“I beg pardon, m’m,” she said. “I wish I’d known you was comin’. Thursday is a busy day with us.”
“So I see,” responded Mrs Spencer, suffering her eyes to wander over the woman’s figure, and thence towards the corner of the garden, where she could see some dingy-looking clothes hanging on the line. “Most people have finished their washing by Thursday, but you are evidently in the middle of yours.”
“Yes, m’m,” admitted Mrs Frisby, dolefully. “There, with all those childern, ye know, m’m, and Frisby coming in and making so much mess, ’tis hard to get on with the work.”
“It’s a curious thing,” remarked Mrs Spencer, “that you should prefer to empty your suds out of the front door—and do you find you get on quicker with your work if you read while you’re doing it?”
“Well ’m, I’m sure, m’m, I had but just sat down for a minute. Little Harry was a bit peevish, and I couldn’t let him cry—he chanced to prick his finger with a pin, ye see, m’m—”
“If there’d been a button there,” said Mrs Spencer, “or a hook and eye, that accident couldn’t have happened. And pray”—peering at the dreadful little book with her sharp eyes—“were you reading ‘Lady Selina’s Lover’ out loud to amuse the baby?”
During the confused pause which ensued, the little old lady made a leap across the muddy space, and, waving Mrs Frisby on one side, entered the house. Such a house! Dirty windows, a dirty floor, a grate which had not been cleaned for several days, and beneath which was such a pile of cinders and ashes that the fire would scarcely burn. Everything in the room was dusty, and in the very middle of the floor lay a pair of man’s muddy boots.
“I’m sure I beg your pardon, m’m,” said Mrs Frisby. “’Tis a dreadful untidy place for you to come into. Dear to be sure, just look at Frisby’s boots! He’ve left them there ever since last night, and I can’t get him to so much as clean a window for me.”
“Can’t you really?” said Mrs Spencer. “No, I don’t think I’ll sit down, thank you. So Frisby won’t clean the windows or put his boots on one side? Well, you know, there are some wives, Mrs Frisby, who would think it a little hard to ask their husbands to clean windows when he had been working all day, and who would even put away his boots if he did chance to leave them on the floor. The husband, after all, is the breadwinner. Frisby works very hard—I’ll say that for him—and he’s earning good wages, and is always ready to earn a little more by doing odd jobs after hours. Then, when he’s finished those, he has his allotment to see to, and the garden here, which would, I see, be very tidy if you did not allow your children to strew things all over the place.”
“I’m sure I’m always telling the childern not to throw their rubbish about,” said Mrs Frisby, tearfully, “but what am I to do? I can’t be indoor and out too. Frisby might very well see to the childern in the garden, I think, when I’m busy in the house.”