“Am I going to die?” said the child one day, suddenly, as she left off work to gaze up earnestly in Tim’s face.
“Eh! what? Going to which?” exclaimed Tim, startled.
“Am I going to die, and go away?” said the child again.
“I’m blessed!” muttered Tim; “who’s agoing to answer questions like that? Why, we’re all of us going to die some day, my pretty,” said Tim, aloud, and in quite a cheery voice, whose fire he directly after damped by singing, in a peculiar reedy, cracked voice—
“Oh! that’ll be joyful!
Joyful, joy-yoy-ful, joy-hoy-ful!”
but in so melancholy a fashion that it was evident that Tim Ruggles did not look forward to the joyful event with much pleasure.
“Yes, I know that,” said little Pine, dreamily; “but am I going to die soon, and go to my own mother? Mrs Johnson, who lived up-stairs, used to take cod-liver oil, and she soon died.”
“Bother Mrs Johnson!” exclaimed Tim, fiercely. “I say, you know, you mustn’t talk like that, my pet; it makes one feel just as if cold water was running all down one’s back. You ain’t Mrs Johnson, and you’re taking that there stuff to make you strong and well. Now, come on, and let’s say catechism.”
“No, please, not this morning,” little Pine would say; “my head does ache so, so much, and catechism makes me cough;” and then the sharp little elbow would rest upon the thin knee, and the child lay her head upon her hand, and listen to the tailor as he tried to tell her stories raked up piecemeal out of his memory, where they had rested for so many years that they had grown rusty, and hardly recognisable. Puss would somehow manage to get into the wrong boots, and perform wonders in the famed seven-league pair; a sensational story would be compiled out of the exploits of Jack the Giant-killer, Jack Sprat, and the hero of the bean-stalk; while to make out from Tim’s description where Robinson Crusoe’s adventures began, and Sinbad the Sailor’s ended, would have puzzled the most learned.
For, after the fashion of his craft, Tim would baste one piece on to another, and fit in here, and fit in there, according to the circumstances of the case; the invariable result being that little Pine would begin to nod; when Tim would steal softly off his board, and closer and closer to her till he could let the weary little head rest against his breast, kneeling there in some horribly uncomfortable position until the short dose was over, and the child would once more start into wakefulness, to gaze up in a frightened way in his face. Then, seeing who held her, she would smile, and close her heavy eyelids, nestling down closer and closer, within the open waistcoat, the little thin arms trying to clasp her protector tightly; Tim anxiously watching the while, with contracted brows, the painful catching of the child’s breath, and the spasms of pain that contracted her little features.