In Homespun | Page 8

hear if I say
more than two words to you. If you've thought of anything that's to be
of any use, get along to the church porch, and I'll be with you as soon
as I can get these things through the rinse-water and out on the line.'
'But,' he says in a whisper, 'just let me into the parlour for five minutes,
to have a look round and see what the rest of the bowl is like.'
Then I thought of all the stories I had heard of pedlars' packs, and a
married lady taken unexpectedly, and tricks like that to get into the
house when no one was about. So I thought--
'Well, if you are to go in, I must go in with you,' and I squeezed my
hands out of the suds, and rolled them into my apron and went in, and
him after me.
You never see a man go on as he did. It's my belief he was hours in that
room, going round and round like a squirrel in a cage, picking up first
one bit of trumpery and then another, with two fingers and a thumb, as
carefully as if it had been a tulle bonnet just home from the draper's,
and setting everything down on the very exact spot he took them up
from.
More than once I thought that I had entertained a loony unawares, when
I saw him turn up the cups and plates and look twice as long at the
bottoms of them as he had at the pretty parts that were meant to show,
and all the time he kept saying--'Unique, by Gad, perfectly unique!' or
'Bristol, as I'm a sinner,' and when he came to the large blue dish that
stands at the back of the bureau, I thought he would have gone down on
his knees to it and worshipped it.
'Square-marked Worcester!' he said to himself in a whisper, speaking
very slowly, as if the words were pleasant in his mouth,
'Square-marked Worcester--an eighteen-inch dish!'
I had as much trouble getting him out of that parlour as you would have
getting a cow out of a clover-patch, and every minute I was afraid aunt
would hear him, or hear the china rattle or something; but he never
rattled a bit, bless you, but was as quiet as a mouse, and as for
carefulness he was like a woman with her first baby. I didn't dare ask
him anything for fear he should answer too loud, and by-and-by he
went up to the church porch and waited for me.

He had a brown-paper parcel with him, a big one, and I thought to
myself, 'Suppose he's brought his bowl and is wishful to sell it.' I got
those things through the blue-water pretty quick, I can tell you. I often
wish I could get a maid who would work as fast as I used to when I was
a girl. Then I ran up and asked aunt if she could spare me to run down
to the shop for some sago, and I put on my sunbonnet and ran up, just
as I was, to the church porch. The old gentleman was skipping with
impatience. I've heard of people skipping with impatience, but I never
saw any one do it before.
'Now, look here,' he said, 'I want you--I must--oh, I don't know which
way to begin, I have so many things to say. I want to see your aunt, and
ask her to let me buy her china.'
'You may save your trouble,' I said, 'for she'll never do it. She's left her
china to me in her will,' I said.
Not that I was quite sure of it, but still I was sure enough to say so. The
old gentleman put down his brown-paper parcel on the porch seat as
careful as if it had been a sick child, and said--
'But your aunt won't leave you anything if she knows you have broken
the bowl, will she?'
'No,' I said, 'she won't, that's true, and you can tell her if you like.' For I
knew very well he wouldn't.
'Well,' says he, speaking very slowly, 'if I lent you my bowl, you could
pretend it's hers and she'll never know the difference, for they are as
like as two peas. I can tell the difference, of course, but then I'm a
collector. If I lend you the bowl, will you promise and vow in writing,
and sign it with your name, to sell all that china to me directly it comes
into your possession? Good gracious, girl, it will be hundreds of
pounds in your pocket.'
That was a sad moment for me. I might have taken the bowl and
promised and vowed,