章节正文
candle that had guided us through the storm; but the old Waterloo
stove was colouring the gloom with tremulous, rose-red whorls of
light, and warm and cosy indeed seemed Peg's retreat to us snow-
covered, frost-chilled, benighted wanderers.
"Gracious goodness, where did yez all come from?" exclaimed Peg.
"Did they turn yez out?"
"We've been over to Baywater, and we got lost in the storm coming
back," explained Dan. "We didn't know where we were till we saw
your light. I guess we'll have to stay here till the storm is
over--if you don't mind."
"And if it won't inconvenience you," said Cecily timidly.
"Oh, it's no inconvenience to speak of. Come in. Well, yez HAVE
got some snow on yez. Let me get a broom. You boys stomp your
feet well and shake your coats. You girls give me your things and
I'll hang them up. Guess yez are most froze. Well, sit up to the
stove and git het up."
Peg bustled away to gather up a dubiousassortment of chairs, with
backs and rungs missing, and in a few minutes we were in a circle
around her roaring stove, getting dried and thawed out. In our
wildest flights of fancy we had never pictured ourselves as guests
at the witch's hearth-stone. Yet here we were; and the witch
herself was actually brewing a jorum of ginger tea for Cecily, who
continued to shiver long after the rest of us were roasted to the
marrow. Poor Sis drank that scalding draught, being in too great
awe of Peg to do aught else.
"That'll soon fix your shivers," said our hostess kindly. "And
now I'll get yez all some tea."
"Oh, please don't trouble," said the Story Girl hastily.
"'Tain't any trouble," said Peg briskly; then, with one of the
sudden changes to fierceness" target="_blank" title="n.凶恶，残忍">fierceness which made her such a terrifying
personage, "Do yez think my vittels ain't clean?"
"Oh, no, no," cried Felicity quickly, before the Story Girl could
speak, "none of us would ever think THAT. Sara only meant she
didn't want you to go to any bother on our account."
"It ain't any bother," said Peg, mollified. "I'm spry as a
cricket this winter, though I have the realagy sometimes. Many a
good bite I've had in your ma's kitchen. I owe yez a meal."
No more protests were made. We sat in awed silence, gazing with
timid curiosity about the room, the stained, plastered walls of
which were well-nigh covered with a motley assortment of pictures,
chromos, and advertisements, pasted on without much regard for
order or character.
We had heard much of Peg's pets and now we saw them. Six cats
occupied various cosy corners; one of them, the black goblin which
had so terrified us in the summer, blinked satirically at us from
the centre of Peg's bed. Another, a dilapidated, striped beastie,
with both ears and one eye gone, glared at us from the sofa in the
corner. A dog, with only three legs, lay behind the stove; a crow
sat on a roost above our heads, in company with a matronly old
hen; and on the clock shelf were a stuffed monkey and a grinning
skull. We had heard that a sailor had given Peg the monkey. But
where had she got the skull? And whose was it? I could not help
puzzling over these gruesome questions.
Presently tea was ready and we gathered around the festal board--a
board literally as well as figuratively, for Peg's table was the
work of her own unskilled hands. The less said about the viands
of that meal, and the dishes they were served in, the better. But
we ate them--bless you, yes!--as we would have eaten any witch's
banquet set before us. Peg might or might not be a witch--common
sense said not; but we knew she was quite capable of turning every
one of us out of doors in one of her sudden fierce fits if we
offended her; and we had no mind to trust ourselves again to that
wild forest where we had fought a losing fight with the demon
forces of night and storm.
But it was not an agreeable meal in more ways than one. Peg was
not at all careful of anybody's feelings. She hurt Felix's
cruelly as she passed him his cup of tea.
"You've gone too much to flesh, boy. So the magic seed didn't
work, hey?"
How in the world had Peg found out about that magic seed? Felix
looked uncommonly foolish.
"If you'd come to me in the first place I'd soon have told you how
to get thin," said Peg, nodding wisely.
"Won't you tell me now?" asked Felix eagerly, his desire to melt
his too solid flesh overcoming his dread and shame.
"No, I don't like being second fiddle," answered Peg with a crafty
smile. "Sara, you're too scrawny and pale--not much like your ma.
I knew her well. She was counted a beauty, but she made no great
things of a match. Your father had some money but he was a tramp
like meself. Where is he now?"
"In Rome," said the Story Girl rather shortly.
"People thought your ma was crazy when she took him. But she'd a
right to please herself. Folks is too ready to call other folks
crazy. There's people who say I'M not in my right mind. Did yez
ever"--Peg fixed Felicity with a piercing glance--"hear anything
so ridiculous?"
"Never," said Felicity, white to the lips.
"I wish everybody was as sane as I am," said Peg scornfully. Then
she looked poor Felicity over critically. "You're good-looking
but proud. And your complexion won't wear. It'll be like your
ma's yet--too much red in it."
"Well, that's better than being the colour of mud," muttered
Peter, who wasn't going to hear his lady traduced, even by a
witch. All the thanks he got was a furious look from Felicity,
but Peg had not heard him and now she turned her attention to
Cecily.
"You look delicate. I daresay you'll never live to grow up."
Cecily's lip trembled and Dan's face turned crimson.
"Shut up," he said to Peg. "You've no business to say such things
to people."
I think my jaw dropped. I know Peter's and Felix's did. Felicity
broke in wildly.
"Oh, don't mind him, Miss Bowen. He's got SUCH a temper--that's
just the way he talks to us all at home. PLEASE excuse him."
"Bless you, I don't mind him," said Peg, from whom the unexpected
seemed to be the thing to expect. "I like a lad of spurrit. And
so your father run away, did he, Peter? He used to be a beau of
mine--he seen me home three times from singing school when we was
young. Some folks said he did it for a dare. There's such a lot
of jealousy in the world, ain't there? Do you know where he is
now?"
"No," said Peter.
"Well, he's coming home before long," said Peg mysteriously.
"Who told you that?" cried Peter in amazement.
"Better not ask," responded Peg, looking up at the skull.
If she meant to make the flesh creep on our bones she succeeded.
But now, much to our relief, the meal was over and Peg invited us
to draw our chairs up to the stove again.
"Make yourselves at home," she said, producing her pipe from her
pocket. "I ain't one of the kind who thinks their houses too good
to live in. Guess I won't bother washing the dishes. They'll do
yez for breakfast if yez don't forget your places. I s'pose none
of yez smokes."
"No," said Felicity, rather primly.
"Then yez don't know what's good for yez," retorted Peg, rather
grumpily. But a few whiffs of her pipe placated her and,
observing Cecily sigh, she asked her kindly what was the matter.
"I'm thinking how worried they'll be at home about us," explained
Cecily.
"Bless you, dearie, don't be worrying over that. I'll send them
word that yez are all snug and safe here."
"But how can you?" cried amazed Cecily.
"Better not ask," said Peg again, with another glance at the
skull.
An uncomfortable silence followed, finally broken by Peg, who
introduced her pets to us and told how she had come by them. The
black cat was her favourite.
"That cat knows more than I do, if yez'll believe it," she said
proudly. "I've got a rat too, but he's a bit shy when strangers
is round. Your cat got all right again that time, didn't he?"
"Yes," said the Story Girl.
"Thought he would," said Peg, nodding sagely. "I seen to that.
Now, don't yez all be staring at the hole in my dress."
"We weren't," was our chorus of protest.
"Looked as if yez were. I tore that yesterday but I didn't mend
it. I was brought up to believe that a hole was an accident but a
patch was a disgrace. And so your Aunt Olivia is going to be
married after all?"
This was news to us. We felt and looked dazed.
"I never heard anything of it," said the Story Girl.
"Oh, it's true enough. She's a great fool. I've no faith in
husbands. But one good thing is she ain't going to marry that
Henry Jacobs of Markdale. He wants her bad enough. Just like his
presumption,--thinking himself good enough for a King. His father
is the worst man alive. He chased me off his place with his dog
once. But I'll get even with him yet."
Peg looked very savage, and visions of burned barns floated
through our minds.
"He'll be punished in hell, you know," said Peter timidly.
"But I won't be there to see that," rejoined Peg. "Some folks say
I'll go there because I don't go to church oftener. But I don't
believe it."
"Why don't you go?" asked Peter, with a temerity that bordered on
rashness.
"Well, I've got so sunburned I'm afraid folks might take me for an
Injun," explained Peg, quite seriously. "Besides, your minister
makes such awful long prayers. Why does he do it?"
"I suppose he finds it easier to talk to God than to people,"
suggested Peter reflectively.
"Well, anyway, I belong to the round church," said Peg
comfortably, "and so the devil can't catch ME at the corners. I
haven't been to Carlisle church for over three years. I thought
I'd a-died laughing the last time I was there. Old Elder Marr
took up the collection that day. He'd on a pair of new boots and
they squeaked all the way up and down the aisles. And every time
the boots squeaked the elder made a face, like he had toothache.
It was awful funny. How's your missionary quilt coming on,
Cecily?"
Was there anything Peg didn't know?
"Very well," said Cecily.
"You can put my name on it, if you want to."
"Oh, thank you. Which section--the five-cent one or the ten-cent
one?" asked Cecily timidly.
"The ten-cent one, of course. The best is none too good for me.
I'll give you the ten cents another time. I'm short of change
just now--not being as rich as Queen Victory. There's her picture
up there--the one with the blue sash and diamint crown and the
lace curting on her head. Can any of yez tell me this--is Queen
Victory a married woman?"
"Oh, yes, but her husband is dead," answered the Story Girl.
"Well, I s'pose they couldn't have called her an old maid, seeing
she was a queen, even if she'd never got married. Sometimes I sez
to myself, 'Peg, would you like to be Queen Victory?' But I never
know what to answer. In summer, when I can roam anywhere in the
woods and the sunshine--I wouldn't be Queen Victory for anything.
But when it's winter and cold and I can't git nowheres--I feel as
if I wouldn't mind changing places with her."
Peg put her pipe back in her mouth and began to smoke fiercely.
The candle wick burned long, and was topped by a little cap of
fiery red that seemed to wink at us like an impish gnome. The
most grotesque shadow of Peg flickered over the wall behind her.
stove was colouring the gloom with tremulous, rose-red whorls of
light, and warm and cosy indeed seemed Peg's retreat to us snow-
covered, frost-chilled, benighted wanderers.
"Gracious goodness, where did yez all come from?" exclaimed Peg.
"Did they turn yez out?"
"We've been over to Baywater, and we got lost in the storm coming
back," explained Dan. "We didn't know where we were till we saw
your light. I guess we'll have to stay here till the storm is
over--if you don't mind."
"And if it won't inconvenience you," said Cecily timidly.
"Oh, it's no inconvenience to speak of. Come in. Well, yez HAVE
got some snow on yez. Let me get a broom. You boys stomp your
feet well and shake your coats. You girls give me your things and
I'll hang them up. Guess yez are most froze. Well, sit up to the
stove and git het up."
Peg bustled away to gather up a dubiousassortment of chairs, with
backs and rungs missing, and in a few minutes we were in a circle
around her roaring stove, getting dried and thawed out. In our
wildest flights of fancy we had never pictured ourselves as guests
at the witch's hearth-stone. Yet here we were; and the witch
herself was actually brewing a jorum of ginger tea for Cecily, who
continued to shiver long after the rest of us were roasted to the
marrow. Poor Sis drank that scalding draught, being in too great
awe of Peg to do aught else.
"That'll soon fix your shivers," said our hostess kindly. "And
now I'll get yez all some tea."
"Oh, please don't trouble," said the Story Girl hastily.
"'Tain't any trouble," said Peg briskly; then, with one of the
sudden changes to fierceness" target="_blank" title="n.凶恶，残忍">fierceness which made her such a terrifying
personage, "Do yez think my vittels ain't clean?"
"Oh, no, no," cried Felicity quickly, before the Story Girl could
speak, "none of us would ever think THAT. Sara only meant she
didn't want you to go to any bother on our account."
"It ain't any bother," said Peg, mollified. "I'm spry as a
cricket this winter, though I have the realagy sometimes. Many a
good bite I've had in your ma's kitchen. I owe yez a meal."
No more protests were made. We sat in awed silence, gazing with
timid curiosity about the room, the stained, plastered walls of
which were well-nigh covered with a motley assortment of pictures,
chromos, and advertisements, pasted on without much regard for
order or character.
We had heard much of Peg's pets and now we saw them. Six cats
occupied various cosy corners; one of them, the black goblin which
had so terrified us in the summer, blinked satirically at us from
the centre of Peg's bed. Another, a dilapidated, striped beastie,
with both ears and one eye gone, glared at us from the sofa in the
corner. A dog, with only three legs, lay behind the stove; a crow
sat on a roost above our heads, in company with a matronly old
hen; and on the clock shelf were a stuffed monkey and a grinning
skull. We had heard that a sailor had given Peg the monkey. But
where had she got the skull? And whose was it? I could not help
puzzling over these gruesome questions.
Presently tea was ready and we gathered around the festal board--a
board literally as well as figuratively, for Peg's table was the
work of her own unskilled hands. The less said about the viands
of that meal, and the dishes they were served in, the better. But
we ate them--bless you, yes!--as we would have eaten any witch's
banquet set before us. Peg might or might not be a witch--common
sense said not; but we knew she was quite capable of turning every
one of us out of doors in one of her sudden fierce fits if we
offended her; and we had no mind to trust ourselves again to that
wild forest where we had fought a losing fight with the demon
forces of night and storm.
But it was not an agreeable meal in more ways than one. Peg was
not at all careful of anybody's feelings. She hurt Felix's
cruelly as she passed him his cup of tea.
"You've gone too much to flesh, boy. So the magic seed didn't
work, hey?"
How in the world had Peg found out about that magic seed? Felix
looked uncommonly foolish.
"If you'd come to me in the first place I'd soon have told you how
to get thin," said Peg, nodding wisely.
"Won't you tell me now?" asked Felix eagerly, his desire to melt
his too solid flesh overcoming his dread and shame.
"No, I don't like being second fiddle," answered Peg with a crafty
smile. "Sara, you're too scrawny and pale--not much like your ma.
I knew her well. She was counted a beauty, but she made no great
things of a match. Your father had some money but he was a tramp
like meself. Where is he now?"
"In Rome," said the Story Girl rather shortly.
"People thought your ma was crazy when she took him. But she'd a
right to please herself. Folks is too ready to call other folks
crazy. There's people who say I'M not in my right mind. Did yez
ever"--Peg fixed Felicity with a piercing glance--"hear anything
so ridiculous?"
"Never," said Felicity, white to the lips.
"I wish everybody was as sane as I am," said Peg scornfully. Then
she looked poor Felicity over critically. "You're good-looking
but proud. And your complexion won't wear. It'll be like your
ma's yet--too much red in it."
"Well, that's better than being the colour of mud," muttered
Peter, who wasn't going to hear his lady traduced, even by a
witch. All the thanks he got was a furious look from Felicity,
but Peg had not heard him and now she turned her attention to
Cecily.
"You look delicate. I daresay you'll never live to grow up."
Cecily's lip trembled and Dan's face turned crimson.
"Shut up," he said to Peg. "You've no business to say such things
to people."
I think my jaw dropped. I know Peter's and Felix's did. Felicity
broke in wildly.
"Oh, don't mind him, Miss Bowen. He's got SUCH a temper--that's
just the way he talks to us all at home. PLEASE excuse him."
"Bless you, I don't mind him," said Peg, from whom the unexpected
seemed to be the thing to expect. "I like a lad of spurrit. And
so your father run away, did he, Peter? He used to be a beau of
mine--he seen me home three times from singing school when we was
young. Some folks said he did it for a dare. There's such a lot
of jealousy in the world, ain't there? Do you know where he is
now?"
"No," said Peter.
"Well, he's coming home before long," said Peg mysteriously.
"Who told you that?" cried Peter in amazement.
"Better not ask," responded Peg, looking up at the skull.
If she meant to make the flesh creep on our bones she succeeded.
But now, much to our relief, the meal was over and Peg invited us
to draw our chairs up to the stove again.
"Make yourselves at home," she said, producing her pipe from her
pocket. "I ain't one of the kind who thinks their houses too good
to live in. Guess I won't bother washing the dishes. They'll do
yez for breakfast if yez don't forget your places. I s'pose none
of yez smokes."
"No," said Felicity, rather primly.
"Then yez don't know what's good for yez," retorted Peg, rather
grumpily. But a few whiffs of her pipe placated her and,
observing Cecily sigh, she asked her kindly what was the matter.
"I'm thinking how worried they'll be at home about us," explained
Cecily.
"Bless you, dearie, don't be worrying over that. I'll send them
word that yez are all snug and safe here."
"But how can you?" cried amazed Cecily.
"Better not ask," said Peg again, with another glance at the
skull.
An uncomfortable silence followed, finally broken by Peg, who
introduced her pets to us and told how she had come by them. The
black cat was her favourite.
"That cat knows more than I do, if yez'll believe it," she said
proudly. "I've got a rat too, but he's a bit shy when strangers
is round. Your cat got all right again that time, didn't he?"
"Yes," said the Story Girl.
"Thought he would," said Peg, nodding sagely. "I seen to that.
Now, don't yez all be staring at the hole in my dress."
"We weren't," was our chorus of protest.
"Looked as if yez were. I tore that yesterday but I didn't mend
it. I was brought up to believe that a hole was an accident but a
patch was a disgrace. And so your Aunt Olivia is going to be
married after all?"
This was news to us. We felt and looked dazed.
"I never heard anything of it," said the Story Girl.
"Oh, it's true enough. She's a great fool. I've no faith in
husbands. But one good thing is she ain't going to marry that
Henry Jacobs of Markdale. He wants her bad enough. Just like his
presumption,--thinking himself good enough for a King. His father
is the worst man alive. He chased me off his place with his dog
once. But I'll get even with him yet."
Peg looked very savage, and visions of burned barns floated
through our minds.
"He'll be punished in hell, you know," said Peter timidly.
"But I won't be there to see that," rejoined Peg. "Some folks say
I'll go there because I don't go to church oftener. But I don't
believe it."
"Why don't you go?" asked Peter, with a temerity that bordered on
rashness.
"Well, I've got so sunburned I'm afraid folks might take me for an
Injun," explained Peg, quite seriously. "Besides, your minister
makes such awful long prayers. Why does he do it?"
"I suppose he finds it easier to talk to God than to people,"
suggested Peter reflectively.
"Well, anyway, I belong to the round church," said Peg
comfortably, "and so the devil can't catch ME at the corners. I
haven't been to Carlisle church for over three years. I thought
I'd a-died laughing the last time I was there. Old Elder Marr
took up the collection that day. He'd on a pair of new boots and
they squeaked all the way up and down the aisles. And every time
the boots squeaked the elder made a face, like he had toothache.
It was awful funny. How's your missionary quilt coming on,
Cecily?"
Was there anything Peg didn't know?
"Very well," said Cecily.
"You can put my name on it, if you want to."
"Oh, thank you. Which section--the five-cent one or the ten-cent
one?" asked Cecily timidly.
"The ten-cent one, of course. The best is none too good for me.
I'll give you the ten cents another time. I'm short of change
just now--not being as rich as Queen Victory. There's her picture
up there--the one with the blue sash and diamint crown and the
lace curting on her head. Can any of yez tell me this--is Queen
Victory a married woman?"
"Oh, yes, but her husband is dead," answered the Story Girl.
"Well, I s'pose they couldn't have called her an old maid, seeing
she was a queen, even if she'd never got married. Sometimes I sez
to myself, 'Peg, would you like to be Queen Victory?' But I never
know what to answer. In summer, when I can roam anywhere in the
woods and the sunshine--I wouldn't be Queen Victory for anything.
But when it's winter and cold and I can't git nowheres--I feel as
if I wouldn't mind changing places with her."
Peg put her pipe back in her mouth and began to smoke fiercely.
The candle wick burned long, and was topped by a little cap of
fiery red that seemed to wink at us like an impish gnome. The
most grotesque shadow of Peg flickered over the wall behind her.
- retreat [ri´tri:t]
v.&n.退却；撤退；放弃 (初中英语单词) - goodness [´gudnis] n.优良；美德；精华 (初中英语单词)
- missing [´misiŋ] a.缺掉的；失踪的 (初中英语单词)
- actually [´æktʃuəli] ad.事实上；实际上 (初中英语单词)
- shiver [´ʃivə] v.&n.(使)颤抖；碎片 (初中英语单词)
- bother [´bɔðə] v.打扰 n.麻烦(事) (初中英语单词)
- curiosity [,kjuəri´ɔsiti] n.好奇；奇事；珍品 (初中英语单词)
- monkey [´mʌŋki] n.猴子 v.乱弄；胡闹 (初中英语单词)
- capable [´keipəbəl] a.有能力；能干的 (初中英语单词)
- fierce [fiəs] a.残忍的；强烈的 (初中英语单词)
- agreeable [ə´gri:əbəl] a.适合的；符合的 (初中英语单词)
- eagerly [´i:gəli] ad.渴望地，急切地 (初中英语单词)
- furious [´fjuəriəs] a.狂怒的；猛烈的 (初中英语单词)
- delicate [´delikət] a.精美的；微妙的 (初中英语单词)
- relief [ri´li:f] n.救济；援救；减轻 (初中英语单词)
- chorus [´kɔ:rəs] n.合唱；齐声 v.合唱 (初中英语单词)
- yesterday [´jestədi] n.&ad.昨天；前不久 (初中英语单词)
- disgrace [dis´greis] n.耻辱 vt.玷辱；贬黜 (初中英语单词)
- savage [´sævidʒ] a.野蛮的 n.蛮人 (初中英语单词)
- seriously [´siəriəsli] ad.严肃；严重，重大 (初中英语单词)
- collection [kə´lekʃən] n.收集；征收；募捐 (初中英语单词)
- victory [´viktəri] n.胜利，战胜 (初中英语单词)
- anywhere [´eniweə] ad.无论何处；任何地方 (初中英语单词)
- ginger [´dʒindʒə] n.姜；精神，元气 (高中英语单词)
- draught [drɑ:ft] n.通风，通气；吸出 (高中英语单词)
- hostess [´həustis] n.女主人；旅馆女老板 (高中英语单词)
- goblin [´gɔblin] n.恶鬼，小妖精 (高中英语单词)
- literally [´litərəli] ad.逐字地；实际上 (高中英语单词)
- complexion [kəm´plekʃən] n.肤色；情况；局面 (高中英语单词)
- jealousy [´dʒeləsi] n.妒忌；猜忌 (高中英语单词)
- uncomfortable [ʌn´kʌmftəbəl] a.不舒服的，不自在的 (高中英语单词)
- missionary [´miʃənəri] a.传教(士)的 n.传教士 (高中英语单词)
- inconvenience [,inkən´vi:niəns] n.不方便；打扰 (英语四级单词)
- briskly [´briskli] ad.轻快地；活泼地 (英语四级单词)
- striped [´straipt] a.有条纹的 (英语四级单词)
- grotesque [grəu´tesk] a.奇异的，想象中的 (英语四级单词)
- colouring [´kʌləriŋ] n.色彩；外貌；伪装 (英语六级单词)
- tremulous [´tremjuləs] a.发抖的；震颤的 (英语六级单词)
- dubious [´dju:biəs] a.怀疑的；可疑的 (英语六级单词)
- assortment [ə´sɔ:tmənt] n.分类；各物品的配合 (英语六级单词)
- fierceness [´fiəsnis] n.凶恶，残忍 (英语六级单词)
- felicity [fi´lisiti] n.幸福；(措词)适当 (英语六级单词)
- piercing [´piəsiŋ] a.刺(贯)穿的；尖刻的 (英语六级单词)
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