When I say of 'Lisbeth that when she had a thing to do, she did it, that she did not wait until the next week, or next month, or next year, you will say: "How very delightful; how very much nicer and better 'Lisbeth must have been than most other people;" but when I tell you that she thought she knew what was best to be done so much better than anybody else, that she did what she thought best without asking her mother, you will know in a minute that 'Lisbeth was not as "nice" as a great many other people. How could she be? Why, she could not be at all.
Well when 'Lisbeth thought the thought as she leaped off the stool, she did not wait until the next day to do what she thought about doing, nor till the next hour. She did not wait to consult her mother. As usual, she mixed her own judgment with her earnestness, instead of making use of her mother's judgment, and that was the cause of the confusion. Children's earnestness directed by the mother's judgment is a very different thing from children's earnestness directed by the children's judgment; there is as much difference between the two as there is between lemonade mixed with sugar and lemonade mixed with salt.
'Lisbeth thought it would be pleasant to get everything pulled down, and turned inside out, and packed up ready to leave London; it would be that much done toward starting, it would be a great help, it would be delightful. Had she waited for mother's judgment she would have learned that mother would not get off from London for two months at any rate, that the things must not be pulled down until it was time to pack them up, that it would not be time to pack them up until just before they started. But 'Lisbeth mixed her earnestness with her own judgment.
CHAPTER XIII.
'Lisbeth said to herself: "Who knows but we shall go to-day or to-morrow, if mother gets the money; she said she would go when she got the money."
'Lisbeth had found something to do at last.
Gorham had gone with the mother to help carry her parcel, and Dickon was playing outside. Dickon's two feet had come in, but they had gone out again. They so often went out after they had come in that this was nothing uncommon. At first 'Lisbeth did not care about it; it made no difference to her that they had gone out, she began work by herself. She was a fast worker, an earnest worker, a worker who made things fly when she set about making them fly. I do not mean that she made them really fly up with wings, but she made them get from one place to another so fast that we may say she made them fly.
She made the dishes fly out of the closets; the platters, the pots, and the patty pans; the stewpans, and spiders, and skillets; the boilers and broilers, and dippers; the glass jars, the stone jars, the basins; the boxes and bundles and baskets; a pretty job she was making of it, and, in the middle of it all, her face shone like a young sun, she was so delightfully busy.
Suddenly 'Lisbeth remembered that she was working very hard, that Dickon was not working hard, that he was doing nothing but playing on the stairs; this was not pleasant to remember.