ADVENTURE THE SIXTH AND LAST BROWNIE AND THE CLOTHES |
TILL the next time; but when there is a Brownie in the house, no one can say that any of his tricks will be the last. For there's no stopping a Brownie, and no getting rid of him either. This one had followed the family from house to house, generation after generation—never any older, and sometimes seeming even to grow younger by the tricks he played. In fact, though he looked like an old man, he was a perpetual child.
To the children he never did any harm, quite the contrary. And his chief misdoings were against those who vexed the children. But he gradually made friends with several of his grown up enemies. Cook, for instance, who had ceased to be lazy at night and late in the morning, found no more black footmarks on her white table cloth. And Brownie found his basin of milk waiting for him, night after night, behind the coal-cellar door.
Bill, too, got on well enough with his pony, and Jess was taken no more night-rides. No ducks were lost; and Dolly gave her milk quite comfortably to whoever milked her. Alas! this was either Bill or the Gardener's wife now. After that adventure on the ice, poor Gardener very seldom appeared; when he did, it was on two crutches, for he had had rheumatism in his feet, and could not stir outside his cottage door. Bill, therefore, had double work; which was probably all the better for Bill.
The garden had to take care of itself; but this being winter-time, it did not much signify. Besides, Brownie seldom went into the garden, except in summer; during the hard weather he preferred to stop in his coal-cellar. It might not have been a lively place, but it was warm, and he liked it.
He had company there, too; for when the cat had more kittens—the kitten he used to tease being grown up now—they were all put in a hamper in the coal-cellar; and of cold nights Brownie used to jump in beside them, and be as warm and as cozy as a kitten himself. The little things never were heard to mew; so it may be supposed they liked his society. And the old mother-cat evidently bore him no malice for the whipping she had got by mistake; so Brownie must have found means of coaxing her over. One thing you may be sure of—all the while she and her kittens were in his coal-cellar, he took care never to turn himself into a mouse.
He was spending the winter, on the whole, very comfortably, without much trouble either to himself or his neighbors, when one day, the coal-cellar being nearly empty, two men, and a great wagon-load of coals behind them, came to the door, Gardener's wife following.
"My man says you're to give the cellar a good cleaning out before you put any more in," said she, in her sharp voice; "and don't be lazy about it. It'll not take you ten minutes, for it's nearly all coal-dust, except that one big lump in the corner—you might clear that out too."
"Stop, it's the Brownie's lump! better not meddle with it," whispered the little scullery-maid.