Young Peggy McQueen

by Gordon Stables

Nobody in his senses would think of denying this.

But Peggy wanted to have pretty arms and pretty feet and legs as well, and this was the reason she was astir so early. She put on her sandals now, and placed a very roguish and bewitching Tam o’ Shanter on the back of her head. It was a tartan-rimmed Tammy, with a crimson feather in it which had been dropped from the tail of her favourite parrot. Then she stepped lightly over Ralph, cautiously opened the back door a few inches, and peeped out.

Not a soul stirring in the camp: the large caravan stood not far off, but the blinds were still drawn. The white tent in which the giant slept was not yet opened. Under the caravan was a bundle of straw, and in a blanket-lined sack thereon was wee Willie Randolph, the dwarf, nothing out but his small white face and one arm, the latter placed affectionately round Dan, the lurcher dog. Dan was a person of some importance to the camp, for many a hare and rabbit, and many a fat hedgehog did he supply for the larder.

Behind, and stretching away and away to the wooded hills on the horizon, was a forest of oak and beech and pine trees, with clumps of larch, now clad in the tender greens of spring, and o’erhung with crimson tassels. Making sure, first, that no one was astir, and that Willie was as sound asleep as everybody else, Peggy closed the door carefully behind her, and tripped lightly and gaily down the back steps. She wanted to sing to herself, but dared not just yet. She would do so, however, as soon as she got well into the shadow of the woods, because every bird therein was singing its matinée, and adding its quota to swell the sylvan music of this lovely May morning.

Now and then there would come a strange panic in the wild bird medley, presently to be broken by the melodious fluting of the blackbird or the joy notes of a nightingale, then at once and in all its strength the feathered choir commenced again. So bright was the sunshine, so dark the shadows under the trees, that Peggy could not see a single songster, nor even tell to a certainty the direction from which any particular bird-note rang out. The music was all about and around her, and she was fain now to lift up her happy treble voice and join the chorus.

She went wandering on for a while, unheeding and unheeded. No one had seen the girl leave the camp except the ancient, warty-faced rook who came very early every morning to seek for his breakfast near the tent. He had not flown away when she appeared. He just said “Caw—caw—caw!” in a very hoarse voice, which meant “Good-morning, Peggy, and happy I am to see you!” A dormouse had peeped drowsily out from a hole among the grass when he heard her footsteps, but, seeing who it was, he had merely rubbed his nose and gone on eating his earth-worm.

But presently Peggy came to a green glade or clearing, quite surrounded by spruce trees, with, in the centre, a pool fed by the water of a tiny purling brook, with crimson wildflowers growing here and there on its banks. The water in the pool was not deep, and so clear was it that Peggy could easily see the sandy bottom, where strange, black, glittering beetles played at hide-and-seek, and where the caddis-worm rolled in its jacket of many-coloured gravel.

This was just the secluded glade that Peggy had come to seek. She seated herself on the bank, and taking off her sandals, plunged her legs up to the knees into the cool water. Then she laved her face, her shoulders, and her arms. These were all of the same colour—a light Italian tan—but the rose-tints shimmered through this tan on her innocent and sweetly pretty face. Taking from her pocket a dainty little towel, she now carefully dried herself.

Then, laughing in her healthful glee, she skipped playfully over to a spot where the grass was long and tender and green, and threw herself boldly among it. The dewy blades brushed cheeks and neck, her arms and legs, and dimpled hands and knees.

She felt as fresh now as the clear-skinned, speckled trout in the streamlet, and as happy as the rose-linnet that sang on a golden furze bush near her. She must not wipe the dew off, though. Oh, no, that would have broken the spell and spoiled the charm. In the sun she stood, therefore, and danced and sang till dry.