d.i.c.kon did not like to pull them down; he was not sure even yet that mother wanted to be packed.

"Pile'm down, d.i.c.kon!" commanded 'Lisbeth, and d.i.c.kon piled them down.

"Hadn't you better fix some before you get more?"

"I'll fix 'm when I get 'm all down here."

"What? are you going to get all the dishes and--"

"Go on I tell you, d.i.c.kon Lillibun! will you go on?"

d.i.c.kon went on; so did 'Lisbeth.

There was no place to walk, there was no place to sit down, there was scarcely place to stand; there was no place to put anything, there was scarcely anything more to put. Everything was pulled out, and heaped about, and 'Lisbeth stood in the middle of them.

"Now, d.i.c.kon, this does look like doing something, don't it?"

d.i.c.kon thought it did, d.i.c.kon capered over everything and started for the door.

"Do not go!" commanded 'Lisbeth. "Do not go! do not dare to go!"

But d.i.c.kon was gone.

"d.i.c.kon!" called 'Lisbeth over the railings, "d.i.c.kon!" But d.i.c.kon was out of sight and hearing.

"Oh that dreadful d.i.c.kon!" moaned 'Lisbeth, as she fluttered down the stairs to bring him back.

Had d.i.c.kon never stopped work, had d.i.c.kon never run away, had 'Lisbeth never fluttered after him, things might have been different. I say they might have been, because, as I explained before, n.o.body could be quite sure as to what might or might not have been concerning 'Lisbeth; I say therefore that they might have been different. As it was d.i.c.kon did run away, and 'Lisbeth did flutter after him, and, as she went, she thought of a plan she had not been able to think of while sitting on the three-legged stool with her face to the wall--she thought of a plan to get money.

'Lisbeth forgot that she was fluttering after d.i.c.kon; she forgot that d.i.c.kon had gone at all; she forgot everything but that she had thought of a plan to get money. She forgot about d.i.c.kon, but kept on running faster and faster until she was red in the face and out of breath.

"Please, sir," said 'Lisbeth, gasping for breath, and rushing up to a little spare man in a little spare coat, who lived in the dirty old cellar of the sixth house from 'Lisbeth's, and bought paper and rags; "please, sir, come dreadful quick!"

"How?" screamed the little man; "how?"

He meant to say "What for? please tell me what is the matter?" but he said "How?"

"With your feet! Fast, dreadful fast," gasped 'Lisbeth. No wonder she gasped for breath, she had come faster and faster from the top of the house to the cellar of the sixth house below, without even taking time to think; she did not stop afterward to think.

"My feet? My feet?"

"Please to come! oh, please to come!" pleaded 'Lisbeth, fairly dancing up and down.

"My hat, my hat! oh, my hat!" pleaded the little man, turning and twisting all about; "my hat! my hat!"

"Please to come! never mind no hat!" begged 'Lisbeth, half going, half staying, and still trying to catch her breath.

"Oh, my head, my head!" almost sobbed the little man, holding his two hands over his head as he ran after 'Lisbeth, going faster and faster with every step.

"My! my! oh my!" gasped the poor little man, still holding his head with his two hands, and taking hard, short breaths, as he went up one flight of stairs after another, and bobbed himself forward to try to catch a glimpse of 'Lisbeth and see that he was really following the right way and getting in the right door.

"My! my! oh my!"

He said it over again when he had bobbed his head in the right door.

"Vat has happened? vat has happened? oh my! my! vat has happened?"

"It has not happened at all; it would a' happened if you had waited for a hat."

"Vat? vat?--my! my! my!--vat?"

"Mother would a' come, and then she mightn't let me sold her pots and kettles and dishes 'stead of packing 'm up," said 'Lisbeth, puffing hard for breath. "Please to buy 'm quicker 'n anything."

The little man did not choke; he only looked as if he was going to.

'Lisbeth flew toward him and gave him a crack on the back, she thought that might do him good, but it did not help the matter at all; he looked more like choking than ever. 'Lisbeth seized a dipper; she did not mean to do anything unmannerly, she did not indeed, but she gave him a mouthful of water so suddenly and quickly that the little man choked, and perhaps it was best he should.

I shall always think it was best he should, not that the little man was bad, or thinking about being bad, only that he was in danger of getting to be bad if he had never been so before; he was in danger of doing a wrong thing; in danger of buying a very great deal for a very little price. I did not say he was bad enough to do it, only it was best he choked, and kept choked long enough for 'Lisbeth's mother to come tripping up stairs with a new bundle and a little money, and a light heart, considering all things--for was she not going to begin right away to save up and to get back to the old house, the old home, in a month or two?

As the little man stayed choked until after 'Lisbeth's mother had tripped to the door, and tossed away her bundle, and held up her hands, and implored to be told what was the matter, I shall never be able to say certainly that he was an honest little man, but I shall always believe that he was, and that it had been the thought of so much wickedness that almost choked him before he had the crack on the back or the mouthful from the dipper. You would have choked, or almost choked, of course you would. The astonishing part was that 'Lisbeth did not choke herself, but she never thought of such a thing, she only said, when her mother asked her what was the matter, "Nothing's the matter at all; but I'm most dreadful sorry you come just at this important minute; I was going to s'prise you with some cash straight off short, and the man must just fall to choking before I could get a living thing sold."

Another surprising thing is that the mother did not choke, but she did not. Perhaps the reason was because she did not want to; the little man looked uncomfortable and he had been choking. At any rate she did not choke.

If the little man had not looked so uncomfortable, and ready to get away, the mother might have fastened the door, and shouted fire, and armed with the tongs, and screamed for help, and startled the house, and frightened the street, and added confusion to confusion, but she only pulled the door open on a bigger crack to let him run out and down the stairs, holding his hands over his head and gasping, "My! my! my! my head!"

CHAPTER XIV.

All that the mother did after the little man was gone I shall not pretend to say. I was not there at the time. Had I been there I would have been obliged to stand with my feet outside and my head within; how could I have had both head and feet within when there was no room to stand? But I was not there, and never have been sorry that I was not.

You are not sorry that you were not there? Of course you are not.

'Lisbeth would have been glad not to have been there, I suppose; the mother herself would have been more comfortable somewhere else, even if it had been in the street tugging home her bundle of clothes to be sewed. I was not there at the time, but I am certain that, by the next morning, the dishes stood in rows, the pans hung on the hooks; the jars and jams, and pots and kettles, and skillets, and spiders, and spoons, and dippers, and rollers, and beaters, and boilers, and broilers, and bundles, and boxes, and baskets, and things of all names and all sizes were sleeping as sweetly as such necessities ever sleep, in the cupboards and closets and dangling from the hooks, and the mother was putting in her needle and pulling it out, and n.o.body would have imagined that things had ever been otherwise.

Yet things had been otherwise; we all know they had. Things might have been otherwise still had not 'Lisbeth's mother been a very decided mother; a mother who knew how things should be and how they should not be, and how little children should do and how they should not do, and how to get disordered things back into order as they should be, and children who were doing as they should not, for a little while at least, to do as they should.

She said to 'Lisbeth, as she stood with her two feet on the two places where the little man had stood: "'Lisbeth, you are a very hindering child!"

Had she said anything else, anything else at all, 'Lisbeth would not have felt it so much, she would not have been so entirely lifted out of herself, out of her own opinion, and made to see herself where her mother put her, back in the right place where every naughty child should be put as soon as possible.

'Lisbeth gasped for breath. She looked fiercely up at her mother, and down at the floor; she looked within herself, and at the ugly picture of herself which her mother had just showed her. She saw that the picture was like her, that she was "a hindering child." It was a blow she was not prepared for. Had her mother said anything more immediately 'Lisbeth would not have seen so well that the mother's words were true; but she did not say any more immediately. She stood perfectly still with her feet in the two places where the little man's feet had been.

'Lisbeth was very uncomfortable when she heard those words repeated; indeed she was very angry; she looked just as naughty as naughty could be; she looked like a girl who was cross because somebody was doing something very wrong to her. Then she did not look as naughty as naughty could be, she looked disappointed and sorry, and repentant, and humble, and this was because she saw that she was "a hindering child."

At first she believed that she was a helping, comforting child, now she saw that she was not. She saw it as we sometimes see a flash of lightning. 'Lisbeth did not mean to be "a hindering child," but she was one.

"Why am I a hindering child?" inquired 'Lisbeth when she could catch her breath.

"Because you work by your own head instead of by mine," said the mother as she put one foot and then the other forward among the pots and kettles. But 'Lisbeth stood still in the middle of the floor considering what her mother meant, and if what she said was true, and if she was always to work the wrong way instead of the right way, like an engine which will run back instead of forward; and how long she might have stood considering, and how long she might have worn such a troubled face, and how long she might have felt such a lump in her throat, had not her mother come and stood before her, clearing a place for her feet as she came, I shall never pretend to say.