“If she loved us,” Rob said, “and was too poor to take us herself, we couldn’t go at all. We couldn’t run away, because it would worry her so. You can’t do a thing, however much you want to do it, if it is going to hurt somebody who is good to you, and cares.”
“Well, then, we needn’t stay here because of Aunt Matilda,” said Meggy. “That’s one sure thing. It wouldn’t interfere with her ploughing if we were both to die at once.”
“No,” said Rob, deliberately, “that’s just what it would not.” And he threw himself back on the straw and clasped his hands under his head, gazing up into the dark roof above him with very reflective eyes.
But they had reached the Wicket Gate, and from the hour they passed it there was no looking back. That in their utter friendlessness and loneliness they should take their twelve-year-old fates in their own strong little hands was, perhaps, a pathetic thing; that once having done so they moved towards their object as steadily as if they had been of the maturest years was remarkable, but no one ever knew or even suspected the first until the last.
The days went by, full of work, which left them little time to lie and talk in the Straw Parlor. They could only see each other in the leisure hours, which were so few, and only came when the day was waning. Finding them faithful and ready, those about them fell into the natural, easy, human unworthiness of imposing by no means infrequently on their inexperienced willingness and youth. So they were hard enough worked, but each felt that every day that passed brought them nearer to the end in view; and there was always something to think of, some detail to be worked out mentally, or to be discussed, in the valuable moments when they were together.
“It’s a great deal better than it used to be,” Meg said, “at all events. It’s better to feel tired by working than to be tired of doing nothing but think and think dreary things.”
As the weather grew colder it was hard enough to keep warm in their hiding-place. They used to sit and talk, huddled close together, bundled in their heaviest clothing, and with the straw heaped close around them and over them.
There were so many things to be thought of and talked over! Robin collected facts more sedulously than ever—facts about entrance fees, facts about prices of things to eat, facts about places to sleep.
“Going to the Fair yourself, sonny?” Jones said to him one day. Jones was fond of his joke. “You’re right to be inquirin’ round. Them hotel-keepers is given to tot up bills several stories higher than their hotels is themselves.”
“But I suppose a person needn’t go to a hotel,” said Robin. “There must be plenty of poor people who can’t go to hotels, and they’ll have to sleep somewhere.”