Ah! yes, that was little Tuk: in reality his name was not Tuk, but that was
what he called himself before he could speak plain: he meant it for Charles,
and it is all well enough if one does but know it. He had now to take care of
his little sister Augusta, who was much younger than himself, and he was, besides, to learn his lesson at the same time; but these two things would not
do together at all. There sat the poor little fellow, with his sister on his
lap, and he sang to her all the songs he knew; and he glanced the while from
time to time into the geography-book that lay open before him. By the next
morning he was to have learnt all the towns in Zealand by heart, and to know
about them all that is possible to be known.
His mother now came home, for she had been out, and took little Augusta on her
arm. Tuk ran quickly to the window, and read so eagerly that he pretty nearly
read his eyes out; for it got darker and darker, but his mother had no money
to buy a candle.
"There goes the old washerwoman over the way," said his mother, as she looked
out of the window. "The poor woman can hardly drag herself along, and she must
now drag the pail home from the fountain. Be a good boy, Tukey, and run across
and help the old woman, won't you?"
So Tuk ran over quickly and helped her; but when he came back again into the
room it was quite dark, and as to a light, there was no thought of such a thing. He was now to go to bed; that was an old turn-up bedstead; in it he lay
and thought about his geography lesson, and of Zealand, and of all that his
master had told him. He ought, to be sure, to have read over his lesson again,
but that, you know, he could not do. He therefore put his geography-book under
his pillow, because he had heard that was a very good thing to do when one
wants to learn one's lesson; but one cannot, however, rely upon it entirely.
Well, there he lay, and thought and thought, and all at once it was just as if
someone kissed his eyes and mouth: he slept, and yet he did not sleep; it was
as though the old washerwoman gazed on him with her mild eyes and said, "It
were a great sin if you were not to know your lesson tomorrow morning. You
have aided me, I therefore will now help you; and the loving God will do so at
all times." And all of a sudden the book under Tuk's pillow began scraping and
scratching.
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