CONCERNING EIGHT FLIES.
"If you please, mum, what am I to do about Master Chris's lessons? You said you wished me to look over his clothes this morning, and I haven't time for that and lessons too." Briggs looked inquiringly at Granny as she spoke.
"Of course not, of course not," said Granny. "Bring me his books, Briggs; I will give them to him to-day."
"Yes, Granny, you give me my lessons," exclaimed Chris, dancing with glee and clapping his hands, evidently looking forward to a frivolous hour in her company.
"I hope, mum, you'll see he does no tricks," Briggs said, when she returned with Chris's books. "He's very fond of them. He'll read over what he's read before, with a face as innocent as a lamb's, and if I don't remember he'll never say a word to remind me."
"Go away, Briggs; I don't want you," the little beggar remarked with more truth than politeness.
"Master Chris, I shall always stay where my duty calls me," she answered with loftiness, "as my mistress knows."
"Certainly," Granny replied soothingly. "Chris, I cannot permit you to speak to Briggs in such a way. Where are your lesson-books?"
"Here, mum," Briggs said, producing two or three diminutive red books and a tiny slate.
"Thank you. Then you had better go and get on with your work," said Granny, and Briggs left, with a last admonitory look at the little beggar, which he received with one of defiance.
"May Jack do lessons too? He's just outside," he asked as Granny opened his reading-book.
"Very well," she agreed, and he ran off to fetch him. He returned presently, followed by his four-legged friend, who, selecting a sunny spot near the window, lay basking there, blinking at us lazily with sleepy eyes, as from time to time he roused himself to snap at the flies within reach.
"I want to get on your knee, my Granny," Chris said, suiting the action to the word.
"I don't think you will do your lessons so well," she said, doubtfully.
"Oh yes, I will!" he replied coaxingly, and was allowed to remain.
"Let us read this," he proposed, opening his book and pointing to a page.
"What is it? A little dialogue?" answered Granny. "Yes; it looks very nice."
"It's very difficult. So will you be the lady, and me the gentleman?"
"Yes, if you would like that. But as I am helping you, you must be very good, and read your very best."
"My very, very best."
There was a pause.
"Now begin, my darling; we are losing so much time," Granny remarked.
"Why, it's you to begin," Chris replied, with a touch of reproach at having been unjustly censured. "Don't you see? You are Sue!"
"Quite true, to be sure, so I am," the old lady said apologetically, then began gently and precisely:
"'She. Sir! sir! I am Sue. See me! see me! The cow has hit my leg! She has hit her leg out up to my leg, and she has hit it and I cry! Boo! boo!'"
To this announcement of woe, Chris replied, or rather chanted in a sing-song tone, and as loudly and rapidly as he could:
"'He. Why, Sue, how is it? Why do you cry so? You are not to cry, Sue. It is bad to cry. Put the cry out and let me see you gay.'"
"Not so fast," Granny here remarked mildly; "not so fast, and not so loud."
"I want to finish it," he explained. "I want to get my lessons done very quickly."
"Ah! but they must be done properly. You see that, my darling, don't you?" she said. Then continued:
"'She. I am to cry, and to cry all the day. I am so bad and so ill, and my leg is hit, and it is too bad of the cow to hit my leg.'"
"'He. Did she hit you on the toe?'"
"'She. No. She hit me by the hip, and it is a bad hip now, and she is a bad, old, big cow, and she is not to eat rye or hay; no, not a bit of it all the day.'"
"'He. Not eat all the day! not eat rye, not eat hay!'"
At this point, Granny stroked Chris's head and said commendingly:
"You are reading very well now, very well indeed. You have made great progress since I last heard you."
The little beggar wagged his head solemnly. "I want to read well," he stated gravely. "I want to read very well; then I shall read big books like my Uncle Godfrey."
"You are a good little boy," she said. "I am very pleased with the pains my little Chris is taking."
A suspicion crossed my mind. Was he indulging in one of the tricks of which Briggs had forewarned Granny?
"Have you ever read this before, Chris?" I asked.
"Oh, yes; often and often!" he replied, with the utmost candour.
"Oh, my darling, why did you ask me to let you read it now?" Granny said, looking grieved.
"'Cause I read it so well," he explained, without exhibiting any proper shame.
"Ah! but you might have known Granny didn't want an old lesson," she said gravely. "It wasn't quite right; was it, Miss Baggerley?"
"No; it wasn't fair," I assented.
Chris hung his head. "I didn't mean not to be fair," he said, with touching contrition.
Granny's heart softened. "I don't believe you did, my Chris," she remarked gently.
Chris put his arms round her neck and hid his face on her shoulder. "I'm very sorry," he mumbled. Then raising his head:
"I am going to be a very fair boy," he said magnanimously, touched by Granny's forgiveness; "I'm going to be a very fair boy, and I am going to tell you that I don't know the lady's part as well as I know the gentleman's part. Shall I be Sue, my Granny?"
"Yes. Now that's an excellent idea," she said, with much satisfaction, and glancing at me with a look of pride in her darling's noble repentance. "I consider that an excellent idea, indeed; and I am very pleased that you should have proposed it."
Chris's face fell. "Don't you think that it is silly for a big boy like me to be Sue?" he asked, with evident disappointment that his offer had been accepted.
"Not at all," Granny said. "It's only in a book, you see, my pet."
"I don't like being a girl," he murmured. "I don't want to be Sue."
"I thought, though, that you wanted to show Granny you were sorry for not having told her you were reading an old lesson," I remarked.
He sighed, without answering me; then after a pause, continued with an effort and a hesitation that offered a striking contrast to the glib manner of his previous reading:
"'She. Yes; for why did she hit me? She is a big and bad old cow. See her! See how fat she is! She is as fat as a sow. She has a fat hip, and a fat rib, and a fat ear, and a fat leg, and a fat all.'"
As he came to the end of the sentence he sighed once more, very heavily and sadly, then waited.
"Yes, yes, go on," Granny said, as he looked at her expectantly; "read to the end, like my good little boy."
He obeyed, but with a look of protest on his face, which changed to one of injury, when, at the close of the one lesson, he found that Granny intended him to read another.
This was not what he had expected, and he was disappointed with her accordingly.
"That is just as much as I read with Briggs," he said, looking at her with a world of reproach.
"But you must read as much with me as you do with Briggs," she said, looking slightly fatigued with the arduous duty of giving the little beggar his lessons.
"Why must I?" he asked.
"Now, now, don't ask so many questions," she said slightly flustered. "Begin here, my dear child."
"'Ben! Ben! I can see a fly!'" he started impatiently, and stumbling over the words in his haste; "'and the fly can fly, and the fly can die, and the fly is shy, and can get to the pie, and can get on the rye! and the fly can run, and can get on the bun, all for its fun! and the fly is gay all the day, and oh, Ben! Ben! the fly is in my ear, so do put it out of my ear.'"... Chris came to a stop, and leant his head back on Granny's shoulder.
"What a funny thing it must be to have a fly in your ear," he remarked thoughtfully. "Have you ever had a fly in your ear, Granny?"
"Never, my darling," said the long-suffering old lady patiently; "go on."
Chris obeyed; now, however, reading in a listless fashion, as if he had no further energy left.
He continued without a breath, until he reached the following: "Ah, but now it has got in the oil. Oh, fly, fly, why do you go to the oil?"
This was too good an opportunity to be lost.
"Granny," he said idly, and yawning as he spoke, "I want to ask you something."
"Yes, my Chris," she said inquiringly.
"Why did the fly go to the oil?" he asked with feigned interest.
"My darling, how can I possibly tell you?" she exclaimed. "See, you are slipping right off my knee. You can't read properly so."
Chris scrambled back to his former position, and then continued reading in a desultory fashion.
"'Oil is bad for a fly. So, now I put you out of the oil, and now I say you are to get dry. Ah! but now the fly is on the pot of jam, and it is on the jar and in the jam. The red jam, the new jam, the big jar of jam.'"
"How nice!" he exclaimed, with more enthusiasm. "May I have some red jam for my tea to-day?"
"If you are a good boy, and read right on to the end of the lesson without stopping," she replied. Thus encouraged, Chris with an effort toiled to the conclusion without any further pauses.
"'By, by! Wee fly!' Now must I do my sums?" he asked all in a breath as he came to the end.
"Yes; I think you had better," Granny replied, holding the slate-pencil between her fingers and looking meditatively at the slate. "I will write you out one."
"Sometimes Briggs doesn't write horrid sums on the slate; sometimes she asks me sums she makes up out of her head," he said, insinuatingly. "I like that better, it is much, much nicer."
"Sometimes Briggs asks you sums out of her head, does she?" Granny repeated, putting down the slate-pencil. "Well, now, what shall I ask you?"
"Something about Jack," he said, getting off her knee and sitting on the ground beside the dog. "He's such a naughty, lazy, little doggie; he's done no lessons at all. Now, listen, Jackie, and do a sum with me. If Granny asks me something about you, you must think just as much as me. Mustn't he, Granny?"
"Of course, of course," she replied absently. "I'm to ask you something about Jack, my darling. Let me see, what shall it be?"
She looked at Jack for a moment as she spoke, who blinked back at her inquiringly, as if to ask, "What are you all talking so much about me for?"
Then with a look of inspiration:
"I know," she said. "There were six—no, there were eight flies. Jack swallowed one—yes, he swallowed one, he ate another—let me see, how many flies did I say? Eight flies? Yes, eight. Well, he swallowed one, and he ate one, and"—she took off her spectacles and thought a moment—"he bit another in halves.
"Yes, that will do," she said with satisfaction. "He swallowed one, he ate another, and he bit another in halves. How many flies were left to fly away?"
Chris knitted his brows. "Lots," he replied, as he pulled one of Jack's ears.
"Come, come, think," Granny said reprovingly. "He swallowed one—that left how many?"
"Seven," said Chris.
"Very good. He ate another?" she went on—
"That left six," the little beggar said, looking very astute.
"That's right. And he bit another in halves. Then, how many were left to fly away?" she asked with mild triumph.
"Five and a half," answered Chris. Then thoughtfully: "How did the half-fly fly away, my Granny? P'r'aps Jack only ate the body and left the wings. Was that how it happened?"
"My pet shouldn't ask such silly questions," Granny said, speaking more testily than she generally did. "I only said, supposing there were eight flies."
"Well, supposing," Chris persisted; "how would the half-fly fly away then?"
"It wouldn't, it couldn't. You see, my darling, it would be dead," the old lady said, becoming flurried.
"But you said it would," Chris said with some perplexity.
"There, there, that will do," she said. "You are a silly little boy to think such a thing. We must get on with your other lessons, for the time is passing."
"Shall I have a holiday now?" he suggested lazily.
"No, no; that would never do," she said. "You had better do some more sums; but on the slate. Miss Baggerley, will you be so kind as to give them to him. That, with a little spelling and a copy, will, I think, be sufficient for to-day;" and the old lady, leaning back in her arm-chair, closed her eyes with an exhausted expression.
"Miss Beggarley," said Chris in a coaxing voice—he never failed thus to distort my name—"may I get on your knee and do my lessons, like I did on Granny's?"
"No, you had better not," I said, hardening my heart. "How do you expect to write well if you sit on my knee?"
"'Cause I know I could," he replied confidently.
"No, no," I said firmly; "we won't try. Come here; you sit on this chair and write this copy. Now show me how well you can write and spell. I know a boy no older than you, and he writes and spells beautifully for his age."
"Better than me?" Chris asked anxiously.
"Well, write and spell your very best, and then I shall be able to tell," I replied with caution. The mention of my small friend of advanced powers as scribe and speller proved a happy thought on my part. The effect was excellent. Chris's mood changed; his lazy fit passed away in a burning desire to emulate—not to say outdistance—his unknown rival. With frowning brow and tongue between his teeth, he laboured assiduously at his copy, without uttering a word, whilst Granny, lulled by the quiet which prevailed, slept the sleep of the just.
I felt, indeed I had cause to be, fully satisfied with the result of my remark, for its effects lasted not only whilst the copy was being written but even through the spelling-lesson; an effect that could hardly have been anticipated when the varying moods of that little beggar were taken into consideration.
As I closed the spelling-book, "Miss Beggarley," he said, gazing at me with anxious eyes, "have I written my writing and spelt my spelling as well as that other boy?"
"Yes, I really think you have; at least very nearly."
"P'r'aps I shall quite, to-morrow."
"Perhaps you will—if you take great pains."
"Shall I kiss my Granny?"
"No, you will wake her up."
"Why does she want to go to sleep? She often goes to sleep when she does my lessons. Do boys' lessons always make old people sleepy?"
"That depends on the little boy who does them," I replied gravely. "If he tires his granny very much, it is not surprising that she should go to sleep."
Chris looked thoughtful.
"Have I been a good boy?" he said.
"You were inattentive at the beginning, dear," I replied, "but you were good afterwards."
"Then I shall tell Briggs I have been a good boy," he remarked with satisfaction. And with a certain expression of anticipated triumph upon his face, he walked off, followed by Jack, his constant and faithful companion.