Dido and Pa by Aiken Joan

Author:Aiken, Joan [Aiken, Joan]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Family, Action & Adventure, Adventure and Adventurers, Juvenile Fiction, General, Fathers and Daughters, Parents, Fiction
ISBN: 9780618196234
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Published: 1986-01-02T07:00:00+00:00

8

The street children were flocking earlier and earlier to the forecourt of Bakerloo House as the days went by. This morning they had come well before daylight, and were playing their games by the light of the gas flares that blazed outside in the King's Road.

It was a freezing, foggy morning, and the snow, by now several inches deep, glowed like dusty gold as the children kicked and pranced and sang their rhymes.

"Mingle, mangle, mingle," they sang, running and criss-ing and crossing, catching and swinging round one another if they met, then loosing and running on again.

"Mingle, mangle, mingle,

Poor King Dick is single—

Not a chick, not a wife

To cheer his lonely life,

Not a sweetheart, not a friend

To cheer his latter end!"

Then they all turned and raced for the plane tree that grew by the porter's lodge. The last one to reach it was given the part of King Dick, and sat sorrowfully on the fountain in the middle of the court.

"Let us choose, let us pick," sang the others:

"Pick a wife for lonely Dick.

Is she nimble, is she quick.

Can she jump over a walking stick?"

Then they began setting each other a series of trials—leapfrogging, jumping over sticks held higher and higher, balancing along the rails of the fence, turning cartwheels, handstands, and somersaults, until one could be judged the best, suitable to marry the bachelor king. But then, just as one was finally chosen, an outsider arrived, singing:

"I'm the queen from over the sea,

Before you wed him you'll have to fight me!"

The two "queens" fought until one of them gave in, and the other was married to the "king" in a mock ceremony. Then it all began again.

One of the children, seeing Sophie at the window, waved vigorously and held up a hand with something white in it. Sophie ran down to the front door and met the child, a round-faced cheerful little girl of not more than seven or eight, with untidily braided tawny hair and a great many freckles.

"'Tis a letter for the lady Sophie—from Podge. When's your birthday? Mine's sometime in June."

"Thank you, my love. I'm the lady Sophie and my birthday's in April. The tenth. Have you no father nor mother, my poor child?"

"Nary a one! But I manages! In summer I sells cresses, and in winter pincushions."

"Bring a pincushion next time you come and I'll buy it," Sophie promised as the small creature raced back to her companions.

"My dear Sophie," said the letter from Podge:

I am sorry not to come and see you myself, as the sight of your pretty face is like a Tonic. But wished to lose no time in telling you that I have seen your friend Dido & she is well & living with her Dad in Wapping. She said she feared she could not visit you as it wd be too Dangerous (as you & I thought). Her father is working for You know who (also as we thought). Hope to see you in a Day or two, but have a bad leg just at present.

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