The Tale of Little Pig Robinson - Beatrix Potter [6]
Robinson had found a standing place at one end of a stall where Nanny Nettigoat was selling periwinkles.
“Winkle, winkle! Wink, wink, wink! Maa, maa-a!” bleated Nanny.
Winkles were the only thing that she offered for sale, so she felt no jealousy of Robinson’s eggs and primroses. She knew nothing about his cauliflowers; he had the sense to keep them in the basket under the table. He stood on an empty box, quite proud and bold behind the trestle table, singing:
“Eggs, new laid! Fresh new-laid eggs! Who’ll come and buy my eggs and daffodillies?”
“I will, sure,” said a large brown dog with a stumpy tail, “I’ll buy a dozen. My Miss Rose has sent me to market on purpose to buy eggs and butter.”
“I am so sorry, I have no butter, Mr. Stumpy; but I have beautiful cauliflowers,” said Robinson, lifting up the basket, after a cautious glance round at Nanny Nettigoat, who might have tried to nibble them. She was busy measuring periwinkles in a pewter mug for a duck customer in a tam-o’-shanter cap. “They are lovely brown eggs, except one that got cracked; I think that white pussy cat at the opposite stall is selling butter — they are beautiful cauliflowers.”
“I’ll buy a cauliflower, lovey, bless his little turned-up nose; did he grow them in his own garden?” said old Betsy, bustling up; her rheumatism was better; she had left Susan to keep house. “No, lovey, I don’t want any eggs; I keep hens myself. A cauliflower and a bunch of daffodils for a bow-pot, please,” said Betsy.
“Wee, wee, wee!” replied Robinson.
“Here, Mrs. Perkins, come here! Look at this little pig stuck up at a stall all by himself!”
“Well, I don’t know!” exclaimed Mrs. Perkins, pushing through the crowd, followed by two little girls. “Well, I never! Are they quite new laid, sonny? Won’t go off pop and spoil my Sunday dress like the eggs Mrs. Wyandotte took first prize with at five flower shows, till they popped and spoiled the judge’s black silk dress? Not duck eggs, stained with coffee? That’s another trick of flower shows! New laid, guaranteed? Only you say one is cracked? Now I call that real honest; it’s no worse for frying. I’ll have the dozen eggs and a cauliflower, please. Look, Sarah Polly! Look at his silver nose-ring.”
Sarah Polly and her little girl friend went into fits of giggling, so that Robinson blushed. He was so confused that he did not notice a lady who wanted to buy his last cauliflower, till she touched him. There was nothing else left to sell, but a bunch of primroses. After more giggling and some whispering the two little girls came back, and bought the primroses. They gave him a peppermint, as well as the penny, which Robinson accepted; but without enthusiasm and with a preoccupied manner.
The trouble was that no sooner had he parted with the bunch of primroses than he realised that he had also sold Aunt Dorcas’s pattern of darning wool. He wondered if he ought to ask for it back; but Mrs. Perkins and Sarah Polly and her little girl friend had disappeared.
Robinson, having sold everything, came out of the market hall, sucking the peppermint. There were still numbers of people coming in. As Robinson came out upon the steps his basket got caught in the shawl of an elderly sheep, who was pushing her way up. While Robinson was disentangling it, Stumpy came out. He had finished his marketing. His basket was full of heavy purchases. A responsible, trustworthy, obliging dog was Stumpy, glad to do a kindness to anybody.
When Robinson asked him the way to Mr. Mumby’s, Stumpy said: “I am going home by Broad Street. Come with me, and I will show you.”
“Wee, wee, wee! Oh, thank you, Stumpy!” said Robinson.
Chapter Five
OLD Mr. Mumby was a deaf old man in spectacles, who kept a general store. He sold almost anything you can imagine, except ham — a circumstance much approved by Aunt Dorcas. It was the only general store in Stymouth where you would not find displayed upon the counter a large dish, containing strings of thin, pale-coloured, repulsively uncooked