Rats! exclaimed Sara, in horror. Are there rats there?
Lots of em, miss, Becky answered in quite a matter-of-fact manner. There mostly is rats an mice in attics. You gets used to the noise they makes scuttling about. Ive got so I dont mind em s long as they dont run over my piller.
Ugh! said Sara.
You gets used to anythin after a bit, said Becky. You have to, miss, if youre born a scullery-maid. Id rather have rats than cockroaches.
So would I, said Sara; I suppose you might make friends with a rat in time, but I dont believe I should like to make friends with a cockroach.
Sometimes Becky did not dare to spend more than a few minutes in the bright, warm room, and when this was the case perhaps only a few words could be exchanged, and a small purchase slipped into the old-fashioned pocket Becky carried under her dress skirt, tied round her waist with a band of tape. The search for and discovery of satisfying things to eat which could be packed into small compass, added a new interest to Saras existence. When she drove or walked out, she used to look into shop windows eagerly. The first time it occurred to her to bring home two or three little meat-pies, she felt that she had hit upon a discovery. When she exhibited them, Beckys eyes quite sparkled.
Oh, miss! she murmured. Them will
be nice an fillin. Its fillinness thats best. Sponge-cakes a evingly thing, but it melts away like if you understand, miss. Thesell just stay in yer stummick.
Well, hesitated Sara, I dont think it would be good if they stayed always, but I do believe they will be satisfying.
They were satisfying, and so were beef sandwiches, bought at a cook-shop, and so were rolls and Bologna sausage. In time, Becky began to lose her hungry, tired feeling, and the coal-box did not seem so unbearably heavy.
However heavy it was, and whatsoever the temper of the cook, and the hardness of the work heaped upon her shoulders, she had always the chance of the afternoon to look forward to the chance that Miss Sara would be able to be in her sitting-room. In fact, the mere seeing of Miss Sara would have been enough without meat-pies. If there was time only for a few words, they were always friendly, merry words that put heart into one; and if there was time for more, then there was an instalment of a story to be told, or some other thing one remembered afterward and sometimes lay awake in ones bed in the attic to think over. Sara who was only doing what she unconsciously liked better than anything else, Nature having made her for a giver had not the least idea what she meant to poor Becky, and how wonderful a benefactor she seemed. If Nature has made you for a giver, your hands are born open, and so is your heart; and though there may be times when your hands are empty, your heart is always full, and you can give things out of that warm things, kind things, sweet things, help and comfort and laughter, and sometimes gay, kind laughter is the best help of all.
Becky had scarcely known what laughter was through all her poor, little hard-driven life. Sara made her laugh, and laughed with her; and, though neither of them quite knew it, the laughter was as fillin as the meat-pies.
A few weeks before Saras eleventh birthday a letter came to her from her father, which did not seem to be written in such boyish high spirits as usual. He was not very well, and was evidently overweighted by the business connected with the diamond-mines.
You see, little Sara, he wrote, your daddy is not a business man at all, and figures and documents bother him. He does not really understand them, and all this seems so enormous. Perhaps, if I was not feverish I should not be awake, tossing about, one half of the night and spend the other half in troublesome dreams. If my little missus were here, I dare say she would give me some solemn, good advice. You would, wouldnt you, little missus?
One of his many jokes had been to call her his little missus because she had such an old-fashioned air.
He had made wonderful preparations for her birthday. Among other things, a new doll had been ordered in Paris, and her wardrobe was to be, indeed, a marvel of splendid perfection. When she had replied to the letter asking her if the doll would be an acceptable present, Sara had been very quaint.
I am getting very old, she wrote; you see, I shall never live to have another doll given me. This will be my last doll. There is something solemn about it. If I could write poetry, I am sure a poem about A Last Doll would be very nice. But I cannot write poetry. I have tried, and it made me laugh. It did not sound like Watts or Coleridge or Shakespeare at all. No one could ever take Emilys place, but I should respect the Last Doll very much; and I am sure the school would love it. They all like dolls, though some of the big ones the almost fifteen ones pretend they are too grown up.
Captain Crewe had a splitting headache when he read this letter in his bungalow in India. The table before him was heaped with papers and letters which were alarming him and filling him with anxious dread, but he laughed as he had not laughed for weeks.