It certainly wasn’t very easy talking to Tiza. Milly thought she’d better try something else.
“Tiza,” she began timidly, “do your father and mother tell you stories when it rains?”
“Naw,” said Tiza, in a very astonished voice, throwing down her pinafore to stare at Milly.
“Then what do you do, Tiza, when it rains?”
“Nothing,” said Tiza. “We has our dinners and tea, and sometimes Becky minds the baby and sometimes I do, and father mostly goes to sleep.”
“Tiza,” said Milly hurriedly, “did you mean pussy to jump into the saucepan?”
Up went Tiza’s pinafore again, and Milly was in dismay because she thought she had made Tiza cry; but to her great surprise Tiza suddenly burst into such fits of laughter, that she nearly tumbled off the cherry tree. “Oh, she did jump so, and the mug made such a rattling! And when she comed out there was just a little bit of carrot sticking to her nose, and her tail was all over cabbage leaf. Oh, she did look funny!”
Milly couldn’t help laughing too, till she remembered all that Mrs. Backhouse had been saying.
“Oh, but, Tiza, Mrs. Backhouse says your father won’t have anything for his supper. Aren’t you sorry you spoilt his supper?”
“Yis,” said Tiza, quickly. “I know father’ll beat me, he said he would next time I vexed mother.”