This day, things did not go quite to the tailor's mind. He took Poppie to a little public-house which he had known for many years, for it was kept by a cousin of his. There he ordered his half-pint of beer, carried it with him to a little arbor in the garden, now getting very bare of its sheltering leaves, sat down with Poppie, pulled out big Bible, and began to read to her. But he could not get her to mind him. Every other moment she was up and out of the arbor, now after one thing, now after another; now it was a spider busily rolling up a fly in his gluey weft; now it was a chicken escaped from the hen-house, and scratching about as if it preferred finding its own living even in an irregular fashion; and now a bird of the air that sowed not nor reaped, and yet was taken care of.
"Come along, Poppie," said her father; "I want you to listen."
"Yes, daddie," Poppie would answer, returning instantly; but in a moment, ere a sentence was finished, she would be half across the garden. He gave it up in despair.
"Why ain't you reading, daddie?" she said, after one of these excursions.
"Because you won't listen to a word of it, Poppie."
"Oh! yes; here I am," she said.
"Come, then; I will teach you to read."
"Yes," said Poppie, and was off after another sparrow.
"Do you know that God sees you, Poppie?" asked Mr. Spelt.
"I don't mind," answered Poppie.