The child was very small, so small that she could still sleep in the basket cradle she came in—and did too, for the simple reason that she was wakeful all night if she slept anywhere else.
Both Tom and Joan were sometimes troubled at her size. For she never seemed to grow bigger or fatter, whatever they gave her to eat, and they feared she would always be a little Go-by-the-ground.[14] Joan, however, consoled herself that perhaps she was an off relation of the dear Little People.
Although Ninnie-Dinnie was exceedingly tiny, she was very sharp, and asked more questions in a day than they could answer in a year. She wanted to know the why and wherefore of everything—what the moor-flowers were made of, and who lived inside the great grey carns, and what made Carn Kenidzhek hoot—was it the giant who lived inside it?—and much besides that neither Tom nor Joan could answer, because they did not know themselves.
Tom said she was wise beyond her years, and all owing to her being moped in the cottage so much, and that she ought to be out of doors more. Joan quite agreed with him, and suggested that he should take her with him sometimes over the moor, only stipulating that she was not to go as far as the mine-works.
Tom considered this a splendid idea; and so, every now and then, when Ninnie-Dinnie was willing, she accompanied him part of the way, and as there was only one road leading back to the cottage, she easily found her way home alone.
One day, when the child had reached the place where the miner generally sent her back, she begged to go with him all the way to the bal; and as he was rather weak where his womenfolk were concerned, he willingly consented.
When they reached Ding Dong, with its hundreds of busy workers, the little maid grew very frightened, and fled back across the moor, in the direction of home, as fast as her legs could take her.
The miner, as he watched her running away, rather reproached himself for bringing her so far; and he wondered, as he put the tin into the furnace to be smelted, whether she got home all right.
‘So you did take our Ninnie-Dinnie to the bal?’ was his wife’s greeting when he got home that evening. ‘I’ve been terribly wisht[15] without her all day.’
‘You don’t mean to say the little dear haven’t come back?’ cried Tom. ‘That is terrible news, sure ‘nough! She didn’t stop a minute at the bal, and tore off home like a skainer.’[16]