第38章 The pride of Perks(2)

I only hope he won't be offended and think it's CHARITY.Poor people are very proud, you know.""It isn't because he's poor," said Phyllis; "it's because we're fond of him.""I'll find some things that Phyllis has outgrown," said Mother, "if you're quite sure you can give them to him without his being offended.I should like to do some little thing for him because he's been so kind to you.I can't do much because we're poor ourselves.What are you writing, Bobbie?""Nothing particular," said Bobbie, who had suddenly begun to scribble."I'm sure he'd like the things, Mother."The morning of the fifteenth was spent very happily in getting the buns and watching Mother make A.P.on them with pink sugar.You know how it's done, of course? You beat up whites of eggs and mix powdered sugar with them, and put in a few drops of cochineal.And then you make a cone of clean, white paper with a little hole at the pointed end, and put the pink egg-sugar in at the big end.It runs slowly out at the pointed end, and you write the letters with it just as though it were a great fat pen full of pink sugar-ink.

The buns looked beautiful with A.P.on every one, and, when they were put in a cool oven to set the sugar, the children went up to the village to collect the honey and the shovel and the other promised things.

The old lady at the Post-office was standing on her doorstep.The children said "Good morning," politely, as they passed.

"Here, stop a bit," she said.

So they stopped.

"Those roses," said she.

"Did you like them?" said Phyllis; "they were as fresh as fresh.

_I_ made the needle-book, but it was Bobbie's present." She skipped joyously as she spoke.

"Here's your basket," said the Post-office woman.She went in and brought out the basket.It was full of fat, red gooseberries.

"I dare say Perks's children would like them," said she.

"You ARE an old dear," said Phyllis, throwing her arms around the old lady's fat waist."Perks WILL be pleased.""He won't be half so pleased as I was with your needle-book and the tie and the pretty flowers and all," said the old lady, patting Phyllis's shoulder."You're good little souls, that you are.Look here.I've got a pram round the back in the wood-lodge.It was got for my Emmie's first, that didn't live but six months, and she never had but that one.I'd like Mrs.Perks to have it.It 'ud be a help to her with that great boy of hers.Will you take it along?""OH!" said all the children together.

When Mrs.Ransome had got out the perambulator and taken off the careful papers that covered it, and dusted it all over, she said:--"Well, there it is.I don't know but what I'd have given it to her before if I'd thought of it.Only I didn't quite know if she'd accept of it from me.You tell her it was my Emmie's little one's pram--""Oh, ISN'T it nice to think there is going to be a real live baby in it again!""Yes," said Mrs.Ransome, sighing, and then laughing; "here, I'll give you some peppermint cushions for the little ones, and then you run along before I give you the roof off my head and the clothes off my back."All the things that had been collected for Perks were packed into the perambulator, and at half-past three Peter and Bobbie and Phyllis wheeled it down to the little yellow house where Perks lived.

The house was very tidy.On the window ledge was a jug of wild-flowers, big daisies, and red sorrel, and feathery, flowery grasses.

There was a sound of splashing from the wash-house, and a partly washed boy put his head round the door.

"Mother's a-changing of herself," he said.

"Down in a minute," a voice sounded down the narrow, freshly scrubbed stairs.

The children waited.Next moment the stairs creaked and Mrs.Perks came down, buttoning her bodice.Her hair was brushed very smooth and tight, and her face shone with soap and water.

"I'm a bit late changing, Miss," she said to Bobbie, "owing to me having had a extry clean-up to-day, along o' Perks happening to name its being his birthday.I don't know what put it into his head to think of such a thing.We keeps the children's birthdays, of course; but him and me--we're too old for such like, as a general rule.""We knew it was his birthday," said Peter, "and we've got some presents for him outside in the perambulator.

As the presents were being unpacked, Mrs.Perks gasped.When they were all unpacked, she surprised and horrified the children by sitting suddenly down on a wooden chair and bursting into tears.

"Oh, don't!" said everybody; "oh, please don't!" And Peter added, perhaps a little impatiently: "What on earth is the matter? You don't mean to say you don't like it?"Mrs.Perks only sobbed.The Perks children, now as shiny-faced as anyone could wish, stood at the wash-house door, and scowled at the intruders.There was a silence, an awkward silence.

"DON'T you like it?" said Peter, again, while his sisters patted Mrs.Perks on the back.

She stopped crying as suddenly as she had begun.

"There, there, don't you mind me.I'M all right!" she said."Like it? Why, it's a birthday such as Perks never 'ad, not even when 'e was a boy and stayed with his uncle, who was a corn chandler in his own account.He failed afterwards.Like it? Oh--" and then she went on and said all sorts of things that I won't write down, because I am sure that Peter and Bobbie and Phyllis would not like me to.Their ears got hotter and hotter, and their faces redder and redder, at the kind things Mrs.Perks said.They felt they had done nothing to deserve all this praise.