VIII
The Amateur Firemen
“That’s a likely little brooch you’ve got on, Miss,” said Perks the Porter; “I don’t know as ever I see a thing more like a buttercup without it was a buttercup.”
“Yes,” said Bobbie, glad and flushed by this approval. “I always thought it was more like a buttercup almost than even a real one—and I never thought it would come to be mine, my very own—and then Mother gave it to me for my birthday.”
“Oh, have you had a birthday?” said Perks; and he seemed quite surprised, as though a birthday were a thing only granted to a favoured few.
“Yes,” said Bobbie; “when’s your birthday, Mr. Perks?” The children were taking tea with Mr. Perks in the Porters’ room among the lamps and the railway almanacs. They had brought their own cups and some jam turnovers. Mr. Perks made tea in a beer can, as usual, and everyone felt very happy and confidential.
“My birthday?” said Perks, tipping some more dark brown tea out of the can into Peter’s cup. “I give up keeping of my birthday afore you was born.”
“But you must have been born sometime, you know,” said Phyllis, thoughtfully, “even if it was twenty years ago—or thirty or sixty or seventy.”
“Not so long as that, Missie,” Perks grinned as he answered. “If you really want to know, it was thirty-two years ago, come the fifteenth of this month.”
“Then why don’t you keep it?” asked Phyllis.
“I’ve got something else to keep besides birthdays,” said Perks, briefly.
“Oh! What?” asked Phyllis, eagerly. “Not secrets?”
“No,” said Perks, “the kids and the Missus.”
It was this talk that set the children thinking, and, presently, talking. Perks was, on the whole, the dearest friend they had made. Not so grand as the Station Master, but more approachable—less powerful than the old gentleman, but more confidential.
“It seems horrid that nobody keeps his birthday,” said Bobbie. “Couldn’t we do something?”
“Let’s go up to the Canal bridge and talk it over,” said Peter. “I got a new gut line from the postman this morning. He gave it me for a bunch of roses that I gave him for his sweetheart. She’s ill.”
“Then I do think you might have given her the roses for nothing,” said Bobbie, indignantly.
“Nyang, nyang!” said Peter, disagreeably, and put his hands in his pockets.
“He did, of course,” said Phyllis, in haste; “directly we heard she was ill we got the roses ready and waited by the gate. It was when you were making the brekker-toast. And when he’d said ‘Thank you’ for the roses so many times—much more than he need have—he pulled out the line and gave it to Peter. It wasn’t exchange. It was the grateful heart.”
“Oh, I beg your pardon, Peter,” said Bobbie, “I am so sorry.”
“Don’t mention it,” said Peter, grandly, “I knew you would be.”
So then they all went up to the Canal bridge. The idea was to fish from the bridge, but the line was not quite long enough.
“Never mind,” said Bobbie. “Let’s just stay here and look at things. Everything’s so beautiful.”
It was. The sun was setting in red splendour over the grey and purple hills, and the canal lay smooth and shiny in the shadow—no ripple broke its surface. It was like a grey satin ribbon between the dusky green silk of the meadows that were on each side of its banks.
“It’s all right,” said Peter, “but somehow I can always see how pretty things are much better when I’ve something to do. Let’s get down on to the towpath and fish from there.”
Phyllis and Bobbie remembered how the boys on the canal-boats had thrown coal at them, and they said so.
“Oh, nonsense,” said Peter. “There aren’t any boys here now. If there were, I’d fight them.”
Peter’s sisters were kind enough not to remind him how he had not fought the boys when coal had last been thrown. Instead they said, “All right, then,” and cautiously climbed down the steep bank to the towing-path. The line was carefully baited, and for half an hour they fished patiently and in vain. Not a single nibble came to nourish hope in their hearts.
All eyes were intent on the sluggish waters that earnestly pretended they had never harboured a single minnow when a loud rough shout made them start.
“Hi!” said the shout, in most disagreeable tones, “get out of that, can’t you?”
An old white horse coming along the towing-path was within half a dozen yards of them. They sprang to their feet and hastily climbed up the bank.
“We’ll slip down again when they’ve gone by,” said Bobbie.
But, alas, the barge, after the manner of barges, stopped under the bridge.
“She’s going to anchor,” said Peter; “just our luck!”
The barge did not anchor, because an anchor is not part of a canal-boat’s furniture, but she was moored with ropes fore and aft—and the ropes were made fast to the palings and to crowbars driven into the ground.
“What you staring at?” growled the Bargee, crossly.
“We weren’t staring,” said Bobbie; “we wouldn’t be so rude.”
“Rude be blessed,” said the man; “get along with you!”
“Get along yourself,” said Peter. He remembered what he had said about fighting boys, and, besides, he felt safe halfway up the bank. “We’ve as much right here as anyone else.”
“Oh, ’ave you, indeed!” said the man. “We’ll soon see about that.” And he came across his deck and began to climb down the side of his barge.
“Oh, come away, Peter, come away!” said Bobbie and Phyllis, in agonised unison.
“Not me,” said Peter, “but you’d better.”
The girls climbed to the top of the bank and stood ready to bolt for home as soon as they saw their brother out of danger. The way home lay all down hill. They knew that they all ran well. The Bargee did not look as if he did. He was red-faced, heavy, and
