The Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe: or, There's No Place Like Home

The Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe: or, There's No Place Like Home
Amanda Douglas

Amanda Minnie Douglas

The Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe; Or, There's No Place Like Home

CHAPTER I

JOE'S GRAND DISCOVERY

Hal sat trotting Dot on his knee, – poor little weazen-faced Dot, who was just getting over the dregs of the measles, and cross accordingly. By way of accompaniment he sang all the Mother Goose melodies that he could remember. At last he came to, —

"There was an old woman who lived in a shoe:
She had so many children she didn't know what to do;
To some she gave broth without any bread," —

and Harry stopped to catch his breath, for the trotting was of the vigorous order.

"And a thrashing all round, and sent them to bed!"

finished Joe, thrusting his shaggy head in at the window after the fashion of a great Newfoundland dog.

Dot answered with a piteous cry, – a sort of prolonged wail, heart-rending indeed.

"Serve you right," said Joe, going through an imaginary performance with remarkably forcible gestures.

"For shame, Joe! You were little once yourself, and I dare say cried when you were sick. I always thought it very cruel, that, after being deprived of their supper, they should be" —

"Thrashed! Give us good strong Saxon for once, Flossy!"

Flossy was of the ambitious, correct, and sentimental order. She had lovely light curls, and soft white hands when she did not have to work too hard, which she never did of her own free will. She thought it dreadful to be so poor, and aspired to a rather aristocratic ladyhood.

"I am sorry you were not among them," she replied indignantly. "You're a hard-hearted, cruel boy!"

"When the thrashings went round? You're a c-r-u-e-l girl!" with a prodigious length of accent. "Why, I get plenty of 'em at school."

"'Trot, trot, trot. There was an old woman' – what are you laughing at, Joe?" and Hal turned red in the face.

"I've just made a brilliant discovery. O my poor buttons! remember Flossy's hard labor and many troubles, and do not bust! Why, we're the very children!"

At this, Joe gave a sudden lurch: you saw his head, and then you saw his heels, and the patch on the knee of his trousers, ripped partly off by an unlucky nail, flapped in the breeze; and he was seated on the window-sill right side up with care, drumming both bare heels into the broken wall. He gave a prolonged whistle of satisfaction, made big eyes at Dot, and then said again, —

"Yes, we are the very children!"

"What children? Joe, you are the noisiest boy in Christendom!"

"Flossy, the old woman who lived in a shoe is Granny, and no mistake! I can prove it logically. Look at this old tumble-down rookery: it is just the shape of a huge shoe, sloping gradually to the toe, which is the shed-end here. It's brown and rusty and cracked and patched: it wants heeling and toeing, and to be half-soled, greased to keep the water out, and blacked to make it shine. It was a famous seven-leaguer in its day; but, when it had lost its virtue, the giant who used to wear it kicked it off by the roadside, little dreaming that it would be transformed into a cabin for the aforesaid old woman. And here we all are sure enough! Sometimes we get broth, and sometimes we don't."

Dot looked up in amazement at this harangue, and thrust her thumbs in her mouth. Hal laughed out-right, – a soft little sound like the rippling of falling water.

"Yes, a grand discovery! Ladies and gentlemen of the nineteenth century, I rise to get up, to speak what I am about to say; and I hope you will treasure the words of priceless wisdom that fall from my lips. I'm not backward about coming forward" —

Joe was balancing himself very nicely, and making tremendous flourishes, when two brown, dimpled hands scrubbed up the shock of curly hair, and the sudden onslaught destroyed his equilibrium, as Flossy would have said, and down he went on the floor in crab fashion, looking as if he were all arms and legs.

"Charlie, you midget! just wait till I catch you. I haven't the broth, but the other thing will do as well."

But Charlie was on the outside; and her little brown, bare feet were as fleet as a deer's. Joe saw her skimming over the meadow; but the afternoon was very warm, and a dozen yards satisfied him for a race, so he turned about.

"Joe, you might take Dot a little while, I think," said Hal beseechingly, as Joe braced himself against the door-post. "I've held her all the afternoon."

"She won't come – will you, Dot?"

But Dot signified her gratification by stretching out her hands. Joe was a good-natured fellow; and, though he might have refused Hal easily, he couldn't resist Dot's tender appeal, so he took her on his shoulder and began trotting off to Danbury Cross. Dot laughed out of her sleepy eyes, highly delighted at this change in the programme.

"Oh, dear!" and Hal rubbed his tired arms. "I shouldn't think grandmother would know what to do, sure enough! What a host of us there are, – six children!"

"I'm sure I do my best," said Flossy with a pathetic little sniff. "But it's very hard to be an orphan and poor."

"And when there are six of us, and we are all orphans, and all poor, it must be six times as hard," put in Joe with a sly twinkle.

Then he changed Dot from her triumphal position on his shoulder to a kind of cradle in his arms. Her eyelids drooped, and she began to croon a very sleepy tune.

Hal looked out of the window, over to the woods, where the westward sun was making a wonderful land of gold and crimson. Sometimes he had beautiful dreams of that softened splendor, but now they were mercenary. If one could only coin it all into money! There was poor grandmother slaving away, over at Mrs. Kinsey's, – she should come home, and be a princess, to say the very least.

"I guess I'll clear up a bit!" said Hal, coming down from the clouds, and glancing round at the disorderly room. "Granny will be most tired to death when her day's work is done. Flossy, if you wouldn't mind going in the other room."

Flossy gathered up her skirts and her crocheting, and did not take the invitation at all amiss.

Then Hal found the stubby broom, and swept the floor; dusted the mantle, after removing an armful of "trash;" went at the wooden chairs, that had once been painted a gorgeous yellow with green bars; and cleared a motley accumulation of every thing off of the table, hanging up two or three articles, and tucking the rest into a catch-all closet. A quaint old pitcher, that had lost both spout and handle, was emptied of some faded flowers, and a fresh lot cut, – nothing very choice; but the honeysuckle scented the room, and the coxcombs gave their crimson glow to the top of the pyramid.

"Why, Mrs. Betty," said Joe, "you've made quite a palace out of your end of the shoe, and this miserable little Dot has gone to sleep at last. Shall I put her in the cradle, or drop her down the well?"

Hal smiled a little, and opened the door. It was the best room, quite large, uncarpeted, but clean; and though the bed was covered with a homemade spread, it was as white as it could be. The cradle was not quite as snowy; for the soiled hands that tumbled Dot in and out left some traces.

To get her safely down was a masterpiece of strategy. Joe bumped her head; and Hal took her in his arms, hushing her in a low, motherly fashion, and pressing his brown cheek to hers, which looked the color of milk that had been skimmed, and then split in two, and skimmed again. She made a dive in Hal's hair with her little bird's claw of a hand, but presently dropped asleep again.

"I guess she'll take a good long nap," whispered Hal, quite relieved.

"I'm sure she ought," sighed Florence.

Hal went back to his housekeeping. He was as handy as a girl, any day. He pulled some radishes, and put them in a bowl of cold water, and chopped some lettuce and onions together, the children were all so fond of it. Then he gleaned the raspberries, and filled the saucer with currants that were not salable.

Joe, in the meanwhile, had gone after Mrs. Green's cows. She gave them a quart of milk daily for driving the cows to and from the pasture, and doing odd chores.

"If you see the children, send them home," had been Hal's parting injunction. "Grandmother will soon be here."

She came before Joe returned. The oddest looking little old woman that you ever saw. Florence, at fourteen, was half a head taller. Thin and wrinkled and sunburned; her flaxen hair turning to silver, and yet obstinately full of little curls; her blue eyes pale and washed out, and hosts of "crows'-feet" at the corners; and her voice cracked and tremulous.

Poor Grandmother Kenneth! She had worked hard enough in her day, and was still forced to keep it up, now that it was growing twilight with her. But I don't believe there was another as merry a houseful of children in all Madison.