Chapter 5 - Page 2

the postman, compelled the flowers in his window to stand erect
by tying them to sticks, so Tommy took two sticks from a bundle of
firewood, and splicing Elspeth's legs to them, held her upright against
the door with one hand. All he asked of her to-day was to remain in this
position after he said "One, two, three, four, _picture_!" and withdrew
his hand, but down she flopped every time, and he said, with scorn,

"You ain't got no genius: you has just talent."

But he had her in bed with the scratches nicely covered up before his
mother came home.

He tried another plan with more success. Lost dogs, it may be
remembered, had a habit of following Shovel's father, and he not only
took the wanderers in, but taught them how to beg and shake hands and
walk on two legs. Tommy had sometimes been present at these agreeable
exercises, and being an inventive boy he--But as Elspeth was a nice
girl, let it suffice to pause here and add shyly, that in time she could
walk.

He also taught her to speak, and if you need to be told with what
luscious word he enticed her into language you are sentenced to re-read
the first pages of his life.

"Thrums," he would say persuasively, "Thrums, Thrums. You opens your
mouth like this, and shuts it like this, and that's it." Yet when he had
coaxed her thus for many days, what does she do but break her long
silence with the word "Tommy!" The recoil knocked her over.

Soon afterward she brought down a bigger bird. No Londoner can say "Auld
licht," and Tommy had often crowed over Shovel's "Ol likt." When the
testing of Elspeth could be deferred no longer, he eyed her with the
look a hen gives the green egg on which she has been sitting twenty
days, but Elspeth triumphed, saying the words modestly even, as if
nothing inside her told her she had that day done something which would
have baffled Shakespeare, not to speak of most of the gentlemen who sit
for Scotch constituencies.

"Reddy couldn't say it!" Tommy cried exultantly, and from that great
hour he had no more fears for Elspeth.

Next the alphabet knocked for admission; and entered first _M_ and _P_,
which had prominence in the only poster visible from the window. Mrs.
Sandys had taught Tommy his letters, but he had got into words by
studying posters.

Elspeth being able now to make the perilous descent of the stairs,
Tommy guided her through the streets (letting go hurriedly if Shovel
hove in sight), and here she bagged new letters daily. With Catlings
something, which is the best, she got into capital _C_s; _y_s are found
easily when you know where to look for them (they hang on behind); _N_s
are never found