“Oh, I never washed myself yet,” said Ralph.
“Well, you’ll have to begin some time. I’ll sit and stare out of the window, and you can pop into your tub, and have a good splash; I don’t care a bit if you wet the floor; manly boys can’t be always thinking of those sort of things. Now, then, up you get, and I’ll stare out of the window.”
Harriet suited the action to the word. Ralph saw a long, narrow back and very thin light hair only partly concealing it. He observed that the lanky little figure sat very still. He felt impressed, much more impressed than he had been when kind Frederica and unselfish Patience, and even pretty, pretty Rose Amberley had been his school-mothers. They had been commonplace – quite nice, of course, but nothing special. The lanky person was not commonplace.
He hopped up with a little shout, washed and dressed himself after a fashion, and then went up to Harriet.
“Well, pal,” she said, just glancing at him, “are you ready?”
“Quite,” said Ralph. “I like you to call me your pal. You’re a very big girl compared to me, aren’t you?”
“You’re not a girl at all,” said Harriet; “you’re a very manly boy, and you’re awfully pretty; don’t you know that you are very pretty?”
“No,” said Ralph, turning scarlet, “and boys ought not to be pretty; I hate that.”
“Well, then, you’re handsome. I’ll show you your face in the glass presently. But come down now. I am allowed to do just what I like with you to-day, and we’re going to have such a good time!”
The beginning of the good time consisted in having a real picnic breakfast out of doors. Ralph and Harriet collected twigs and boiled the kettle in one corner of the paddock. It didn’t matter to Harriet that the paddock was rather damp and cold at this hour, and it certainly did not matter to Ralph, who was wildly excited, and quite forgot everything else in the world while he was trying to light the dry wood. Really, Harriet was nice; she did not even mind his having matches.
“They never allowed me to have matches before I came here.”
“You can put them in your pocket, if you like,” said Harriet. “Manly boys like you should not be kept under. You wouldn’t burn yourself on purpose, would you?”
“Of course not.”
“Have you a knife of your own?”
“No; Father says I’m rather young.”
“But you’re not; I’ll give you a knife if you like. I have an old rusty one upstairs with a broken blade. You shall have it.”
“Thanks aw-filly!” said Ralph. “But, perhaps,” he added, after a minute’s pause. “I had best not have it, for Father would not like me to.”
“Oh, please yourself,” said Harriet. “Have you had enough breakfast?”
“Yes, thank you awfully, and it was so good. I suppose,” added Ralph, a little timidly, “we’d best begin my lessons now. I hate reading to myself, but I suppose I must learn.”
“You needn’t learn from me,” said Harriet. “I’m not going to give you any lessons.”
“Oh – but – oughtn’t you to?”
“Whether I ought to or not, I don’t mean to,” said Harriet. “Now, look here, what shall we do with ourselves?”
“I don’t know,” said Ralph, who was so excited and interested that he leaned up against Harriet, who would have given worlds to push him away, but did not dare.
“You’re very nice, really, truly,” he said, and he touched her lank hair with his little brown hand.
“Yes, am I not nice?” said Harriet, smiling at him. “Now, if you were to choose me for your school-mother, you would have a jolly time.”
“Am I to choose who I like?” said Ralph.
“Of course, you are. We are all trying our hands on you; but you are to make your own choice. Didn’t the other girls tell you?”
“No.”
“Do you like being with the others?”
“They were very kind,” said Ralph.
“Did you have a picnic breakfast with them?”
“Oh, no.”
“If I were your school-mother,” said Harriet, after a pause, “we would have one every day, and – and – no lessons; and you might play with matches, and you might have a pop-gun, and there’s something else we would do.”
“Oh, what is it?”
“We’d go and see the gipsies.”
“But I am frightened of gipsies,” said Ralph. As he spoke he pressed a little nearer to Harriet. “Are there gipsies about?”
“There are some gipsies living two fields off – you look almost like a gipsy boy yourself, you are so dark. There are a lot of little brown babies rolling about on the grass, and big brown men, and big brown women, and there are dogs, and a donkey, and an old horse; but the most wonderful thing of all is the house on wheels.”
“The house on wheels?” said Ralph.
“Yes, the old horse draws it, and the gipsies live inside; oh, it is wonderful!”
“Aren’t gipsies very wicked people?”
“Wicked?” said Harriet. “They’re the most lovely people in all the world. I can’t take you to see them to-day, but if I were your school-mother, we would manage to slip off and have a good time with them. They love little brown boys like you, and you would love them. Oh, you don’t know what a gipsy is! Frightened of them, are you? Well, I’ll tell you a story of what they did for me when I ran away once and stayed with them for a whole night. I never had such a good time in all my life.”
Harriet made up a story out of her head. It is true she had once been for a very frightened half-hour with some gipsies on the common nearest to her father’s house; but that time now was changed into something quite fairy-like.
Ralph listened with his eyes shining, his lips apart, and his breath coming fast.
“Oh, I didn’t know they were like that,” he said. “Let us go now, now; don’t put it off, please; let’s come this very instant-minute.”
“No,” said Harriet firmly. “I could not possibly take you to-day. But I will manage it if you choose me for your school-mother. Of course, you won’t choose me. I know who you’ll choose.”
“Who?” asked Ralph.
“That Robina girl.”
“Who?” asked Ralph.
“Oh, that creature who came for you and Curly Pate when you were sent for, to say good-bye to your father.”
“Is she Robina?” asked Ralph. “Oh, I like her so much!”
“That is because you don’t know her. Shall I tell you some things about her?”
“Would it be right?” asked Ralph.
“You needn’t listen if you don’t like,” replied Harriet. “You can go to the other side of the paddock. I am going to say them aloud, whether you listen or not.”
Harriet instantly crossed her hands on her lap, and began saying in a chanting tone: —
“Robina was so naughty at home, and made such a dreadful noise in the room with her poor sick mother that she had to be sent away. She was sent here to this school, and since she came all the rest of us are dreadfully unhappy, for, although she looks kind, she is not a bit kind; she is the sort of girl who doesn’t obey. She was sent away from home because she was so disobedient – ”
“Oh, don’t!”