“Yes,” said the old woman; “I will try what you can do; but I must go up the hill along with you for the first two or three times, for fear you should get yourselves hurt.”
So, the next day, the little boy and girl went with their grandmother, as they used to call her, up the steep hill; and she showed the boy how to prevent the wheels from rolling back, by putting stones behind them; and she said, “This is called scotching the wheels;” and she took off the boy’s hat and gave it to the little girl, to hold up to the carriage-windows, ready for the halfpence.
When she thought that the children knew how to manage by themselves, she left them, and returned to her spinning-wheel. A great many carriages happened to go by this day, and the little girl received a great many halfpence. She carried them all in her brother’s hat to her grandmother in the evening; and the old woman smiled, and thanked the children. She said that they had been useful to her, and that her spinning had gone on finely, because she had been able to sit still at her wheel all day. “But, Paul my boy,” said she, “what is the matter with your hand?”
“Only a pinch—only one pinch that I got, as I was putting a stone behind a wheel of a chaise. It does not hurt me much, grandmother; and I’ve thought of a good thing for to-morrow. I shall never be hurt again, if you will only be so good as to give me the old handle of the broken crutch, grandmother, and the block of wood that lies in the chimney-corner, and that is of no use. I’ll make it of some use, if I may have it.”
“Take it then, dear,” said the old woman; “and you’ll find the handle of the broken crutch under my bed.”
Paul went to work immediately, and fastened one end of the pole into the block of wood, so as to make something like a dry-rubbing brush. “Look, grandmamma, look at my scotcher. I call this thing my scotcher,” said Paul, “because I shall always scotch the wheels with it. I shall never pinch my fingers again; my hands, you see, will be safe at the end of this long stick; and, sister Anne, you need not be at the trouble of carrying any more stones after me up the hill; we shall never want stones any more. My scotcher will do without anything else, I hope. I wish it was morning, and that a carriage would come, that I might run up the hill, and try my scotcher.”
“And I wish that as many chaises may go by to-morrow as there did to-day, and that we may bring you as many halfpence, grandmother,” said the little girl.
“So do I, my dear Anne,” said the old woman; “for I mean that you and your brother shall have all the money that you get to-morrow. You may buy some gingerbread for yourselves, or some of those ripe plums that you saw at the fruit-stall the other day, which is just going into Dunstable. I told you then that I could not afford to buy such things for you; but now that you can earn halfpence for yourselves, children, it is fair should taste a ripe plum and bit of gingerbread for once and a way in your lives.”
“We’ll bring some of the gingerbread home to her, shan’t we, brother?” whispered little Anne. The morning came; but no carriages were heard, though Paul and his sister had risen at five o’clock, that they might be sure to be ready for early travellers. Paul kept his scotcher poised upon his shoulder, and watched eagerly at his station at the bottom of the hill. He did not wait long before a carriage came. He followed it up the hill; and the instant the postillion called to him, and bid him stop the wheels, he put his scotcher behind them, and found that it answered the purpose perfectly well.
Many carriages went by this day, and Paul and Anne received a great many halfpence from the travellers.