A Pair of Clogs, Amy Walton [the little red hen read aloud .TXT] 📗

STORY ONE, CHAPTER 1.

HER FIRST HOME.

"My! What a pretty pair of clogs baby's gotten!"

The street was narrow and very steep, and paved with round stones; on each side of it were slate-coloured houses, some high, some low; and in the middle of it stood baby, her curly yellow head bare, and her blue cotton frock lifted high with both fat hands. She could not speak, but she wanted to show that on her feet were tiny new clogs with bright brass tips.

She stopped in front of all her acquaintances, men, women, children, and even dogs. Each of them, except the last, made much the same remark, and she then toddled cheerfully on, until nearly everyone in the village of Haworth knew of this wonderful new thing.

The baby's mother lived in Haworth, but all day long she had to work in the town of Keighley down below in the valley, for she was a factory-girl. From the hillside you could see the thick veil of smoke, never lifted, which hung over the tall chimneys and grey houses; the people there very seldom saw the sky clear and blue, but up at Haworth the wind blew freshly off the wide moor just above, and there was nothing to keep away the sunshine. This was the reason that Maggie Menzies still lived there, after she had taken to working in the factory; it was a long walk to and from Keighley, but it was healthier for the "li'le lass" to sleep in the fresh air. Everything in Maggie's life turned upon that one small object; the "li'le lass" was her one treasure, her one golden bit of happiness, the reason why she cared to see the sun shine, or to eat, or drink, or rest, or to be alive at all. Except for the child she was alone in the world, for her husband had been killed in an accident two years ago, when the baby was only a month old. Since then she had been Maggie's one thought and care; no one who has not at some time in their lives spent all their affection on a single thing or person can at all understand what she felt, or how strong her love was. It made all her troubles and hardships easy merely to think of the child; just to call to mind the dimples, and yellow hair, and fat hands, was enough to make her deaf to the whirr and rattle of the restless machinery, and the harsh tones of the overseer. When she began her work in the morning she said to herself, "I shall see her in the evening;" and when it was unusually tiresome during the day, and things went very wrong, she could be patient and even cheerful when she remembered "it's fur _her_." The factory-girls with boisterous good-nature had tried to make her sociable when she first came; they invited her to stroll with them by the river in the summer evenings, to stand and gossip with them at the street corners, to join in their parties of pleasure on Sundays. But they soon found it was of no use; Maggie's one idea, when work was over, was to throw her little checked shawl over her head, and turn her steps quickly towards a certain house in a narrow alley near the factory, for there, under the care of a neighbour, she left her child during the day.

It would have been much better, everyone told her, to leave her up at Haworth instead of bringing her into the smoky town; Maggie knew it, but her answer was always the same to this advice:

"I couldn't bring myself to it," she said. "I niver could git through the work if I didn't know she was near me."

So winter and summer, through the damp cold or the burning heat, she might be seen coming quickly down the steep hill from Haworth every morning clack, clack, in her wooden shoes, with her child in her arms. In the evening her pace was slower, for she was tired, and the road was hard to climb, and the child, generally asleep, weighed heavily. For the baby was getting beyond a baby now; she was nearly two years old. How pretty she was, how clever, what dear little knowing ways she had, what tiny feet and hands! How yellow her hair was, how white her skin! She was unlike any child in Haworth; she was matchless!

And indeed, quite apart from her mother's fond admiration, the baby was a beautiful child, delicately formed, and very different from the blunt-featured children of those parts; she was petted by everyone in the village, and had in consequence such proud, imperious little ways that she was a sort of small queen there; the biggest and roughest man among them was her humble subject, and ready to do her bidding when she wished to be tossed in the air or to ride pickaback. She could say very few words yet, but nothing could exceed her brightness and intelligence--a wonderful baby indeed!

She had been christened Betty; but the name was almost forgotten in all sorts of loving nicknames, and lately the people of Haworth had given her a new one, which she got in the following manner:--

Nearly at the bottom of the steep village street there was a cobbler's stall which Maggie passed every day in her journeys to and from Keighley. It was open to the road, and in it hung rows and rows of clogs of all sizes--some of them big enough to fit a man, and some for children, quite tiny. They all had wooden soles, and toes slightly turned-up tipped with gleaming brass, and a brass buckle on the instep; nearly all the people in Haworth and all the factory-girls in Keighley wore such shoes, but they were always called "clogs." Inside the stall sat an old man with twinkling blue eyes, and a stumpy turned-up nose: he sat and cobbled and mended, and made new clogs out of the old ones which lay in great heaps all round him. Over his stall was the name "T Monk," but in the village he was always known as Tommie; and though he was a silent and somewhat surly character, Tommie's opinion and advice were often asked, and much valued when given. Maggie regarded him with admiration and respect. When she passed with her child in her arms he always looked up and nodded, though he seldom gave any other answer to her "Good-day, Master Monk." Tommie never wasted his words: "Little words mak' bonnie do's," he was accustomed to say.

But one evening the sun happened to shine on the row of brass-tipped clogs, and made them glisten brightly just as Maggie went by. It caught the baby's attention, and she held out her arms to them and gave a little coo of pleasure.

"T'little lass is wantin' clogs, I reckon," said Tommie with a grim smile.

Maggie held out the baby's tiny foot with a laugh of pride.

"Here's a foot for a pair of clogs, Master Monk," she said; "t'wouldn't waste much leather to fashion 'em."

Tommie said nothing more, but a week afterwards he beckoned to Maggie with an important air as she went by.

"You come here," he said briefly.

Maggie went into the stall, and he reached down from a nail a pair of tiny, neatly finished clogs. They had jaunty brass-bound toes, and a row of brass nails all round where the leather joined the wooden sole, and on the instep there gleamed a pair of smart brass clasps with a pattern chased on them.

"Fur her," said Tommie as he gave them to Maggie. As he did so the baby stretched out her hands to the bright clasps.

"See!" exclaimed the delighted Maggie; "she likes 'em ever so. Oh, Master Monk, how good of yo'!"

"Them clasps _is_ oncommon," said Tommie, regarding his work thoughtfully, his blue eyes twinkling with satisfaction, "I cam' at 'em by chance like."

Maggie had now taken off her baby's shoe, and fitted the clog on to the soft little foot.

"Ain't they bonnie?" she said.

The baby leaned forward and, seizing one toe in each hand, rocked herself gently to and fro.

Tommie looked on approvingly.

"Yo'll find 'em wear well," he said; "they're the best o' leather and the best o' workmanship."

After six months more were gone the baby began to walk, and you might hear a sharp little clatter on the pavement, like the sound of some small iron-shod animal. Tommie heard it one morning just as it was Maggie's usual time to pass, and looked out of his stall. There was Maggie coming down the road with a proud smile on her face, and the baby was there too. But not in her mother's arms. No, she was erect on her own small feet, tottering along in the new wooden clogs.

"My word!" exclaimed Tommie, his nose wrinkling with gratification; "we'll have to call her Little Clogs noo."

It was in this way that Maggie's child became known in the village as "Little Clogs." Not that it was any distinction to wear clogs in Haworth, everyone had them; but the baby's feet were so tiny, and she was so eager to show her new possession, that the clogs were as much noticed as though never before seen. When she stopped in front of some acquaintance, lifted her frock with both hands, and gazed seriously first at her own feet and then up in her friend's face, it was only possible to exclaim in surprise and admiration:

"Eh! To be sure. What pretty, pretty clogs baby's gotten!"

It was the middle of summer. Baby was just two years old and a month, and the clogs were still glossy and new, when one morning Maggie took the child with her down to Keighley as usual. It was stiflingly hot there, after the cool breeze which blew off the moor on the hillside; the air was thick with smoke and dust, and, as Maggie turned into the alley where she was to leave her child, she felt how close and stuffy it was.

"'Tain't good for her here," she thought, with a sigh. "I reckon I must mak' up my mind to leave her up yonder this hot weather."

But the baby did not seem to mind it. Maggie left her settled in the open doorway talking cheerfully to one of her little clogs which she had pulled off. This she filled with sand and emptied, over and over again, chuckling with satisfaction as a stray sunbeam touched the brass clasps and turned them into gold. In the distance she could hear the noise of the town, and presently amongst them there came a new sound--the beating of a drum. Baby liked music. She threw down the clog, lifted one finger, and said "Pitty!" turning her head to look into the room. But no one was there, for the woman of the house had gone into the back kitchen. The noise continued, and seemed to draw baby towards it: she got up on her feet, and staggered a little way down the alley, tottering a good deal, for one foot had the