Dickory Dock | Page 4

the two children crept back to their beds, and Flossy cried herself
to sleep.
{The Sleeping Baby: p20.jpg}
CHAPTER II.
'You must answer me this question very decidedly, ma'am: am I to go,
or the baby? Is my night's sleep to be again disturbed by the peevish
wails of a troublesome infant? I must know at once, madam, what you
intend to do? Miss Jenkins, over the way, has offered me her front
parlour with the bedroom behind, and her terms are lower than yours.
You have but to say the word, ma'am, and my bed will be well aired,
and the room at Miss Jenkins's all comfortable for me to-night. I don't
want you to turn that infant away, oh dear me! no, but I must decide my
own plans; stay in the house with a baby, and have my sleep broken, I
will not!'
The speaker was Mr Martin. He had come into Mrs Franklin's little
back parlour and expressed his mind very freely. The poor woman was
standing up and regarding her best lodger with a puzzled and almost
despairing air. She did not know that Flossy had crept into the room
and was hiding herself behind her chair, and that Flossy's little face had
grown even more white and despairing than her own.
'Give me until to-night, sir,' she said. 'Mrs Potts has also been in and
complaining about the poor child. She's an orphan child, and my
husband's niece, but we are in no way bound to support her. I would not
treat her badly, sir, but there are limits; and, of course, as you say, your
night's sleep must not be broken. Rather than that should happen, Mr
Martin, I would send the child to the workhouse, for, of course, she has
no legal claim on us. If you will be so kind, sir, as to give me until

to-morrow morning, I will then let you know what I have decided to do
with the baby, and I faithfully promise that you are not to be disturbed
to-night, sir.'
'That is all right,' said Mr Martin, with a mollified air. 'Of course it is
not to be expected that an old bachelor such as I am should be worried
by an infant's screams. The screams of a baby have to me an appalling
sound. Do what you think well with the child, ma'am, and let me know
in the morning; only I may as well state that I think the workhouse an
extreme measure.'
Then Mr Martin left the house. Mrs Franklin followed him out of the
room, and Flossy crept slowly back to the nursery.
Mrs Franklin did not notice her little daughter, and Flossy did not
venture to address her mother. She came into the room where Peter and
Snip-snap were doing their utmost for the baby. Peter had her in his
arms, and was walking up and down with her, and Snip-snap was
bounding after a ball and tossing it into the air for her benefit.
'She's to go, Peter,' said Flossy. 'I guessed it--I guessed it quite well last
night. She's to go away to the workhouse--that's what mother said; I
heard her telling Mr Martin so.'
'She's not!' said Peter. He turned very pale, and, still holding the child
in his arms, sat down on the nearest chair.
It is to be doubted whether this poor neglected baby had ever been
christened. The children had given her a name of their own; they had
called her Dickory Dock. The reason they had given her this distinctive
title was because the first amusement which had brought a smile to her
little face had been the old play of Dickory Dock and the mouse that
ran up the clock.
'She said it,' repeated Flossy, coming up close to her brother, and fixing
her anxious eyes on the baby. 'She said that our Dickory was to go to
the workhouse.'

'Well then, she shan't!' said Peter. 'I know nothing about workhouses,
but I expect they are very nasty places, and Dickory shan't go there!'
Then he sat silent, his arm round the little child, who looked up at him
and then back at Flossy, and then smiled in that wonderfully pathetic
way she had.
'Look here, Flossy,' said Peter, 'if you are quite certain sure that mother
said the workhouse, that she didn't say nothing about Dickory Dock
being put to sleep in another room, or maybe down in the kitchen--if
you are quite positive about the workhouse, Flossy, why, I know what
I'll do.'
'She did say the workhouse,' answered Flossy; 'I heard her with my own
ears, and Mr Martin said it was a stream measure. I don't know what he
meant by that, but I do know that mother said the