“Here’s a ’poon, Bonny!” she exclaimed; “here’s a ’poon! ’Et me have it, Bonny.”
“No, that’s not a spoon, miss; and I can’t make out for the life of me whatever it can be. I’ve a seed a many queer things, but I never seed the likes of that afore. Ah, take care, miss, or you’ll cut your fingers!”
For Polly, with a most resolute air, had scrambled to the top of an old brown jar (the salvage from some shipwreck) which stood beneath the window-sill, and thence with a gallant sprawl she reached and clutched the shining implement which she wanted to eat her stew with. The boy was surprised to see her lift it with her fat brown fingers, and hold it tightly without being cut or stung, as he expected. For he had a wholesome fear of this thing, and had set it up as a kind of fetish, his mind (like every other) requiring something to bow down to. For the manner of his finding it first, and then its presentment in the mouth of Jack, added to the interest which its unknown meaning won for it.
With a laugh of triumph, the bow-legged maiden descended from her dangerous height, and paying no heed to all Bonny’s treasures, waddled away with her new toy, either to show it to her father, or to plunge it into the stewpot perhaps. But her careful host, with an iron spoon and a saucer in his hands, ran after her, and gently guided her to the crock, whither also Mr. Bottler sped. This was as it should be; and they found it so. For when the boy Bonny, with a hospitable sweep, lifted the cover of his cookery, a sense of that void which all nature protests against rose in the forefront of all three, and forebade them to seek any further. Bottler himself, in the stress of the moment, let the distant vision fade—of fried potatoes and combed chittlings—and lapsed into that lowest treason to Lares and Penates—a supper abroad, when the supper at home is salted, and peppered, and browning.
But though Polly opened her mouth so wide, and smacked her lips, and made every other gratifying demonstration, not for one moment would she cede possession of the treasure she had found in Bonny’s window. Even while most absorbed in absorbing, she nursed it jealously on her lap; and even when her father had lit his pipe from Bonny’s bonfire, and was ready to hoist her again over the footboard, the child stuck fast to her new delight, and set up a sturdy yell when the owner came to reclaim it from her.
“Now don’t ’ee, don’t ’ee, that’s a dear,” began the gentle pork-butcher, as the pigs in the cart caught up the strain, and echo had enough to do; for Polly of course redoubled her wailings, as all little dears must, when coaxed to stop; “here, Bonny, here lad, I’ll gie thee sixpence for un, though her ain’t worth a penny, I doubt. And thou may’st call to-morrow, and the Misses ’ll gie thee a clot of sassages.”
Bonny looked longingly at his fetish; but gratitude and true love got the better of veneration. Polly, moreover, might well be trusted to preserve this idol, until in the day when he made his own, it should return into his bosom. And so it came to pass that this Palladium of the hermitage was set up at the head of Polly Bottler’s little crib, and installed in the post of her favourite doll.
