, and your trouble's at an end. Why, dear me, I wonder what my mother would have said, when I was a girl, if any one of us—and she had a dozen children—had set up for a moment against her will. Not we! There wasn't such a thing known among us. Mother's will was law, and no mistake. But for all that we loved her more than I can tell, and she did toil for us. The world never looked the same to me, Mrs. Humphrey, since mother died."

"Everybody isn't like that, though," Janet said hopelessly, as Mrs. Simmons placed the teapot on the table.