PART I.
I AM going to tell you a story that mother told us. We think mother's stories far the most interesting and nicest of any we hear or read. And we are trying to write them all down, so that our children, if ever any of us have any, may know them too. We mean to call them "Grandmother's Stories." One reason why they are nice is, that nearly all of them are real, what is called "founded on fact." By the time our children come to hear them, mother says her stories will all have grown dreadfully old-fashioned, but we tell her that will make them all the nicer. They will have a scent of long-ago-ness about them, something like the faint lavendery whiff that comes out of mother's old doll-box, where she keeps a few of the toys and dolls' clothes she has never had the heart to part with.
The little story, or "sketch"—mother says it isn't worth calling a "story"—I am going to write down now, is already a long-ago one. For it isn't really one of mother's own stories; it was told her by her mother, so if ever our book comes to exist, this one will have to have a chapter to itself and be called "Great-grandmother's Story," won't it? I remember quite well what made mother tell it us. It was when we were staying in the country one year, and Francie had been frightened, coming through the village, by meeting a poor idiot boy who ran after us and laughed at us in a queer silly way. I believe he meant to please us, but Francie's fright made her angry, and she wanted nurse to speak to him sharply and tell him to get away, but nurse wouldn't.
"One should always be gentle to those so afflicted," she said.
When we got home we told mother about it, and Francie asked her to speak to nurse, adding, "It's very disagreeable to see people like that about. I think they should always be shut up, don't you, mother?"
"Not always," mother replied. "Of course, when they are at all dangerous, likely to hurt themselves or any one else, it is necessary to shut them up. And if they can be taught anything, as some can be, it is the truest kindness to send them to an asylum, where it is wonderful what patience and skill can sometimes make of them. But I know about that boy in the village. He is perfectly harmless, even gentle and affectionate. He has been at a school for such as he, and has learnt to knit—that is the only thing they could succeed in teaching him. It was no use leaving him there longer, and he pined for home most sadly. So as his relations are pretty well off, it was thought best to send him back, and he is now quite content. I wish I had told you about him. When you meet him again you must be sure to speak kindly—they say he never forgets if any one does so."
"Poor boy," said Ted and I; but Francie did not look quite convinced.
"I think he should be shut up," she repeated, in rather a low voice. Francie used to be a very obstinate little girl. "And I shan't speak to him kindly or any way."
Mother did not answer, though she heard. I know she did. But in a minute or two she said:
"Would you like to hear a story about an idiot, that your grandmother told me? It happened when she was a little girl."
Of course we all said "yes," with eagerness.
And this was the story.
"'Pig-Betty' isn't a very pretty name for a story, or for a person, is it? But Pig-Betty was a real person, though I daresay none of you have the least idea what the word 'pig' added to her own name meant," said mother. No, none of us had. We thought, perhaps, it was because this "Betty" was very lazy, or greedy or even dirty, but mother shook her head at all those guesses. And then she went on to explain. "Pig," in some parts of Scotland, she told us, means a piece of coarse crockery. It is used mostly for jugs, though in a general way it means any sort of crockery. "And long ago," mother went on—I think I'll give up putting 'mother said,' or 'mother went on,' and just tell it straight off, as she did.
Long ago then, when my mother was a little girl, she and her brothers and sisters used to spend some months of every year in a rather out-of-the-way part of Scotland. There was no railway and no "coach," that came within at all easy reach. The nearest town was ten or twelve miles away, and even the village was two or three. And a good many things, ordinary, common things, were supplied by pedlars, who walked long distances, often carrying their wares upon their backs. These pedlars came to be generally called by what they had to sell, as a sort of nickname. You may think it was a very hard life, but there were a good many nice things about it. They were always sure of a welcome, for it was a pleasant excitement in the quiet life of the cottages and farm-houses, and even of the big houses about, when one of these travelling merchants appeared; and they never needed to feel any anxiety about their board and lodging. They could always count upon a meal or two and on a night's shelter. Very often they slept in the barn of the farm-house—or even sometimes in a clean corner of the cows' "byre." They were not very particular.
Among these good people there were both men and women, and poor Pig-Betty was one of the latter.
My mother and the other children used always to ask as one of their first questions when they arrived at Greystanes—that was the name of their uncle's country house—on their yearly visit, if Pig-Betty had been there lately, or if she was expected to come soon. One or other was pretty sure to be the case.
They had several reasons for their interest in the old woman. One was that they were very fond of blowing soap-bubbles, which they seldom got leave to do in town, and they always bought a new supply of white clay pipes the first time Pig-Betty appeared; another was that she had what children thought very wonderful treasures hidden among the coarse pots and dishes and jugs that she carried in a shapeless bundle on her bent old back. And sometimes, if she were in a very good humour, she would present one of the little people with a green parrot rejoicing in a whistle in its tail, or with a goggle-eyed dog, reminding one of the creatures in Hans Andersen's tale of "The Three Soldiers." And the third reason was perhaps the strongest, though the strangest of all.