Annie Kilburn Part 28

She was vexed a little with his insensibility to the favour she meant the child, and she could not help trying to make him realise it. "I don't promise always to be the best guide, philosopher, and friend that Idella could have"--she took this light tone because she found herself afraid of him--"but I think I shall be a little improvement on some of her friends Over the Track. At least, if she wants my cat, she shall have it without fighting for it."

Mr. Peck looked up with question, and she went on to tell him of a struggle which she had seen one day between Idella and a small Irish boy for a kitten; it really belonged to the boy, but Idella carried it off.

The minister listened attentively. At the end: "Yes," he said, "that l.u.s.t of possession is something all but impossible, even with constant care, to root out of children. I have tried to teach Idella that nothing is rightfully hers except while she can use it; but it is hard to make her understand, and when she is with other children she forgets."

Annie could not believe at first that he was serious, and then she was disposed to laugh. "Really, Mr. Peck," she began, "I can't think it's so important that a little thing like Idella should be kept from coveting a kitten as that she should be kept from using naughty words and from scratching and biting."

"I know," Mr. Peck consented. "That is the usual way of looking at such things."

"It seems to me," said Annie, "that it's the common-sense way."

"Perhaps. But upon the whole, I don't agree with you. It is bad for the child to use naughty words and to scratch and bite; that's part of the warfare in which we all live; but it's worse for her to covet, and to wish to keep others from having."

"I don't wonder you find it hard to make her understand that."

"Yes, it's hard with all of us. But if it is ever to be easier we must begin with the children."

He was silent, and Annie did not say anything. She was afraid that she had not helped her cause. "At least," she finally ventured, "you can't object to giving Idella a little rest from the fray. Perhaps if she finds that she can get things without fighting for them, she'll not covet them so much."

"Yes," he said, with a dim smile that left him sad again, "there is some truth in that. But I'm not sure that I have the right to give her advantages of any kind, to lift her above the lot, the chance, of the least fortunate--"

"Surely, we are bound to provide for those of our own household," said Annie.

"Who are those of our own household?" asked the minister. "All mankind are those of our own household. These are my mother and my brother and my sister."

"Yes, I know," said Annie, somewhat eagerly quitting this difficult ground.

"But you can leave her with me at least till you get settled," she faltered, "if you don't wish it to be for longer."

"Perhaps it may not be for long," he answered, "if you mean my settlement in Hatboro'. I doubt," he continued, lifting his eyes to the question in hers, "whether I shall remain here."

"Oh, I hope you will," cried Annie. She thought she must make a pretence of misunderstanding him. "I supposed you were very much satisfied with your work here."

"I am not satisfied with myself in my work," replied the minister; "and I know that I am far from acceptable to many others in it."

"You are acceptable to those who are best able to appreciate you, Mr.

Peck," she protested, "and to people of every kind. I'm sure it's only a question of time when you will be thoroughly acceptable to all. I want you to understand, Mr. Peck," she added, "that I was shocked and ashamed the other night at your being tricked into countenancing a part of the entertainment you were promised should be dropped. I had nothing to do with it."

"It was very unimportant, after all," the minister said, "as far as I was concerned. In fact, I was interested to see the experiment of bringing the different grades of society together."

"It seems to me it was an utter failure," suggested Annie.

"Quite. But it was what I expected."

There appeared an uncandour in this which Annie could not let pa.s.s even if it imperilled her present object to bring up the matter of past contention.

"But when we first talked of the Social Union you opposed it because it wouldn't bring the different cla.s.ses together."

"Did you understand that? Then I failed to make myself clear. I wished merely to argue that the well-meaning ladies who suggested it were not intending a social union at all. In fact, such a union in our present condition of things, with its division of cla.s.ses, is impossible--as Mrs.

Munger's experiment showed--with the best will on both sides. But, as I said, the experiment was interesting, though unimportant, except as it resulted in heart-burning and offence."

They were on the same ground, but they had reached it from starting-points so opposite that Annie felt it very unsafe. In her fear of getting into some controversy with Mr. Peck that might interfere with her designs regarding Idella, she had a little insincerity in saying: "Mrs. Munger's bad faith in that was certainly unimportant compared with her part in poor Mr. Putney's misfortune. That was the worst thing; that's what I _can't_ forgive."

Mr. Peck said nothing to this, and Annie, somewhat daunted by his silence, proceeded. "I've had the satisfaction of telling her what I thought on both points. But Ralph--Mr. Putney--I hear, has escaped this time with less than his usual--"

She did not know what lady-like word to use for spree, and so she stopped.

Mr. Peck merely said, "He has shown great self-control;" and she perceived that he was not going to say more. He listened patiently to the reasons she gave for not having offered Mrs. Putney anything more than pa.s.sive sympathy at a time when help could only have c.u.mbered and kindness wounded her, but he made no sign of thinking them either necessary or sufficient. In the meantime he had not formally consented to Idella's remaining with her, and Annie prepared to lead back to that affair as artfully as she could.

"I really want you to believe, Mr. Peck, that I think very differently on _some_ points from what I did when we first talked about the Social Union, and I have you to thank for seeing things in a new light. And you needn't," she added lightly, "be afraid of my contaminating Idella's mind with any wicked ideas. I'll do my best to keep her from coveting kittens or property of any kind; though I've always heard my father say that civilisation was founded upon the instinct of owners.h.i.+p, and that it was the only thing that had advanced the world. And if you dread the danger of giving her advantages, as you say, or bettering her worldly lot," she continued, with a smile for his quixotic scruples, "why, I'll do my best to reduce her blessings to a minimum; though I don't see why the poor little thing shouldn't get some good from the inequalities that there always must be in the world."

"I am not sure there always must be inequalities in the world," answered the minister.

"There always have been," cried Annie.

"There always had been slavery, up to a certain time," he replied.

"Oh, but surely you don't compare the two!" Annie pleaded with what she really regarded as a kind of lunacy in the good man. "In the freest society, I've heard my father say, there is naturally an upward and downward tendency; a perfect level is impossible. Some must rise, and some must sink."

"But what do you mean by rising? If you mean in material things, in wealth and the power over others that it gives--"

"I don't mean that altogether. But there are other ways--in cultivation, refinement, higher tastes and aims than the great ma.s.s of people can have.

You have risen yourself, Mr. Peck."

"I have risen, as you call it," he said, with a meek sufferance of the application of the point to himself. "Those who rise above the necessity of work for daily bread are in great danger of losing their right relation to other men, as I said when we talked of this before."

A point had remained in Annie's mind from her first talk with Dr. Morrell.

"Yes; and you said once that there could be no sympathy between the rich and the poor--no real love--because they had not had the same experience of life. But how is it about the poor who become rich? They have had the same experience."

"Too often they make haste to forget that they were poor; they become hard masters to those they have left behind them. They are eager to identify themselves with those who have been rich longer than they. Some working-men who now see this clearly have the courage to refuse to rise. Miss Kilburn, why should I let you take my child out of the conditions of self-denial and self-help to which she was born?"

"I don't know," said Annie rather blankly. Then she added impetuously: "Because I love her and want her. I don't--I _won't_--pretend that it's for her sake. It's for _my_ sake, though I can take better care of her than you can. But I'm all alone in the world; I've neither kith nor kin; nothing but my miserable money. I've set my heart on the child; I must have her. At least let me keep her a while. I will be honest with you, Mr.

Peck. If I find I'm doing her harm and not good, I'll give her up. I should wish you to feel that she is yours as much as ever, and if you _will_ feel so, and come often to see her--I--I shall--be very glad, and--" she stopped, and Mr. Peck rose.

"Where is the child?" he asked, with a troubled air; and she silently led the way to the kitchen, and left him at the door to Idella and the Boltons.

When she ventured back later he was gone, but the child remained.

Half exultant and half ashamed, she promised herself that she really would be true as far as possible to the odd notions of the minister in her treatment of his child. When she undressed Idella for bed she noticed again the shabbiness of her poor little clothes. She went through the bureau that held her own childish things once more, but found them all too large for Idella, and too hopelessly antiquated. She said to herself that on this point at least she must be a law to herself.

She went down to see Mrs. Bolton. "Isn't there some place in the village where they have children's ready-made clothes for sale?" she asked.

"Mr. Gerrish's," said Mrs. Bolton briefly.

Annie shook her head, drawing in her breath. "I shouldn't want to go there.

Is there nowhere else?"

"There's a Jew place. They say he cheats."

"I dare say he doesn't cheat more than most Christians," said Annie, jumping from her chair. "I'll try the Jew place. I want you to come with me, Mrs. Bolton."

They went together, and found a dress that they both decided would fit Idella, and a hat that matched it.