“Thy head grows dull, Philip, from sitting so much in the house. Go now an’ have a run with Dash in the fresh air.”
And sometimes when Philip would be loath to leave his book, his mother would shake her head more decidedly, and perhaps push him gently out of the house, closing the door behind him; while Philip, knowing that it was only love which prompted her seeming harshness, would shake himself out of his dreamy mood, and cry, “Come, Dash, mother is right; let’s have a race. One, two, three! Go!” And away they would both scamper.
Chapter III
Philip’s Mother
THE winter that Dash came to the cottage where Philip lived with his mother and grandfather was a very long and hard one. A great political crisis had, in some mysterious way, affected the price of coal; there were long weeks when only half the usual number of men were employed in the mines, and this meant that many little children in the miners’ cottages went often supperless to bed, while the men would gather in groups in the street and talk gloomily of the hard times, which seemed to offer little hope of improvement. There was much illness in the town, too; a season of unusual rain and fog, less fire than usual to keep the chill out of the houses, and constitutions weakened by anxiety and lack of food made ready a fertile soil for the fever which attacked and carried off many scores of victims, especially among the little children and the aged; the good village doctor was kept busy day and night, and his old-fashioned hooded phaeton, with its patient old gray horse which all the children in the village knew and petted, might be seen constantly going back and forth from house to house, sometimes until quite late into the night.
Mag was one of the few who had steady work, but her wages had been reduced one-half, and with all her clever management it was sometimes difficult to keep the little household warmed and fed. Philip’s earnings had ceased altogether, and although he had more time above-ground, yet he would gladly have exchanged this unaccustomed freedom for the toil which would have brought a few extra comforts into their little home. It made his tender heart ache, too, to see the lines of anxiety grow each day deeper on the faces of Mag and his grandfather; often when he was playing with Dash he would find his mother’s eyes fastened upon them both, with a sad intensity which would sometimes lead him to run to her and put his little arms close about her neck, whispering:
“Don’t worry, mother dear; God will take care of us.” And on these occasions Dash would always join the group, thrusting his cold nose into their faces, and making it so evident that he shared their distress that they would laugh in spite of themselves at his awkward efforts to express his affection and sympathy.
Dearly as he loved her, Philip stood in awe of his silent mother, and he used sometimes to wonder in his childish way why it was that even when work had been plenty and wages high she was still so sad and grave, so unlike her noisy, gossipy neighbors, who he noticed used sometimes to shake their heads as though in kindly pity when she passed their doors on her way to work. Philip had heard the miners, too, say as they looked after her retreating figure:
“Poor lass! Poor Maggie!”