Little Meg's Cleaning Day
For a few days Meg kept up closely in her solitary attic, playing with Robin and tending baby; only leaving them for a few necessary minutes, to run to the nearest shop for bread or oatmeal. Two or three of the neighbours took the trouble to climb the ladder, and try the latch of the door, but they always found it locked; and if Meg answered at all, she did so only with the door between them, saying she was getting on very well, and she expected father home to-day or to-morrow. When she went in and out on her errands, Mr Grigg, a gruff, surly man, who kept everybody about him in terror, did not break his promise to her mother, that he would let no one meddle with her; and very quickly the brief interest of Angel Court in the three motherless children of the absent sailor died away into complete indifference, unmingled with curiosity: for everybody knew the full extent of their neighbours' possessions; and the poor furniture of Meg's room, where the box lay well hidden and unsuspected under the bedstead, excited no covetous desires. The tenant of the back attic, a girl whom Meg herself had seen no oftener than once or twice, was away on a visit of six weeks, having been committed to a House of Correction for being drunk and disorderly in the streets; so that by the close of the week in which the sailor's wife died no foot ascended or descended the ladder, except that of little Meg.
There were two things Meg set her heart upon doing before father came home: to teach Robin his letters, and baby to walk alone. Robin was a quick, bright boy, and was soon filled with the desire to surprise his father by his new accomplishment; and Meg and he laboured diligently together over the Testament, which had been given to her at a night school, where she had herself learned to read a little. But with the baby it was quite another thing. There were babies in the court, not to be compared with Meg's baby in other respects, who, though no older, could already crawl about the dirty pavement and down into the gutter, and who could even toddle unsteadily, upon their little bare feet, over the stone flags. Meg felt it as a sort of reproach upon her, as a nurse, to have her baby so backward. But the utmost she could prevail upon it to do was to hold hard and fast by a chair, or by Robin's fist, and gaze across the great gulf which separated her from Meg and the piece of bread and treacle stretched out temptingly towards her. It was a wan, sickly baby with an old face, closely resembling Meg's own, and meagre limbs, which looked as though they would never gain strength enough to bear the weight of the puny body; but from time to time a smile kindled suddenly upon the thin face, and shone out of the serious eyes—a smile so sweet, and unexpected, and fleeting, that Meg could only rush at her, and catch her in her arms, thinking there was not such another baby in the world. This was the general conclusion to Meg's efforts to teach her to walk, but none the less she put her through the same course of training a dozen times a day.
Sometimes, when her two children were asleep, little Meg climbed up to the window-sill and sat there alone, watching the stars come out in that sky where her mother was gone to live. There were nights when the fog was too thick for her to see either them or the many glittering specks made by the lamps in the maze of streets around her; and then she seemed to herself to be dwelling quite alone with Robin and baby, in some place cut off both from the sky above and the earth beneath. But by-and-by, as she taught Robin out of the Testament, and read in it herself two or three times a day, new thoughts of God and His life came to her mind, upon which she pondered, after her childish fashion, as she sat in the dark, looking out over the great vast city with its myriads of fellow-beings all about her, none of whom had any knowledge of her loneliness, or any sympathy with her difficulties.
After a week was past, Meg and her children made a daily expedition down to the docks, lingering about in any out-of-the-way corner till they could catch sight of some good-natured face, which threatened no unkind rebuff, and then Meg asked when her father's ship would come in. Very often she could get no satisfactory answer, but whenever she came across any one who knew the Ocean King, she heard that it would most likely be in dock by the end of October. Robin's birthday was the last day in October, so her mother's reckoning had been correct. Father would be home on Robbie's birthday; yet none the less was Meg's anxious face to be seen day after day about the docks, seeking someone to tell her over again the good news.
The last day but one arrived, and Meg set about the scrubbing and the cleaning of the room heartily, as she had seen her mother do before her father's return. Robin was set upon the highest chair, with baby on his lap, to look on at Meg's exertions, out of the way of the wet flooring, upon which she bestowed so much water that the occupant of the room below burst out upon the landing, with such a storm of threats and curses as made her light heart beat with terror. When the cleaning of the room was done, she trotted up and down the three flights of stairs with a small can, until she had filled, as full as it would hold, a broken tub, which was to serve as a bath for Robin and baby. It was late in the evening when all was accomplished, and Meg looked around her with a glow of triumph on the clean room and the fresh faces of the children. Very weary she felt, but she opened her Testament, in which she had not had time to give Robin a lesson that day, and she read a verse half aloud to herself.
'Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.'
'I wish I could go to Jesus,' sighed little Meg, 'for I've worked very hard all day; and He says He'd give me rest. Only I don't know where to go.'
She laid her head down on the pillow beside the baby's slumbering face, and almost before it rested there a deep sleep had come. Perhaps Meg's sigh had gone to Jesus, and it was He who gave her rest; 'for so He giveth His beloved sleep.'