The Political “Mrs. Gummidge.”
A “Dickens” of a Situation.
Mrs. Gummidge-Gladstone had been in a low state for some time, and had almost burst into tears when a chill gust from the North, coming suddenly, and—to her—unexpectedly down the chimney, had blown the lid off the bubbling saucepan, and the soot into the stew therein.
“I am a much-crossed cretur’,” were Mrs. Gummidge’s words, when that unpleasant occurrence took place, “and everythink goes contrairy with me.”
“Oh, it’ll soon leave off,” said Mr. Peggotty-Bull—meaning the North wind,—“and besides, you know, it’s not more disagreeable to you than it is to us.”
“I feel it more,” said Mrs. Gummidge-Gladstone.
It was indeed a very cold, cheerless day, with cutting blasts of wind, which seemed to blow from every quarter at once, but from the North and East for choice, Mrs. Gummidge’s peculiar corner of the fireside seemed—to her at least—to be the chilliest and most uncomfortable, as her seat was certainly the hardest. She complained of the North-Easter, and of its visitation just at this time and at her back, which she said gave her the “creeps.”
“It is certainly very uncomfortable,” said Mr. Peggotty-Bull. “Everybody must feel it so.”
“I feel it more than other people,” said Mrs. Gummidge.
So at dinner. The fish—from which she had expected great things—were small and bony, and the stew was smoky and burnt. All acknowledged that they felt this something of a disappointment, but Mrs. Gummidge said she felt it more than they did, and again made that former declaration with great bitterness—“I’m a much-crossed cretur’, and every think goes contrairy with me.”