CHAPTER XIII. LITTLE SALLY’S SICKNESS
WHY in the world doesn’t it light!” said Lucy, as she wasted match after match upon Ben’s candle.
Ben and Sally stood watching and waiting, and Gill sat with Jack upon his knee. He was pretending not to notice; but, by and by, Lucy got tired, and before Gill could know what she was about, she put the candle into his hand, and took the baby from him.
“Do light it, please, Gill,” she said. “I’ve tried and tried to no purpose. The wick must have been wet, I think.”
Gill had a comical expression upon his face. He did not expect the laugh to turn upon him.
“Ah, well,” he said, “it is not the first time a man has fallen into the pit that ha had digged for others. You may fetch another candle, Lucy, for the night would wear away without a glimmer from this.”
“What a perfect cheat it is!” said Lucy, as she smelled the parsnip to make sure that it was not tallow, after all.
Jack wanted it for a plaything; but his mother said it would be the very way to make him grasp at the real candle, and so come to mischief and harm. The better way was not to meddle with even the semblance of that which would bring him to evil, however innocent the thing might be in itself; so the fictitious candle was laid upon the kitchen shelf, and Ben went up to bed by the light of one of Lucy’s “dips,” as she called it. The good woman could not get out of her old housewifely ways, and she stored up and melted the mutton-tallow, and had a long stick with wick twisted over it, and, every little while, she dipped ten or a dozen short candles to save the wax-lights, which she thought too good for common use.