“Blessed if I know,” said Andrew, shaking his head mournfully; “but wherever she be, she ain’t not to call a little gal now, missie. She wur jest five years old when I lost her, an’ it’s twenty years ago. That’ll make her a young woman of twenty-five, yer see, missie, by this time.”
“Why did ’oo lose ’oor ’ittle gal?” pursued Dickie, avoiding the question of age.
“Because I wur a fool,” replied Andrew frowning.
“Tell Dickie,” repeated the child, to whom the “little gal” had now become more interesting than the circus; “tell Dickie all about ’oor ’ittle gal.”
“Well, missie,” began Andrew with a sigh, “it wur like this. After her mother died my little gal an’ I lived alone. I wasn’t a gardener then, I was in the cobblin’ line, an’ sat all day mendin’ an’ patchin’ the folks’ boots an’ shoes. Mollie wur a lovin’ little thing, an’ oncommon sensible in her ways. She’d sit at my feet an’ make-believe to be sewin’ the bits of leather together, an’ chatter away as merry as a wren. Then when I took home a job, she’d come too an’ trot by my side holdin’ me tight by one finger—a good little thing she was, an’ all the folks in the village was fond of her, but she always liked bein’ with me best—bless her ’art, that she did.”
Andrew stopped suddenly, and drew out of his pocket a red cotton handkerchief.
“Why did ’oo lose her?” repeated Dickie impatiently.
“It wur like this, missie,” resumed Andrew. “One day there come a circus to the village, like as it might be that out in the field yonder, an’ there was lots of ’orses, and dogs that danced, an’ fine ladies flyin’ through hoops, an suchlike. Mollie, she wanted to go an’ see ’em. Nothing would do but I must take her. I can see her now, standin’ among the scraps of leather, an’ the tools, an’ the old boots, an’ saying so pleadin’, ‘Do’ee take Molly, daddie, to see the gee-gees.’ So, though I had a job to finish afore that night, I said I’d take her, an’ I left my work, an’ put on her red boots—”
“Yed boots?” said Dickie inquiringly, looking down at her own stumpy black goloshes.
“Someone had giv’ me a scrap of red leather, an’ I’d made her a pair of boots out of it,” said Andrew; “they didn’t cost me nothin’ but the work—so I put ’em on, an tied on her little bonnet an’ her handkercher, an’ we went off. Mollie was frighted at first to see the ’orses go round so fast, an’ the people on their backs cuttin’ all manner of capers, just as if they wur on dry ground. She hid her face in my weskit, an’ wouldn’t look up; but I coaxed her a bit, an’ when she did she wur rarely pleased. She clapped her hands, an’ her cheeks wur red with pleasure, an’ her blue eyes bright. She wur a pretty little lass, Mollie wur.”