A Flat Iron for a Farthing; or, Some Passages in the Life of an only SonEwing, Juliana Horatia
General
A Flat Iron for a Farthing; or, Some Passages in the Life of an only Son
Ewing, Juliana Horatia
Boys -- Juvenile fiction; Children's stories
So this last of the St. John family was a boy. If the little ladies
were his sisters, both must be dead; if not, I did not know who they
were. I felt very angry with the housekeeper for her sulky reticence.
I was also not highly pleased by her manner of treating me, for she
evidently took me for one of the Sunday-school boys. I fear it was
partly a shabby pride on this point which led me to "tip" her with
half-a-crown on my own account when we were taking leave. In a moment
she became civil to slavishness, hoped I had enjoyed myself, and
professed her willingness to show me anything about the place any day
when there were not so "many of them school children crowging and
putting a body out, sir. There's such a many common people comes,
sir," she added, "I'm quite wored out, and having no need to be in
service, and all my friends a-begging of me to leave. I only stays to
oblige Mr. St. John."
It was, I think, chiefly in the way I had of thinking aloud that I
said, more to myself than to her, "I'm sure I don't know what makes
him keep you, you do it so very badly. But perhaps you're
respectable."
The half-crown had been unexpected, and this blow fairly took away her
breath. Before her rage found words, we were gone.
I did not fail to call on Mr. and Mrs. Buckle. The shop looked just
the same as when I was there with Mrs. Bundle. One would have said
those were the very rolls of leather that used to stand near the door.
The good people were delighted to see me, and proud to be introduced
to Mr. Andrewes and my tutor. I had brought some little presents with
me, both from myself and Nurse Bundle, which gave great satisfaction.
"And where is Jemima?" I asked, as I sat nursing an imposing-looking
parcel addressed to her, which was a large toilette pincushion made
and ready furnished with pins for her by Mrs. Bundle herself.
"Now, did you ever!" cried Mrs. Buckle in her old style; "to think of
the young gentleman's remembering our Jemima, and she married to Jim
Espin the tinsmith this six months past."
So to the tinsmith's I went, and Jemima was, as she expressed it,
"that pleased she didn't know where to put herself," by my visit. She
presented me with a small tin lantern on which I had made some remark,
and which pleased me well. I saw the drawer of farthing wares also,
and might have had a flat iron had I been so minded; but I was too old
now to want it for a plaything, and too young yet to take it as a
remembrance of the past.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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