“Don’t sweep any dust into the corners,” said her mother; and she left Merrimeg in the kitchen, and went into the front room to make the beds.
Merrimeg swept and swept with her little broom, and she made up a little song and sang it out loud, keeping time with the broom.
Every little while her mother would call to her from the next room and say,——
“Have you finished yet, Merrimeg?”
“Not yet, mother!” Merrimeg would say, and then she would go on with her sweeping and singing.
She was very happy, but this wasn’t her day to be good; for she was in a great hurry to be out in the garden in the sunshine, and she forgot all about what her mother had said to her; so instead of wasting time on the dustpan, she swept all the dust into the nice clean fireplace, a very large fireplace, big enough to roast a pig in. An iron pot was hanging there, but there wasn’t any fire, and her mother had just cleaned off the hearth so that it was as spotless as new brick.
She swept the dust from under the table and chairs, and out of the corners, and everywhere. And every single bit of the dust she swept into the fireplace, and piled it up at the back on the clean bricks, out of sight. And all the while she kept on singing.
She was stooping down into the fireplace, with her head right at the back, under the chimney, when her mother called to her from the next room and said,——
“Have you finished now, Merrimeg?”