“We always roast potatoes when there’s a bonfire. Mamma always lets us; it is only Purday that is cross.”
“Yes, yes; Mamma lets us.”
“Well, if Sam and Susan say it is right, I trust to them,” said Miss Fosbrook gladly; “only you must let me come out and see what it is. I am too much of a Londoner to know.”
“Oh yes; and we’ll roast you some potatoes.”
So the uproarious population tumbled upstairs, there to be invested with rougher brown-holland garments than those that already concealed the sprigged cottons of the girls; and when the five came down again, they were so much alike in dress, that it was not easy to tell girls from boys. Susan brought little George down with her, and off the party set. Sam and Hal, who had been waiting in the hall, took Miss Fosbrook between them, as if they thought it their duty to do the honours of the bonfire, and conducted her across the garden, through the kitchen-garden, across which lay a long sluggish bar of heavy and very odorous smoke, to a gate in a quickset hedge. Here were some sheds and cart-houses, a fagot pile, various logs of timber, a grindstone, and—that towards which all the eight children rushed with whoops of ecstasy—a heap of smoking rubbish, chiefly dry leaves, and peas and potato haulm, with a large allowance of cabbage stumps—all extremely earthy, and looking as if the smouldering smoke were a wonder from so mere a heap of dirt.
No matter! There were all the children round it, some on their knees, some jumping; and voices were crying on all sides,
“O jolly, jolly!” “I’ll get some potatoes!” “Oh, you must have some sticks first, and make some ashes.” “There’s no flame—not a bit!” “Get out of the way, can’t you? I’ll make a hot place.” “We’ll each have our own oven, and roast our own potatoes!” “Don’t, Sam; you’re pushing me into the smoke!”
This of course was from Elizabeth; and there followed, “Don’t, Bessie, you will tread upon Georgie.—Yes, Georgie, you shall have a place.”
“Sticks, sticks!” shouted Henry; while Sam was on his knees, poking out a species of cavern in the fire, where some symptoms of red embers appeared, which he diligently puffed with his mouth, feeding it with leaves and smaller chips in a very well practised way. “Sticks, Annie! Johnnie! Davy! get sticks, I say, and we’ll make an oven.”
Annie obeyed; but the two little boys were intent on imitating Sam on another side of the fire, and Johnnie uttered a gruff “Get ’em yourself,” while David took no notice at all.