Our Winnie, and The Little Match Girl

by Evelyn Everett-Green

“I want to put it tidy to-day, mamma,” answered Winifred gravely. “I know I shall find ever so many things that the boys have lost. You see the boys have their lessons, and so much to do, and I have hardly anything. I ought to do little things for them when I can.”

So the little girl got a duster and went up to the play-room, and opened the cupboard-door. It was rather a dreadful sight that met her eyes—toys, books, papers, string, nails, pieces of wood, bottles, baskets, battered pieces of metal, odds and ends of every description all tumbled together in one heterogeneous mass of disorder.

“Oh dear!” exclaimed Winnie, “what a mess!”

But she would not be discouraged, and she set manfully to work at her task.

First she emptied all the contents of the cupboard on to the floor, and dusted out all the shelves. Then out of the dreadful heap upon the floor she selected all the books and carried them over to the book-case where they should have been, and made room for them upon the shelves there.

This involved a good deal of time and labour, and arrangement of other books; and little Winnie, whose stock of strength was but small, began to feel tired already.

Still she would not give up yet. She went down on her knees before the heap, and picked out all the unbroken toys and the most useful and respectable of the miscellaneous articles before her; and these she dusted and arranged upon one shelf by themselves. Broken toys and odds and ends which might come in useful, were placed in another; and a big heap of “real rubbish” began to grow upon the floor behind her.

Then the string was collected and wound into little knots and put into a box; and by that time poor Winnie was so tired she felt almost ready to cry, and still a vast heap of queer things lay before her, which seemed as if it defied her to reduce to order. Her head began to ache and her eyes to swim; she felt as if she never should make an end of the task, yet she could not bear to give in.

The door opened softly, and somebody looked in.

“Well, Winnie, is the work done yet?”