prompt:
Chapter: Mr. Tulliver Shows His Weaker Side

"Suppose sister Glegg should call her money in; it 'ud be very awkward
for you to have to raise five hundred pounds now," said Mrs. Tulliver
to her husband that evening, as she took a plaintive review of the
day.

Mrs. Tulliver had lived thirteen years with her husband, yet she
retained in all the freshness of her early married life a facility of
saying things which drove him in the opposite direction to the one she
desired. Some minds are wonderful for keeping their bloom in this way,
as a patriarchal goldfish apparently retains to the last its youthful
illusion that it can swim in a straight line beyond the encircling
glass. Mrs. Tulliver was an amiable fish of this kind, and after
running her head against the same resisting medium for thirteen years
would go at it again to-day with undulled alacrity.

This observation of hers tended directly to convince Mr. Tulliver that
it would not be at all awkward for him to raise five hundred pounds;
and when Mrs. Tulliver became rather pressing to know _how_ he would
raise it without mortgaging the mill and the house which he had said
he never _would_ mortgage, since nowadays people were none so ready to
lend money without security, Mr. Tulliver, getting warm, declared that
Mrs. Glegg might do as she liked about calling in her money, he should
pay it in whether or not. He was not going to be beholden to his
wife's sisters. When a man had married into a family where there was a
whole litter of women, he might have plenty to put up with if he
chose. But Mr. Tulliver did _not_ choose.

Mrs. Tulliver cried a little in a trickling, quiet way as she put on
her nightcap; but presently sank into a comfortable sleep, lulled by
the thought that she would talk everything over with her sister Pullet
to-morrow, when she was to take the children to Garum Firs to tea. Not
that she looked forward to any distinct issue from that talk; but it
seemed impossible that past events should be so obstinate as to remain
unmodified when they were complained against.

Her husband lay awake rather longer, for he too was thinking of a
visit he would pay on the morrow; and his ideas on the subject were
not of so vague and soothing a kind as those of his amiable partner.

Mr. Tulliver, when under the influence of a strong feeling, had a
promptitude in action that may seem inconsistent with that painful
sense of the complicated, puzzling nature of human affairs under which
his more dispassionate deliberations were conducted; but it is really
not improbable that there was a direct relation between these
apparently contradictory phenomena, since I have observed that for
getting a strong impression that a skein is tangled there is nothing
like snatching hastily at a single thread. It was owing to this
promptitude that Mr. Tulliver was on horseback soon after dinner the
next day (he was not dyspeptic) on his way to Basset to see his sister
Moss and her husband. For having made up his mind irrevocably that he
would pay Mrs. Glegg her loan of five hundred pounds, it naturally
occurred to him that he had a promissory note for three hundred pounds
lent to his brother-in-law Moss; and if the said brother-in-law could
manage to pay in the money within a given time, it would go far to
lessen the fallacious air of inconvenience which Mr. Tulliver's
spirited step might have worn in the eyes of weak people who require
to know precisely _how_ a thing is to be done before they are strongly
confident that it will be easy.

For Mr. Tulliver was in a position neither new nor striking, but, like
other every-day things, sure to have a cumulative effect that will be
felt in the long run: he was held to be a much more substantial man
than he really was. And as we are all apt to believe what the world
believes about us, it was his habit to think of failure and ruin with
the same sort of remote pity with which a spare, long-necked man hears
that his plethoric short-necked neighbor is stricken with apoplexy. He
had been always used to hear pleasant jokes about his advantages as a
man who worked his own mill, and owned a pretty bit of land; and these
jokes naturally kept up his sense that he was a man of considerable
substance. They gave a pleasant flavor to his glass on a market-day,
and if it had not been for the recurrence of half-yearly payments, Mr.
Tulliver would really have forgotten that there was a mortgage of two
thousand pounds on his very desirable freehold. That was not
altogether his own fault, since one of the thousand pounds was his
sister's fortune, which he had to pay on her marriage; and a man who
has neighbors that _will_ go to law with him is not likely to pay off
his mortgages, especially if he enjoys the good opinion of
acquaintances who want to borrow a hundred pounds on security too
lofty to be represented by parchment. Our friend Mr. Tulliver had a
good-natured fibre in him, and did not like to give harsh refusals
even to his sister, who had not only come in to the world in that
superfluous way characteristic of sisters, creating a necessity for
mortgages, but had quite thrown herself away in marriage, and had
crowned her mistakes by having an eighth baby. On this point Mr.
Tulliver was conscious of being a little weak; but he apologized to
himself by saying that poor Gritty had been a good-looking wench
before she married Moss; he would sometimes say this even with a
slight tremulousness in his voice. But this morning he was in a mood
more becoming a man of business, and in the course of his ride along
the Basset lanes, with their deep ruts,--lying so far away from a
market-town that the labor of drawing produce and manure was enough to
take away the best part of the profits on such poor land as that
parish was made of,--he got up a due amount of irritation against Moss
as a man without capital, who, if murrain and blight were abroad, was
sure to have his share of them, and who, the more you tried to help
him out of the mud, would sink the further in. It would do him good
rather than harm, now, if he were obliged to raise this three hundred
pounds; it would make him look about him better, and not act so
foolishly about his wool this year as he did the last; in fact, Mr.
Tulliver had been too easy with his brother-in-law, and because he had
let the interest run on for two years, Moss was likely enough to think
that he should never be troubled about the principal. But Mr. Tulliver
was determined not to encourage such shuffling people any longer; and
a ride along the Basset lanes was not likely to enervate a man's
resolution by softening his temper. The deep-trodden hoof-marks, made
in the muddiest days of winter, gave him a shake now and then which
suggested a rash but stimulating snarl at the father of lawyers, who,
whether by means of his hoof or otherwise, had doubtless something to
do with this state of the roads; and the abundance of foul land and
neglected fences that met his eye, though they made no part of his
brother Moss's farm, strongly contributed to his dissatisfaction with
that unlucky agriculturist. If this wasn't Moss's fallow, it might
have been; Basset was all alike; it was a beggarly parish, in Mr.
Tulliver's opinion, and his opinion was certainly not groundless.
Basset had a poor soil, poor roads, a poor non-resident landlord, a
poor non-resident vicar, and rather less than half a curate, also
poor. If any one strongly impressed with the power of the human mind
to triumph over circumstances will contend that the parishioners of
Basset might nevertheless have been a very superior class of people, I
have nothing to urge against that abstract proposition; I only know
that, in point of fact, the Basset mind was in strict keeping with its
circumstances. The muddy lanes, green or clayey, that seemed to the
unaccustomed eye to lead nowhere but into each other, did really lead,
with patience, to a distant high-road; but there were many feet in
Basset which they led more frequently to a centre of dissipation,
spoken of formerly as the "Markis o' Granby," but among intimates as
"Dickison's." A large low room with a sanded floor; a cold scent of
tobacco, modified by undetected beer-dregs; Mr. Dickison leaning
against the door-post with a melancholy pimpled face, looking as
irrelevant to the daylight as a last night's guttered candle,--all
this may not seem a very seductive form of temptation; but the
majority of men in Basset found it fatally alluring when encountered
on their road toward four o'clock on a wintry afternoon; and if any
wife in Basset wished to indicate that her husband was not a
pleasure-seeking man, she could hardly do it more emphatically than by
saying that he didn't spend a shilling at Dickison's from one
Whitsuntide to another. Mrs. Moss had said so of _her_ husband more
than once, when her brother was in a mood to find fault with him, as
he certainly was to-day. And nothing could be less pacifying to Mr.
Tulliver than the behavior of the farmyard gate, which he no sooner
attempted to push open with his riding-stick than it acted as gates
without the upper hinge are known to do, to the peril of shins,
whether equine or human. He was about to get down and lead his horse
through the damp dirt of the hollow farmyard, shadowed drearily by the
large half-timbered buildings, up to the long line of tumble-down
dwelling-houses standing on a raised causeway; but the timely
appearance of a cowboy saved him that frustration of a plan he had
determined on,--namely, not to get down from his horse during this
visit. If a man means to be hard, let him keep in his saddle and speak
from that height, above the level of pleading eyes, and with the
command of a distant horizon. Mrs. Moss heard the sound of the horse's
feet, and, when her brother rode up, was already outside the kitchen
door, with a half-weary smile on her face, and a black-eyed baby in
her arms. Mrs. Moss's face bore a faded resemblance to her brother's;
baby's little fat hand, pressed against her cheek, seemed to show more
strikingly that the cheek was faded.

"Brother, I'm glad to see you," she said, in an affectionate tone. "I
didn't look for you to-day. How do you do?"

"Oh, pretty well, Mrs. Moss, pretty well," answered the brother, with
cool deliberation, as if it were rather too forward of her to ask that
question. She knew at once that her brother was not in a good humor;
he never called her Mrs. Moss except when he was angry, and when they
were in company. But she thought it was in the order of nature that
people who were poorly off should be snubbed. Mrs. Moss did not take
her stand on the equality of the human race; she was a patient,
prolific, loving-hearted woman.

"Your husband isn't in the house, I suppose?" added Mr. Tulliver after
a grave pause, during which four children had run out, like chickens
whose mother has been suddenly in eclipse behind the hen-coop.

"No," said Mrs. Moss, "but he's only in the potato-field yonders.
Georgy, run to the Far Close in a minute, and tell father your uncle's
come. You'll get down, brother, won't you, and take something?"

"No, no; I can't get down. I must be going home again directly," said
Mr. Tulliver, looking at the distance.

"And how's Mrs. Tulliver and the children?" said Mrs. Moss, humbly,
not daring to press her invitation.

"Oh, pretty well. Tom's going to a new school at Midsummer,--a deal of
expense to me. It's bad work for me, lying out o' my money."

"I wish you'd be so good as let the children come and see their
cousins some day. My little uns want to see their cousin Maggie so as
never was. And me her godmother, and so fond of her; there's nobody
'ud make a bigger fuss with her, according to what they've got. And I
know she likes to come, for she's a loving child, and how quick and
clever she is, to be sure!"

If Mrs. Moss had been one of the most astute women in the world,
instead of being one of the simplest, she could have thought of
nothing more likely to propitiate her brother than this praise of
Maggie. He seldom found any one volunteering praise of "the little
wench"; it was usually left entirely to himself to insist on her
merits. But Maggie always appeared in the most amiable light at her
aunt Moss's; it was her Alsatia, where she was out of the reach of
law,--if she upset anything, dirtied her shoes, or tore her frock,
these things were matters of course at her aunt Moss's. In spite of
himself, Mr. Tulliver's eyes got milder, and he did not look away from
his sister as he said,--

"Ay; she's fonder o' you than o' the other aunts, I think. She takes
after our family: not a bit of her mother's in her."

"Moss says she's just like what I used to be," said Mrs. Moss, "though
I was never so quick and fond o' the books. But I think my Lizzy's
like her; _she's_ sharp. Come here, Lizzy, my dear, and let your uncle
see you; he hardly knows you, you grow so fast."

Lizzy, a black-eyed child of seven, looked very shy when her mother
drew her forward, for the small Mosses were much in awe of their uncle
from Dorlcote Mill. She was inferior enough to Maggie in fire and
strength of expression to make the resemblance between the two
entirely flattering to Mr. Tulliver's fatherly love.

"Ay, they're a bit alike," he said, looking kindly at the little
figure in the soiled pinafore. "They both take after our mother.
You've got enough o' gells, Gritty," he added, in a tone half
compassionate, half reproachful.

"Four of 'em, bless 'em!" said Mrs. Moss, with a sigh, stroking
Lizzy's hair on each side of her forehead; "as many as there's boys.
They've got a brother apiece."

"Ah, but they must turn out and fend for themselves," said Mr.
Tulliver, feeling that his severity was relaxing and trying to brace
it by throwing out a wholesome hint "They mustn't look to hanging on
their brothers."

"No; but I hope their brothers 'ull love the poor things, and remember
they came o' one father and mother; the lads 'ull never be the poorer
for that," said Mrs. Moss, flashing out with hurried timidity, like a
half-smothered fire.

Mr. Tulliver gave his horse a little stroke on the flank, then checked
it, and said angrily, "Stand still with you!" much to the astonishment
of that innocent animal.

"And the more there is of 'em, the more they must love one another,"
Mrs. Moss went on, looking at her children with a didactic purpose.
But she turned toward her brother again to say, "Not but what I hope
your boy 'ull allays be good to his sister, though there's but two of
'em, like you and me, brother."

The arrow went straight to Mr. Tulliver's heart. He had not a rapid
imagination, but the thought of Maggie was very near to him, and he
was not long in seeing his relation to his own sister side by side
with Tom's relation to Maggie. Would the little wench ever be poorly
off, and Tom rather hard upon her?

"Ay, ay, Gritty," said the miller, with a new softness in his tone;
"but I've allays done what I could for you," he added, as if
vindicating himself from a reproach.

"I'm not denying that, brother, and I'm noways ungrateful," said poor
Mrs. Moss, too fagged by toil and children to have strength left for
any pride. "But here's the father. What a while you've been, Moss!"

"While, do you call it?" said Mr. Moss, feeling out of breath and
injured. "I've been running all the way. Won't you 'light, Mr.
Tulliver?"

"Well, I'll just get down and have a bit o' talk with you in the
garden," said Mr. Tulliver, thinking that he should be more likely to
show a due spirit of resolve if his sister were not present.

He got down, and passed with Mr. Moss into the garden, toward an old
yew-tree arbor, while his sister stood tapping her baby on the back
and looking wistfully after them.

Their entrance into the yew-tree arbor surprised several fowls that
were recreating themselves by scratching deep holes in the dusty
ground, and at once took flight with much pother and cackling. Mr.
Tulliver sat down on the bench, and tapping the ground curiously here
and there with his stick, as if he suspected some hollowness, opened
the conversation by observing, with something like a snarl in his
tone,--

"Why, you've got wheat again in that Corner Close, I see; and never a
bit o' dressing on it. You'll do no good with it this year."

Mr. Moss, who, when he married Miss Tulliver, had been regarded as the
buck of Basset, now wore a beard nearly a week old, and had the
depressed, unexpectant air of a machine-horse. He answered in a
patient-grumbling tone, "Why, poor farmers like me must do as they
can; they must leave it to them as have got money to play with, to put
half as much into the ground as they mean to get out of it."

"I don't know who should have money to play with, if it isn't them as
can borrow money without paying interest," said Mr. Tulliver, who
wished to get into a slight quarrel; it was the most natural and easy
introduction to calling in money.

"I know I'm behind with the interest," said Mr. Moss, "but I was so
unlucky wi' the wool last year; and what with the Missis being laid up
so, things have gone awk'arder nor usual."

"Ay," snarled Mr. Tulliver, "there's folks as things 'ull allays go
awk'ard with; empty sacks 'ull never stand upright."

"Well, I don't know what fault you've got to find wi' me, Mr.
Tulliver," said Mr. Moss, deprecatingly; "I know there isn't a
day-laborer works harder."

"What's the use o' that," said Mr. Tulliver, sharply, "when a man
marries, and's got no capital to work his farm but his wife's bit o'
fortin? I was against it from the first; but you'd neither of you
listen to me. And I can't lie out o' my money any longer, for I've got
to pay five hundred o' Mrs. Glegg's, and there'll be Tom an expense to
me. I should find myself short, even saying I'd got back all as is my
own. You must look about and see how you can pay me the three hundred
pound."

"Well, if that's what you mean," said Mr. Moss, looking blankly before
him, "we'd better be sold up, and ha' done with it; I must part wi'
every head o' stock I've got, to pay you and the landlord too."

Poor relations are undeniably irritating,--their existence is so
entirely uncalled for on our part, and they are almost always very
faulty people. Mr. Tulliver had succeeded in getting quite as much
irritated with Mr. Moss as he had desired, and he was able to say
angrily, rising from his seat,--

"Well, you must do as you can. _I_ can't find money for everybody else
as well as myself. I must look to my own business and my own family. I
can't lie out o' my money any longer. You must raise it as quick as
you can."

Mr. Tulliver walked abruptly out of the arbor as he uttered the last
sentence, and, without looking round at Mr. Moss, went on to the
kitchen door, where the eldest boy was holding his horse, and his
sister was waiting in a state of wondering alarm, which was not
without its alleviations, for baby was making pleasant gurgling
sounds, and performing a great deal of finger practice on the faded
face. Mrs. Moss had eight children, but could never overcome her
regret that the twins had not lived. Mr. Moss thought their removal
was not without its consolations. "Won't you come in, brother?" she
said, looking anxiously at her husband, who was walking slowly up,
while Mr. Tulliver had his foot already in the stirrup.

"No, no; good-by," said he, turning his horse's head, and riding away.

No man could feel more resolute till he got outside the yard gate, and
a little way along the deep-rutted lane; but before he reached the
next turning, which would take him out of sight of the dilapidated
farm-buildings, he appeared to be smitten by some sudden thought. He
checked his horse, and made it stand still in the same spot for two or
three minutes, during which he turned his head from side to side in a
melancholy way, as if he were looking at some painful object on more
sides than one. Evidently, after his fit of promptitude, Mr. Tulliver
was relapsing into the sense that this is a puzzling world. He turned
his horse, and rode slowly back, giving vent to the climax of feeling
which had determined this movement by saying aloud, as he struck his
horse, "Poor little wench! she'll have nobody but Tom, belike, when
I'm gone."

Mr. Tulliver's return into the yard was descried by several young
Mosses, who immediately ran in with the exciting news to their mother,
so that Mrs. Moss was again on the door-step when her brother rode up.
She had been crying, but was rocking baby to sleep in her arms now,
and made no ostentatious show of sorrow as her brother looked at her,
but merely said:

"The father's gone to the field, again, if you want him, brother."

"No, Gritty, no," said Mr. Tulliver, in a gentle tone. "Don't you
fret,--that's all,--I'll make a shift without the money a bit, only
you must be as clever and contriving as you can."

Mrs. Moss's tears came again at this unexpected kindness, and she
could say nothing.

"Come, come!--the little wench shall come and see you. I'll bring her
and Tom some day before he goes to school. You mustn't fret. I'll
allays be a good brother to you."

"Thank you for that word, brother," said Mrs. Moss, drying her tears;
then turning to Lizzy, she said, "Run now, and fetch the colored egg
for cousin Maggie." Lizzy ran in, and quickly reappeared with a small
paper parcel.

"It's boiled hard, brother, and colored with thrums, very pretty; it
was done o' purpose for Maggie. Will you please to carry it in your
pocket?"

"Ay, ay," said Mr. Tulliver, putting it carefully in his side pocket.
"Good-by."

And so the respectable miller returned along the Basset lanes rather
more puzzled than before as to ways and means, but still with the
sense of a danger escaped. It had come across his mind that if he were
hard upon his sister, it might somehow tend to make Tom hard upon
Maggie at some distant day, when her father was no longer there to
take her part; for simple people, like our friend Mr. Tulliver, are
apt to clothe unimpeachable feelings in erroneous ideas, and this was
his confused way of explaining to himself that his love and anxiety
for "the little wench" had given him a new sensibility toward his
sister.

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: The fight with the Gleggs is still on everyone's mind. Mr. Tulliver decides to pay the Gleggs back since they loaned him some money. He doesn't want to owe Mrs. Glegg anything now. But this means that Mr. Tulliver will need to get his brother-in-law, Mr. Moss, to pay him back some money, so that Mr. Tulliver can then go pay back the Gleggs. Mr. Tulliver goes to see the Moss family in order to ask for his money. The Moss family is very poor and they have eight children. Mrs. Moss is Mr. Tulliver's sister. Mrs. Moss comes outside to greet her brother. She is a resigned woman, exhausted by all her children and used to being treated badly by those of a higher social standing. Mr. Tulliver is pretty abrupt with her since he's feeling a little bad about asking for money. Mrs. Moss tells him that Maggie should come visit her - she loves Maggie and notes that her own daughter Lizzie looks a bit like Maggie. Mr. Tulliver berates Mrs. Moss for having so many kids - she has four girls and four boys. Mrs. Moss says she hopes the boys will always look after their sisters, and Mr. Tulliver worries about how Tom will treat his sister in the future. He's nicer to Mrs. Moss after this thought. Mr. Moss shows up finally and he and Mr. Tulliver go off to talk business. Mr. Moss is nice and agrees to try to pay Mr. Tulliver back, even though it will be very hard for him. Mr. Tulliver acts like a punk about it. But he thinks more about Maggie and Tom and decides to be nicer to his own sister. He tells Mrs. Moss to forget about the money.


prompt:
Chapter: To Garum Firs

While the possible troubles of Maggie's future were occupying her
father's mind, she herself was tasting only the bitterness of the
present. Childhood has no forebodings; but then, it is soothed by no
memories of outlived sorrow.

The fact was, the day had begun ill with Maggie. The pleasure of
having Lucy to look at, and the prospect of the afternoon visit to
Garum Firs, where she would hear uncle Pullet's musical box, had been
marred as early as eleven o'clock by the advent of the hair-dresser
from St. Ogg's, who had spoken in the severest terms of the condition
in which he had found her hair, holding up one jagged lock after
another and saying, "See here! tut, tut, tut!" in a tone of mingled
disgust and pity, which to Maggie's imagination was equivalent to the
strongest expression of public opinion. Mr. Rappit, the hair-dresser,
with his well-anointed coronal locks tending wavily upward, like the
simulated pyramid of flame on a monumental urn, seemed to her at that
moment the most formidable of her contemporaries, into whose street at
St. Ogg's she would carefully refrain from entering through the rest
of her life.

Moreover, the preparation for a visit being always a serious affair in
the Dodson family, Martha was enjoined to have Mrs. Tulliver's room
ready an hour earlier than usual, that the laying out of the best
clothes might not be deferred till the last moment, as was sometimes
the case in families of lax views, where the ribbon-strings were never
rolled up, where there was little or no wrapping in silver paper, and
where the sense that the Sunday clothes could be got at quite easily
produced no shock to the mind. Already, at twelve o'clock, Mrs.
Tulliver had on her visiting costume, with a protective apparatus of
brown holland, as if she had been a piece of satin furniture in danger
of flies; Maggie was frowning and twisting her shoulders, that she
might if possible shrink away from the prickliest of tuckers, while
her mother was remonstrating, "Don't, Maggie, my dear; don't make
yourself so ugly!" and Tom's cheeks were looking particularly
brilliant as a relief to his best blue suit, which he wore with
becoming calmness, having, after a little wrangling, effected what was
always the one point of interest to him in his toilet: he had
transferred all the contents of his every-day pockets to those
actually in wear.

As for Lucy, she was just as pretty and neat as she had been
yesterday; no accidents ever happened to her clothes, and she was
never uncomfortable in them, so that she looked with wondering pity at
Maggie, pouting and writhing under the exasperating tucker. Maggie
would certainly have torn it off, if she had not been checked by the
remembrance of her recent humiliation about her hair; as it was, she
confined herself to fretting and twisting, and behaving peevishly
about the card-houses which they were allowed to build till dinner, as
a suitable amusement for boys and girls in their best clothes. Tom
could build perfect pyramids of houses; but Maggie's would never bear
the laying on the roof. It was always so with the things that Maggie
made; and Tom had deduced the conclusion that no girls could ever make
anything. But it happened that Lucy proved wonderfully clever at
building; she handled the cards so lightly, and moved so gently, that
Tom condescended to admire her houses as well as his own, the more
readily because she had asked him to teach her. Maggie, too, would
have admired Lucy's houses, and would have given up her own
unsuccessful building to contemplate them, without ill temper, if her
tucker had not made her peevish, and if Tom had not inconsiderately
laughed when her houses fell, and told her she was "a stupid."

"Don't laugh at me, Tom!" she burst out angrily; "I'm not a stupid. I
know a great many things you don't."

"Oh, I dare say, Miss Spitfire! I'd never be such a cross thing as
you, making faces like that. Lucy doesn't do so. I like Lucy better
than you; _I_ wish Lucy was _my_ sister."

"Then it's very wicked and cruel of you to wish so," said Maggie,
starting up hurriedly from her place on the floor, and upsetting Tom's
wonderful pagoda. She really did not mean it, but the circumstantial
evidence was against her, and Tom turned white with anger, but said
nothing; he would have struck her, only he knew it was cowardly to
strike a girl, and Tom Tulliver was quite determined he would never do
anything cowardly.

Maggie stood in dismay and terror, while Tom got up from the floor and
walked away, pale, from the scattered ruins of his pagoda, and Lucy
looked on mutely, like a kitten pausing from its lapping.

"Oh, Tom," said Maggie, at last, going half-way toward him, "I didn't
mean to knock it down, indeed, indeed I didn't."

Tom took no notice of her, but took, instead, two or three hard peas
out of his pocket, and shot them with his thumbnail against the
window, vaguely at first, but presently with the distinct aim of
hitting a superannuated blue-bottle which was exposing its imbecility
in the spring sunshine, clearly against the views of Nature, who had
provided Tom and the peas for the speedy destruction of this weak
individual.

Thus the morning had been made heavy to Maggie, and Tom's persistent
coldness to her all through their walk spoiled the fresh air and
sunshine for her. He called Lucy to look at the half-built bird's nest
without caring to show it Maggie, and peeled a willow switch for Lucy
and himself, without offering one to Maggie. Lucy had said, "Maggie,
shouldn't _you_ like one?" but Tom was deaf.

Still, the sight of the peacock opportunely spreading his tail on the
stackyard wall, just as they reached Garum Firs, was enough to divert
the mind temporarily from personal grievances. And this was only the
beginning of beautiful sights at Garum Firs. All the farmyard life was
wonderful there,--bantams, speckled and top-knotted; Friesland hens,
with their feathers all turned the wrong way; Guinea-fowls that flew
and screamed and dropped their pretty spotted feathers; pouter-pigeons
and a tame magpie; nay, a goat, and a wonderful brindled dog, half
mastiff, half bull-dog, as large as a lion. Then there were white
railings and white gates all about, and glittering weathercocks of
various design, and garden-walks paved with pebbles in beautiful
patterns,--nothing was quite common at Garum Firs; and Tom thought
that the unusual size of the toads there was simply due to the general
unusualness which characterized uncle Pullet's possessions as a
gentleman farmer. Toads who paid rent were naturally leaner. As for
the house, it was not less remarkable; it had a receding centre, and
two wings with battlemented turrets, and was covered with glittering
white stucco.

Uncle Pullet had seen the expected party approaching from the window,
and made haste to unbar and unchain the front door, kept always in
this fortified condition from fear of tramps, who might be supposed to
know of the glass case of stuffed birds in the hall, and to
contemplate rushing in and carrying it away on their heads. Aunt
Pullet, too, appeared at the doorway, and as soon as her sister was
within hearing said, "Stop the children, for God's sake! Bessy; don't
let 'em come up the door-steps; Sally's bringing the old mat and the
duster, to rub their shoes."

Mrs. Pullet's front-door mats were by no means intended to wipe shoes
on; the very scraper had a deputy to do its dirty work. Tom rebelled
particularly against this shoewiping, which he always considered in
the light of an indignity to his sex. He felt it as the beginning of
the disagreeables incident to a visit at aunt Pullet's, where he had
once been compelled to sit with towels wrapped round his boots; a fact
which may serve to correct the too-hasty conclusion that a visit to
Garum Firs must have been a great treat to a young gentleman fond of
animals,--fond, that is, of throwing stones at them.

The next disagreeable was confined to his feminine companions; it was
the mounting of the polished oak stairs, which had very handsome
carpets rolled up and laid by in a spare bedroom, so that the ascent
of these glossy steps might have served, in barbarous times, as a
trial by ordeal from which none but the most spotless virtue could
have come off with unbroken limbs. Sophy's weakness about these
polished stairs was always a subject of bitter remonstrance on Mrs.
Glegg's part; but Mrs. Tulliver ventured on no comment, only thinking
to herself it was a mercy when she and the children were safe on the
landing.

"Mrs. Gray has sent home my new bonnet, Bessy," said Mrs. Pullet, in a
pathetic tone, as Mrs. Tulliver adjusted her cap.

"Has she, sister?" said Mrs. Tulliver, with an air of much interest.
"And how do you like it?"

"It's apt to make a mess with clothes, taking 'em out and putting 'em
in again," said Mrs. Pullet, drawing a bunch of keys from her pocket
and looking at them earnestly, "but it 'ud be a pity for you to go
away without seeing it. There's no knowing what may happen."

Mrs. Pullet shook her head slowly at this last serious consideration,
which determined her to single out a particular key.

"I'm afraid it'll be troublesome to you getting it out, sister," said
Mrs. Tulliver; "but I _should_ like to see what sort of a crown she's
made you."

Mrs. Pullet rose with a melancholy air and unlocked one wing of a very
bright wardrobe, where you may have hastily supposed she would find a
new bonnet. Not at all. Such a supposition could only have arisen from
a too-superficial acquaintance with the habits of the Dodson family.
In this wardrobe Mrs. Pullet was seeking something small enough to be
hidden among layers of linen,--it was a door-key.

"You must come with me into the best room," said Mrs. Pullet.

"May the children come too, sister?" inquired Mrs. Tulliver, who saw
that Maggie and Lucy were looking rather eager.

"Well," said aunt Pullet, reflectively, "it'll perhaps be safer for
'em to come; they'll be touching something if we leave 'em behind."

So they went in procession along the bright and slippery corridor,
dimly lighted by the semi-lunar top of the window which rose above the
closed shutter; it was really quite solemn. Aunt Pullet paused and
unlocked a door which opened on something still more solemn than the
passage,--a darkened room, in which the outer light, entering feebly,
showed what looked like the corpses of furniture in white shrouds.
Everything that was not shrouded stood with its legs upward. Lucy laid
hold of Maggie's frock, and Maggie's heart beat rapidly.

Aunt Pullet half-opened the shutter and then unlocked the wardrobe,
with a melancholy deliberateness which was quite in keeping with the
funereal solemnity of the scene. The delicious scent of rose-leaves
that issued from the wardrobe made the process of taking out sheet
after sheet of silver paper quite pleasant to assist at, though the
sight of the bonnet at last was an anticlimax to Maggie, who would
have preferred something more strikingly preternatural. But few things
could have been more impressive to Mrs. Tulliver. She looked all round
it in silence for some moments, and then said emphatically, "Well,
sister, I'll never speak against the full crowns again!"

It was a great concession, and Mrs. Pullet felt it; she felt something
was due to it.

"You'd like to see it on, sister?" she said sadly. "I'll open the
shutter a bit further."

"Well, if you don't mind taking off your cap, sister," said Mrs.
Tulliver.

Mrs. Pullet took off her cap, displaying the brown silk scalp with a
jutting promontory of curls which was common to the more mature and
judicious women of those times, and placing the bonnet on her head,
turned slowly round, like a draper's lay-figure, that Mrs. Tulliver
might miss no point of view.

"I've sometimes thought there's a loop too much o' ribbon on this left
side, sister; what do you think?" said Mrs. Pullet.

Mrs. Tulliver looked earnestly at the point indicated, and turned her
head on one side. "Well, I think it's best as it is; if you meddled
with it, sister, you might repent."

"That's true," said aunt Pullet, taking off the bonnet and looking at
it contemplatively.

"How much might she charge you for that bonnet, sister?" said Mrs.
Tulliver, whose mind was actively engaged on the possibility of
getting a humble imitation of this _chef-d'oeuvre_ made from a piece
of silk she had at home.

Mrs. Pullet screwed up her mouth and shook her head, and then
whispered, "Pullet pays for it; he said I was to have the best bonnet
at Garum Church, let the next best be whose it would."

She began slowly to adjust the trimmings, in preparation for returning
it to its place in the wardrobe, and her thoughts seemed to have taken
a melancholy turn, for she shook her head.

"Ah," she said at last, "I may never wear it twice, sister; who
knows?"

"Don't talk o' that sister," answered Mrs. Tulliver. "I hope you'll
have your health this summer."

"Ah! but there may come a death in the family, as there did soon after
I had my green satin bonnet. Cousin Abbott may go, and we can't think
o' wearing crape less nor half a year for him."

"That _would_ be unlucky," said Mrs. Tulliver, entering thoroughly
into the possibility of an inopportune decease. "There's never so much
pleasure i' wearing a bonnet the second year, especially when the
crowns are so chancy,--never two summers alike."

"Ah, it's the way i' this world," said Mrs. Pullet, returning the
bonnet to the wardrobe and locking it up. She maintained a silence
characterized by head-shaking, until they had all issued from the
solemn chamber and were in her own room again. Then, beginning to cry,
she said, "Sister, if you should never see that bonnet again till I'm
dead and gone, you'll remember I showed it you this day."

Mrs. Tulliver felt that she ought to be affected, but she was a woman
of sparse tears, stout and healthy; she couldn't cry so much as her
sister Pullet did, and had often felt her deficiency at funerals. Her
effort to bring tears into her eyes issued in an odd contraction of
her face. Maggie, looking on attentively, felt that there was some
painful mystery about her aunt's bonnet which she was considered too
young to understand; indignantly conscious, all the while, that she
could have understood that, as well as everything else, if she had
been taken into confidence.

When they went down, uncle Pullet observed, with some acumen, that he
reckoned the missis had been showing her bonnet,--that was what had
made them so long upstairs. With Tom the interval had seemed still
longer, for he had been seated in irksome constraint on the edge of a
sofa directly opposite his uncle Pullet, who regarded him with
twinkling gray eyes, and occasionally addressed him as "Young sir."

"Well, young sir, what do you learn at school?" was a standing
question with uncle Pullet; whereupon Tom always looked sheepish,
rubbed his hands across his face, and answered, "I don't know." It was
altogether so embarrassing to be seated _tete-a-tete_ with uncle
Pullet, that Tom could not even look at the prints on the walls, or
the flycages, or the wonderful flower-pots; he saw nothing but his
uncle's gaiters. Not that Tom was in awe of his uncle's mental
superiority; indeed, he had made up his mind that he didn't want to be
a gentleman farmer, because he shouldn't like to be such a
thin-legged, silly fellow as his uncle Pullet,--a molly-coddle, in
fact. A boy's sheepishness is by no means a sign of overmastering
reverence; and while you are making encouraging advances to him under
the idea that he is overwhelmed by a sense of your age and wisdom, ten
to one he is thinking you extremely queer. The only consolation I can
suggest to you is, that the Greek boys probably thought the same of
Aristotle. It is only when you have mastered a restive horse, or
thrashed a drayman, or have got a gun in your hand, that these shy
juniors feel you to be a truly admirable and enviable character. At
least, I am quite sure of Tom Tulliver's sentiments on these points.
In very tender years, when he still wore a lace border under his
outdoor cap, he was often observed peeping through the bars of a gate
and making minatory gestures with his small forefinger while he
scolded the sheep with an inarticulate burr, intended to strike terror
into their astonished minds; indicating thus early that desire for
mastery over the inferior animals, wild and domestic, including
cockchafers, neighbors' dogs, and small sisters, which in all ages has
been an attribute of so much promise for the fortunes of our race.
Now, Mr. Pullet never rode anything taller than a low pony, and was
the least predatory of men, considering firearms dangerous, as apt to
go off of themselves by nobody's particular desire. So that Tom was
not without strong reasons when, in confidential talk with a chum, he
had described uncle Pullet as a nincompoop, taking care at the same
time to observe that he was a very "rich fellow."

The only alleviating circumstance in a _tete-a-tete_ with uncle Pullet
was that he kept a variety of lozenges and peppermint-drops about his
person, and when at a loss for conversation, he filled up the void by
proposing a mutual solace of this kind.

"Do you like peppermints, young sir?" required only a tacit answer
when it was accompanied by a presentation of the article in question.

The appearance of the little girls suggested to uncle Pullet the
further solace of small sweet-cakes, of which he also kept a stock
under lock and key for his own private eating on wet days; but the
three children had no sooner got the tempting delicacy between their
fingers, than aunt Pullet desired them to abstain from eating it till
the tray and the plates came, since with those crisp cakes they would
make the floor "all over" crumbs. Lucy didn't mind that much, for the
cake was so pretty, she thought it was rather a pity to eat it; but
Tom, watching his opportunity while the elders were talking, hastily
stowed it in his mouth at two bites, and chewed it furtively. As for
Maggie, becoming fascinated, as usual, by a print of Ulysses and
Nausicaa, which uncle Pullet had bought as a "pretty Scripture thing,"
she presently let fall her cake, and in an unlucky movement crushed it
beneath her foot,--a source of so much agitation to aunt Pullet and
conscious disgrace to Maggie, that she began to despair of hearing the
musical snuff-box to-day, till, after some reflection, it occurred to
her that Lucy was in high favor enough to venture on asking for a
tune. So she whispered to Lucy; and Lucy, who always did what she was
desired to do, went up quietly to her uncle's knee, and blush-all over
her neck while she fingered her necklace, said, "Will you please play
us a tune, uncle?"

Lucy thought it was by reason of some exceptional talent in uncle
Pullet that the snuff-box played such beautiful tunes, and indeed the
thing was viewed in that light by the majority of his neighbors in
Garum. Mr. Pullet had _bought_ the box, to begin with, and he
understood winding it up, and knew which tune it was going to play
beforehand; altogether the possession of this unique "piece of music"
was a proof that Mr. Pullet's character was not of that entire nullity
which might otherwise have been attributed to it. But uncle Pullet,
when entreated to exhibit his accomplishment, never depreciated it by
a too-ready consent. "We'll see about it," was the answer he always
gave, carefully abstaining from any sign of compliance till a suitable
number of minutes had passed. Uncle Pullet had a programme for all
great social occasions, and in this way fenced himself in from much
painful confusion and perplexing freedom of will.

Perhaps the suspense did heighten Maggie's enjoyment when the fairy
tune began; for the first time she quite forgot that she had a load on
her mind, that Tom was angry with her; and by the time "Hush, ye
pretty warbling choir," had been played, her face wore that bright
look of happiness, while she sat immovable with her hands clasped,
which sometimes comforted her mother with the sense that Maggie could
look pretty now and then, in spite of her brown skin. But when the
magic music ceased, she jumped up, and running toward Tom, put her arm
round his neck and said, "Oh, Tom, isn't it pretty?"

Lest you should think it showed a revolting insensibility in Tom that
he felt any new anger toward Maggie for this uncalled-for and, to him,
inexplicable caress, I must tell you that he had his glass of cowslip
wine in his hand, and that she jerked him so as to make him spill half
of it. He must have been an extreme milksop not to say angrily, "Look
there, now!" especially when his resentment was sanctioned, as it was,
by general disapprobation of Maggie's behavior.

"Why don't you sit still, Maggie?" her mother said peevishly.

"Little gells mustn't come to see me if they behave in that way," said
aunt Pullet.

"Why, you're too rough, little miss," said uncle Pullet.

Poor Maggie sat down again, with the music all chased out of her soul,
and the seven small demons all in again.

Mrs. Tulliver, foreseeing nothing but misbehavior while the children
remained indoors, took an early opportunity of suggesting that, now
they were rested after their walk, they might go and play out of
doors; and aunt Pullet gave permission, only enjoining them not to go
off the paved walks in the garden, and if they wanted to see the
poultry fed, to view them from a distance on the horse-block; a
restriction which had been imposed ever since Tom had been found
guilty of running after the peacock, with an illusory idea that fright
would make one of its feathers drop off.

Mrs. Tulliver's thoughts had been temporarily diverted from the
quarrel with Mrs. Glegg by millinery and maternal cares, but now the
great theme of the bonnet was thrown into perspective, and the
children were out of the way, yesterday's anxieties recurred.

"It weighs on my mind so as never was," she said, by way of opening
the subject, "sister Glegg's leaving the house in that way. I'm sure
I'd no wish t' offend a sister."

"Ah," said aunt Pullet, "there's no accounting for what Jane 'ull do.
I wouldn't speak of it out o' the family, if it wasn't to Dr.
Turnbull; but it's my belief Jane lives too low. I've said so to
Pullet often and often, and he knows it."

"Why, you said so last Monday was a week, when we came away from
drinking tea with 'em," said Mr. Pullet, beginning to nurse his knee
and shelter it with his pocket-hand-kerchief, as was his way when the
conversation took an interesting turn.

"Very like I did," said Mrs. Pullet, "for you remember when I said
things, better than I can remember myself. He's got a wonderful
memory, Pullet has," she continued, looking pathetically at her
sister. "I should be poorly off if he was to have a stroke, for he
always remembers when I've got to take my doctor's stuff; and I'm
taking three sorts now."

"There's the 'pills as before' every other night, and the new drops at
eleven and four, and the 'fervescing mixture 'when agreeable,'"
rehearsed Mr. Pullet, with a punctuation determined by a lozenge on
his tongue.

"Ah, perhaps it 'ud be better for sister Glegg if _she'd_ go to the
doctor sometimes, instead o' chewing Turkey rhubarb whenever there's
anything the matter with her," said Mrs. Tulliver, who naturally saw
the wide subject of medicine chiefly in relation to Mrs. Glegg.

"It's dreadful to think on," said aunt Pullet, raising her hands and
letting them fall again, "people playing with their own insides in
that way! And it's flying i' the face o' Providence; for what are the
doctors for, if we aren't to call 'em in? And when folks have got the
money to pay for a doctor, it isn't respectable, as I've told Jane
many a time. I'm ashamed of acquaintance knowing it."

"Well, _we've_ no call to be ashamed," said Mr. Pullet, "for Doctor
Turnbull hasn't got such another patient as you i' this parish, now
old Mrs. Sutton's gone."

"Pullet keeps all my physic-bottles, did you know, Bessy?" said Mrs.
Pullet. "He won't have one sold. He says it's nothing but right folks
should see 'em when I'm gone. They fill two o' the long store-room
shelves a'ready; but," she added, beginning to cry a little, "it's
well if they ever fill three. I may go before I've made up the dozen
o' these last sizes. The pill-boxes are in the closet in my
room,--you'll remember that, sister,--but there's nothing to show for
the boluses, if it isn't the bills."

"Don't talk o' your going, sister," said Mrs. Tulliver; "I should have
nobody to stand between me and sister Glegg if you was gone. And
there's nobody but you can get her to make it up with Mr. Tulliver,
for sister Deane's never o' my side, and if she was, it's not to be
looked for as she can speak like them as have got an independent
fortin."

"Well, your husband _is_ awk'ard, you know, Bessy," said Mrs. Pullet,
good-naturedly ready to use her deep depression on her sister's
account as well as her own. "He's never behaved quite so pretty to our
family as he should do, and the children take after him,--the boy's
very mischievous, and runs away from his aunts and uncles, and the
gell's rude and brown. It's your bad luck, and I'm sorry for you,
Bessy; for you was allays my favorite sister, and we allays liked the
same patterns."

"I know Tulliver's hasty, and says odd things," said Mrs. Tulliver,
wiping away one small tear from the corner of her eye; "but I'm sure
he's never been the man, since he married me, to object to my making
the friends o' my side o' the family welcome to the house."

"_I_ don't want to make the worst of you, Bessy," said Mrs. Pullet,
compassionately, "for I doubt you'll have trouble enough without that;
and your husband's got that poor sister and her children hanging on
him,--and so given to lawing, they say. I doubt he'll leave you poorly
off when he dies. Not as I'd have it said out o' the family."

This view of her position was naturally far from cheering to Mrs.
Tulliver. Her imagination was not easily acted on, but she could not
help thinking that her case was a hard one, since it appeared that
other people thought it hard.

"I'm sure, sister, I can't help myself," she said, urged by the fear
lest her anticipated misfortunes might be held retributive, to take
comprehensive review of her past conduct. "There's no woman strives
more for her children; and I'm sure at scouring-time this Lady-day as
I've had all the bedhangings taken down I did as much as the two gells
put together; and there's the last elder-flower wine I've
made--beautiful! I allays offer it along with the sherry, though
sister Glegg will have it I'm so extravagant; and as for liking to
have my clothes tidy, and not go a fright about the house, there's
nobody in the parish can say anything against me in respect o'
backbiting and making mischief, for I don't wish anybody any harm; and
nobody loses by sending me a porkpie, for my pies are fit to show with
the best o' my neighbors'; and the linen's so in order as if I was to
die to-morrow I shouldn't be ashamed. A woman can do no more nor she
can."

"But it's all o' no use, you know, Bessy," said Mrs. Pullet, holding
her head on one side, and fixing her eyes pathetically on her sister,
"if your husband makes away with his money. Not but what if you was
sold up, and other folks bought your furniture, it's a comfort to
think as you've kept it well rubbed. And there's the linen, with your
maiden mark on, might go all over the country. It 'ud be a sad pity
for our family." Mrs. Pullet shook her head slowly.

"But what can I do, sister?" said Mrs. Tulliver. "Mr. Tulliver's not a
man to be dictated to,--not if I was to go to the parson and get by
heart what I should tell my husband for the best. And I'm sure I don't
pretend to know anything about putting out money and all that. I could
never see into men's business as sister Glegg does."

"Well, you're like me in that, Bessy," said Mrs. Pullet; "and I think
it 'ud be a deal more becoming o' Jane if she'd have that pier-glass
rubbed oftener,--there was ever so many spots on it last
week,--instead o' dictating to folks as have more comings in than she
ever had, and telling 'em what they're to do with their money. But
Jane and me were allays contrairy; she _would_ have striped things,
and I like spots. You like a spot too, Bessy; we allays hung together
i' that."

"Yes, Sophy," said Mrs. Tulliver, "I remember our having a blue ground
with a white spot both alike,--I've got a bit in a bed-quilt now; and
if you would but go and see sister Glegg, and persuade her to make it
up with Tulliver, I should take it very kind of you. You was allays a
good sister to me."

"But the right thing 'ud be for Tulliver to go and make it up with her
himself, and say he was sorry for speaking so rash. If he's borrowed
money of her, he shouldn't be above that," said Mrs. Pullet, whose
partiality did not blind her to principles; she did not forget what
was due to people of independent fortune.

"It's no use talking o' that," said poor Mrs. Tulliver, almost
peevishly. "If I was to go down on my bare knees on the gravel to
Tulliver, he'd never humble himself."

"Well, you can't expect me to persuade _Jane_ to beg pardon," said
Mrs. Pullet. "Her temper's beyond everything; it's well if it doesn't
carry her off her mind, though there never _was_ any of our family
went to a madhouse."

"I'm not thinking of her begging pardon," said Mrs. Tulliver. "But if
she'd just take no notice, and not call her money in; as it's not so
much for one sister to ask of another; time 'ud mend things, and
Tulliver 'ud forget all about it, and they'd be friends again."

Mrs. Tulliver, you perceive, was not aware of her husband's
irrevocable determination to pay in the five hundred pounds; at least
such a determination exceeded her powers of belief.

"Well, Bessy," said Mrs. Pullet, mournfully, "_I_ don't want to help
you on to ruin. I won't be behindhand i' doing you a good turn, if it
is to be done. And I don't like it said among acquaintance as we've
got quarrels in the family. I shall tell Jane that; and I don't mind
driving to Jane's tomorrow, if Pullet doesn't mind. What do you say,
Mr. Pullet?"

"I've no objections," said Mr. Pullet, who was perfectly contented
with any course the quarrel might take, so that Mr. Tulliver did not
apply to _him_ for money. Mr. Pullet was nervous about his
investments, and did not see how a man could have any security for his
money unless he turned it into land.

After a little further discussion as to whether it would not be better
for Mrs. Tulliver to accompany them on a visit to sister Glegg, Mrs.
Pullet, observing that it was tea-time, turned to reach from a drawer
a delicate damask napkin, which she pinned before her in the fashion
of an apron. The door did, in fact, soon open, but instead of the
tea-tray, Sally introduced an object so startling that both Mrs.
Pullet and Mrs. Tulliver gave a scream, causing uncle Pullet to
swallow his lozenge--for the fifth time in his life, as he afterward
noted.

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: The Tulliver kids, their mom, and Lucy go to visit the Pullets at their house, Garrum Firs. Before they leave, a hairdresser comes to fix Maggie's wacky haircut. He tells Maggie that she looks awful and Maggie is mad. Her mom then tells her to stop looking ugly. Apparently Maggie can alter how she looks through sheer force of will. Lucy of course looks pretty and adorable, which makes Maggie madder. Let's hope there are no wooden dolls or rabbits in the vicinity. Maggie's terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day continues when she accidentally messes up a house of cards that Tom was building. Tom thinks he's on the Brady Bunch apparently. Tom is mad and only pays attention to Lucy now. The group finally head over to the Pullet house. The Pullets are worried about how the kids are going to mess up their furniture. The females all go to look at Aunt Pullet's new bonnet. Mrs. Pullet is depressed, which seems to be her default emotional setting. She says that someone in the family will probably die and then she'll have to wear her black mourning clothes and won't have a chance to wear her new bonnet. had to wear all black "mourning" clothes when someone in their family died. The amount of time someone had to wear mourning clothes depended on who died - if a woman's husband died she could be stuck wearing all black for a year.) Meanwhile, Tom is stuck downstairs alone with Uncle Pullet. Uncle Pullet is awkward with kids and asks Tom lame questions like how he likes school. Tom is awkward and shy around his uncle and thinks that his uncle is pretty lame overall. Uncle Pullet then asks Tom if he likes peppermints, and the ladies show back up to stop this conversation from further going downhill. The kids all get some cakes to eat. But Maggie gets distracted by some art and drops her cake, making a mess. Aunt Pullet freaks out. Lucy then goes to ask Uncle Pullet to show them his music box. Maggie adores music and instantly sits down in order to listen to it. But she gets so excited by the music that she quickly gets back up and tackle-hugs Tom. This causes Tom to spill his drink and the adults all scold Maggie. The adults send the kids outside. Mrs. Pullet talks about the health of the family and predicts doom for everyone. She's a bit of a free-for-all hypochondriac, someone convinced that they are always sick. The adults then discuss the dispute between Mr. Tulliver and Mrs. Glegg. Mrs. Pullet says that she'll talk to Mrs. Glegg, but she predicts doom and gloom for everyone. She's like Eeyore from Winnie the Pooh. Suddenly, the maid Sally bring in an object that causes the women to scream and Uncle Pullet to swallow his lozenge in shock. Cliffhanger!


prompt:
Chapter: Maggie Behaves Worse Than She Expected

The startling object which thus made an epoch for uncle Pullet was no
other than little Lucy, with one side of her person, from her small
foot to her bonnet-crown, wet and discolored with mud, holding out two
tiny blackened hands, and making a very piteous face. To account for
this unprecedented apparition in aunt Pullet's parlor, we must return
to the moment when the three children went to play out of doors, and
the small demons who had taken possession of Maggie's soul at an early
period of the day had returned in all the greater force after a
temporary absence. All the disagreeable recollections of the morning
were thick upon her, when Tom, whose displeasure toward her had been
considerably refreshed by her foolish trick of causing him to upset
his cowslip wine, said, "Here, Lucy, you come along with me," and
walked off to the area where the toads were, as if there were no
Maggie in existence. Seeing this, Maggie lingered at a distance
looking like a small Medusa with her snakes cropped. Lucy was
naturally pleased that cousin Tom was so good to her, and it was very
amusing to see him tickling a fat toad with a piece of string when the
toad was safe down the area, with an iron grating over him. Still Lucy
wished Maggie to enjoy the spectacle also, especially as she would
doubtless find a name for the toad, and say what had been his past
history; for Lucy had a delighted semibelief in Maggie's stories about
the live things they came upon by accident,--how Mrs. Earwig had a
wash at home, and one of her children had fallen into the hot copper,
for which reason she was running so fast to fetch the doctor. Tom had
a profound contempt for this nonsense of Maggie's, smashing the earwig
at once as a superfluous yet easy means of proving the entire
unreality of such a story; but Lucy, for the life of her, could not
help fancying there was something in it, and at all events thought it
was very pretty make-believe. So now the desire to know the history of
a very portly toad, added to her habitual affectionateness, made her
run back to Maggie and say, "Oh, there is such a big, funny toad,
Maggie! Do come and see!"

Maggie said nothing, but turned away from her with a deeper frown. As
long as Tom seemed to prefer Lucy to her, Lucy made part of his
unkindness. Maggie would have thought a little while ago that she
could never be cross with pretty little Lucy, any more than she could
be cruel to a little white mouse; but then, Tom had always been quite
indifferent to Lucy before, and it had been left to Maggie to pet and
make much of her. As it was, she was actually beginning to think that
she should like to make Lucy cry by slapping or pinching her,
especially as it might vex Tom, whom it was of no use to slap, even if
she dared, because he didn't mind it. And if Lucy hadn't been there,
Maggie was sure he would have got friends with her sooner.

Tickling a fat toad who is not highly sensitive is an amusement that
it is possible to exhaust, and Tom by and by began to look round for
some other mode of passing the time. But in so prim a garden, where
they were not to go off the paved walks, there was not a great choice
of sport. The only great pleasure such a restriction suggested was the
pleasure of breaking it, and Tom began to meditate an insurrectionary
visit to the pond, about a field's length beyond the garden.

"I say, Lucy," he began, nodding his head up and down with great
significance, as he coiled up his string again, "what do you think I
mean to do?"

"What, Tom?" said Lucy, with curiosity.

"I mean to go to the pond and look at the pike. You may go with me if
you like," said the young sultan.

"Oh, Tom, _dare_ you?" said Lucy. "Aunt said we mustn't go out of the
garden."

"Oh, I shall go out at the other end of the garden," said Tom. "Nobody
'ull see us. Besides, I don't care if they do,--I'll run off home."

"But _I_ couldn't run," said Lucy, who had never before been exposed
to such severe temptation.

"Oh, never mind; they won't be cross with _you_," said Tom. "You say I
took you."

Tom walked along, and Lucy trotted by his side, timidly enjoying the
rare treat of doing something naughty,--excited also by the mention of
that celebrity, the pike, about which she was quite uncertain whether
it was a fish or a fowl.

Maggie saw them leaving the garden, and could not resist the impulse
to follow. Anger and jealousy can no more bear to lose sight of their
objects than love, and that Tom and Lucy should do or see anything of
which she was ignorant would have been an intolerable idea to Maggie.
So she kept a few yards behind them, unobserved by Tom, who was
presently absorbed in watching for the pike,--a highly interesting
monster; he was said to be so very old, so very large, and to have
such a remarkable appetite. The pike, like other celebrities, did not
show when he was watched for, but Tom caught sight of something in
rapid movement in the water, which attracted him to another spot on
the brink of the pond.

"Here, Lucy!" he said in a loud whisper, "come here! take care! keep
on the grass!--don't step where the cows have been!" he added,
pointing to a peninsula of dry grass, with trodden mud on each side of
it; for Tom's contemptuous conception of a girl included the attribute
of being unfit to walk in dirty places.

Lucy came carefully as she was bidden, and bent down to look at what
seemed a golden arrow-head darting through the water. It was a
water-snake, Tom told her; and Lucy at last could see the serpentine
wave of its body, very much wondering that a snake could swim. Maggie
had drawn nearer and nearer; she _must_ see it too, though it was
bitter to her, like everything else, since Tom did not care about her
seeing it. At last she was close by Lucy; and Tom, who had been aware
of her approach, but would not notice it till he was obliged, turned
round and said,--

"Now, get away, Maggie; there's no room for you on the grass here.
Nobody asked _you_ to come."

There were passions at war in Maggie at that moment to have made a
tragedy, if tragedies were made by passion only; but the essential
[Greek text] which was present in the passion was wanting to the action;
the utmost Maggie could do, with a fierce thrust of her small brown arm,
was to push poor little pink-and-white Lucy into the cow-trodden mud.

Then Tom could not restrain himself, and gave Maggie two smart slaps
on the arm as he ran to pick up Lucy, who lay crying helplessly.
Maggie retreated to the roots of a tree a few yards off, and looked on
impenitently. Usually her repentance came quickly after one rash deed,
but now Tom and Lucy had made her so miserable, she was glad to spoil
their happiness,--glad to make everybody uncomfortable. Why should she
be sorry? Tom was very slow to forgive _her_, however sorry she might
have been.

"I shall tell mother, you know, Miss Mag," said Tom, loudly and
emphatically, as soon as Lucy was up and ready to walk away. It was
not Tom's practice to "tell," but here justice clearly demanded that
Maggie should be visited with the utmost punishment; not that Tom had
learned to put his views in that abstract form; he never mentioned
"justice," and had no idea that his desire to punish might be called
by that fine name. Lucy was too entirely absorbed by the evil that had
befallen her,--the spoiling of her pretty best clothes, and the
discomfort of being wet and dirty,--to think much of the cause, which
was entirely mysterious to her. She could never have guessed what she
had done to make Maggie angry with her; but she felt that Maggie was
very unkind and disagreeable, and made no magnanimous entreaties to
Tom that he would not "tell," only running along by his side and
crying piteously, while Maggie sat on the roots of the tree and looked
after them with her small Medusa face.

"Sally," said Tom, when they reached the kitchen door, and Sally
looked at them in speechless amaze, with a piece of bread-and-butter
in her mouth and a toasting-fork in her hand,--"Sally, tell mother it
was Maggie pushed Lucy into the mud."

"But Lors ha' massy, how did you get near such mud as that?" said
Sally, making a wry face, as she stooped down and examined the _corpus
delicti_.

Tom's imagination had not been rapid and capacious enough to include
this question among the foreseen consequences, but it was no sooner
put than he foresaw whither it tended, and that Maggie would not be
considered the only culprit in the case. He walked quietly away from
the kitchen door, leaving Sally to that pleasure of guessing which
active minds notoriously prefer to ready-made knowledge.

Sally, as you are aware, lost no time in presenting Lucy at the parlor
door, for to have so dirty an object introduced into the house at
Garum Firs was too great a weight to be sustained by a single mind.

"Goodness gracious!" aunt Pullet exclaimed, after preluding by an
inarticulate scream; "keep her at the door, Sally! Don't bring her off
the oil-cloth, whatever you do."

"Why, she's tumbled into some nasty mud," said Mrs. Tulliver, going up
to Lucy to examine into the amount of damage to clothes for which she
felt herself responsible to her sister Deane.

"If you please, 'um, it was Miss Maggie as pushed her in," said Sally;
"Master Tom's been and said so, and they must ha' been to the pond,
for it's only there they could ha' got into such dirt."

"There it is, Bessy; it's what I've been telling you," said Mrs.
Pullet, in a tone of prophetic sadness; "it's your children,--there's
no knowing what they'll come to."

Mrs. Tulliver was mute, feeling herself a truly wretched mother. As
usual, the thought pressed upon her that people would think she had
done something wicked to deserve her maternal troubles, while Mrs.
Pullet began to give elaborate directions to Sally how to guard the
premises from serious injury in the course of removing the dirt.
Meantime tea was to be brought in by the cook, and the two naughty
children were to have theirs in an ignominious manner in the kitchen.
Mrs. Tulliver went out to speak to these naughty children, supposing
them to be close at hand; but it was not until after some search that
she found Tom leaning with rather a hardened, careless air against the
white paling of the poultry-yard, and lowering his piece of string on
the other side as a means of exasperating the turkey-cock.

"Tom, you naughty boy, where's your sister?" said Mrs. Tulliver, in a
distressed voice.

"I don't know," said Tom; his eagerness for justice on Maggie had
diminished since he had seen clearly that it could hardly be brought
about without the injustice of some blame on his own conduct.

"Why, where did you leave her?" said the mother, looking round.

"Sitting under the tree, against the pond," said Tom, apparently
indifferent to everything but the string and the turkey-cock.

"Then go and fetch her in this minute, you naughty boy. And how could
you think o' going to the pond, and taking your sister where there was
dirt? You know she'll do mischief if there's mischief to be done."

It was Mrs. Tulliver's way, if she blamed Tom, to refer his
misdemeanor, somehow or other, to Maggie.

The idea of Maggie sitting alone by the pond roused an habitual fear
in Mrs. Tulliver's mind, and she mounted the horse-block to satisfy
herself by a sight of that fatal child, while Tom walked--not very
quickly--on his way toward her.

"They're such children for the water, mine are," she said aloud,
without reflecting that there was no one to hear her; "they'll be
brought in dead and drownded some day. I wish that river was far
enough."

But when she not only failed to discern Maggie, but presently saw Tom
returning from the pool alone, this hovering fear entered and took
complete possession of her, and she hurried to meet him.

"Maggie's nowhere about the pond, mother," said Tom; "she's gone
away."

You may conceive the terrified search for Maggie, and the difficulty
of convincing her mother that she was not in the pond. Mrs. Pullet
observed that the child might come to a worse end if she lived, there
was no knowing; and Mr. Pullet, confused and overwhelmed by this
revolutionary aspect of things,--the tea deferred and the poultry
alarmed by the unusual running to and fro,--took up his spud as an
instrument of search, and reached down a key to unlock the goose-pen,
as a likely place for Maggie to lie concealed in.

Tom, after a while, started the idea that Maggie was gone home
(without thinking it necessary to state that it was what he should
have done himself under the circumstances), and the suggestion was
seized as a comfort by his mother.

"Sister, for goodness' sake let 'em put the horse in the carriage and
take me home; we shall perhaps find her on the road. Lucy can't walk
in her dirty clothes," she said, looking at that innocent victim, who
was wrapped up in a shawl, and sitting with naked feet on the sofa.

Aunt Pullet was quite willing to take the shortest means of restoring
her premises to order and quiet, and it was not long before Mrs.
Tulliver was in the chaise, looking anxiously at the most distant
point before her. What the father would say if Maggie was lost, was a
question that predominated over every other.

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: We quickly learn that the object in question is Lucy, covered in mud. We flashback, Lost-style, to the moment when the kids went outside. Tom is still being bratty and is ignoring Maggie. Lucy likes Maggie and tries to include her, but Maggie is getting increasingly upset. Tom decides to go check out the pond, even though Aunt Pullet told them to stay in the garden. Tom and Lucy take off for the pond and Maggie follows. The kids spy a snake. Maggie comes to look at it and Tom tells her to go away. Finally Maggie snaps and shoves Lucy in the mud in a fit of anger. Tom is so mad that he slaps Maggie on the arm and then takes a crying Lucy home. He tells Maggie that he's going to tell on her and Maggie is angry and upset. So Tom takes Lucy back to the house and the adults quickly get her cleaned up. Mrs. Tulliver is upset that she has such awful children - Maggie pushed her cousin in the mud and Tom went to the pond in the first place. Mrs. Tulliver wonders where Maggie is and Tom says he doesn't know. Tom goes to look for Maggie but he can't find her. Mrs. Tulliver freaks out. Aunt Pullet gladly sends the group back to Dorlcote Mill to look for Maggie. She wants peace and quiet restored in her house.


prompt:
Chapter: Maggie Tries to Run away from Her Shadow

Maggie's intentions, as usual, were on a larger scale than Tom
imagined. The resolution that gathered in her mind, after Tom and Lucy
had walked away, was not so simple as that of going home. No! she
would run away and go to the gypsies, and Tom should never see her any
more. That was by no means a new idea to Maggie; she had been so often
told she was like a gypsy, and "half wild," that when she was
miserable it seemed to her the only way of escaping opprobrium, and
being entirely in harmony with circumstances, would be to live in a
little brown tent on the commons; the gypsies, she considered, would
gladly receive her and pay her much respect on account of her superior
knowledge. She had once mentioned her views on this point to Tom and
suggested that he should stain his face brown, and they should run
away together; but Tom rejected the scheme with contempt, observing
that gypsies were thieves, and hardly got anything to eat and had
nothing to drive but a donkey. To-day however, Maggie thought her
misery had reached a pitch at which gypsydom was her refuge, and she
rose from her seat on the roots of the tree with the sense that this
was a great crisis in her life; she would run straight away till she
came to Dunlow Common, where there would certainly be gypsies; and
cruel Tom, and the rest of her relations who found fault with her,
should never see her any more. She thought of her father as she ran
along, but she reconciled herself to the idea of parting with him, by
determining that she would secretly send him a letter by a small
gypsy, who would run away without telling where she was, and just let
him know that she was well and happy, and always loved him very much.

Maggie soon got out of breath with running, but by the time Tom got to
the pond again she was at the distance of three long fields, and was
on the edge of the lane leading to the highroad. She stopped to pant a
little, reflecting that running away was not a pleasant thing until
one had got quite to the common where the gypsies were, but her
resolution had not abated; she presently passed through the gate into
the lane, not knowing where it would lead her, for it was not this way
that they came from Dorlcote Mill to Garum Firs, and she felt all the
safer for that, because there was no chance of her being overtaken.
But she was soon aware, not without trembling, that there were two men
coming along the lane in front of her; she had not thought of meeting
strangers, she had been too much occupied with the idea of her friends
coming after her. The formidable strangers were two shabby-looking men
with flushed faces, one of them carrying a bundle on a stick over his
shoulder; but to her surprise, while she was dreading their
disapprobation as a runaway, the man with the bundle stopped, and in a
half-whining, half-coaxing tone asked her if she had a copper to give
a poor man. Maggie had a sixpence in her pocket,--her uncle Glegg's
present,--which she immediately drew out and gave this poor man with a
polite smile, hoping he would feel very kindly toward her as a
generous person. "That's the only money I've got," she said
apologetically. "Thank you, little miss," said the man, in a less
respectful and grateful tone than Maggie anticipated, and she even
observed that he smiled and winked at his companion. She walked on
hurriedly, but was aware that the two men were standing still,
probably to look after her, and she presently heard them laughing
loudly. Suddenly it occurred to her that they might think she was an
idiot; Tom had said that her cropped hair made her look like an idiot,
and it was too painful an idea to be readily forgotten. Besides, she
had no sleeves on,--only a cape and bonnet. It was clear that she was
not likely to make a favorable impression on passengers, and she
thought she would turn into the fields again, but not on the same side
of the lane as before, lest they should still be uncle Pullet's
fields. She turned through the first gate that was not locked, and
felt a delightful sense of privacy in creeping along by the hedgerows,
after her recent humiliating encounter. She was used to wandering
about the fields by herself, and was less timid there than on the
highroad. Sometimes she had to climb over high gates, but that was a
small evil; she was getting out of reach very fast, and she should
probably soon come within sight of Dunlow Common, or at least of some
other common, for she had heard her father say that you couldn't go
very far without coming to a common. She hoped so, for she was getting
rather tired and hungry, and until she reached the gypsies there was
no definite prospect of bread and butter. It was still broad daylight,
for aunt Pullet, retaining the early habits of the Dodson family, took
tea at half-past four by the sun, and at five by the kitchen clock;
so, though it was nearly an hour since Maggie started, there was no
gathering gloom on the fields to remind her that the night would come.
Still, it seemed to her that she had been walking a very great
distance indeed, and it was really surprising that the common did not
come within sight. Hitherto she had been in the rich parish of Garum,
where was a great deal of pasture-land, and she had only seen one
laborer at a distance. That was fortunate in some respects, as
laborers might be too ignorant to understand the propriety of her
wanting to go to Dunlow Common; yet it would have been better if she
could have met some one who would tell her the way without wanting to
know anything about her private business. At last, however, the green
fields came to an end, and Maggie found herself looking through the
bars of a gate into a lane with a wide margin of grass on each side of
it. She had never seen such a wide lane before, and, without her
knowing why, it gave her the impression that the common could not be
far off; perhaps it was because she saw a donkey with a log to his
foot feeding on the grassy margin, for she had seen a donkey with that
pitiable encumbrance on Dunlow Common when she had been across it in
her father's gig. She crept through the bars of the gate and walked on
with new spirit, though not without haunting images of Apollyon, and a
highwayman with a pistol, and a blinking dwarf in yellow with a mouth
from ear to ear, and other miscellaneous dangers. For poor little
Maggie had at once the timidity of an active imagination and the
daring that comes from overmastering impulse. She had rushed into the
adventure of seeking her unknown kindred, the gypsies; and now she was
in this strange lane, she hardly dared look on one side of her, lest
she should see the diabolical blacksmith in his leathern apron
grinning at her with arms akimbo. It was not without a leaping of the
heart that she caught sight of a small pair of bare legs sticking up,
feet uppermost, by the side of a hillock; they seemed something
hideously preternatural,--a diabolical kind of fungus; for she was too
much agitated at the first glance to see the ragged clothes and the
dark shaggy head attached to them. It was a boy asleep, and Maggie
trotted along faster and more lightly, lest she should wake him; it
did not occur to her that he was one of her friends the gypsies, who
in all probability would have very genial manners. But the fact was
so, for at the next bend in the lane Maggie actually saw the little
semicircular black tent with the blue smoke rising before it, which
was to be her refuge from all the blighting obloquy that had pursued
her in civilized life. She even saw a tall female figure by the column
of smoke, doubtless the gypsy-mother, who provided the tea and other
groceries; it was astonishing to herself that she did not feel more
delighted. But it was startling to find the gypsies in a lane, after
all, and not on a common; indeed, it was rather disappointing; for a
mysterious illimitable common, where there were sand-pits to hide in,
and one was out of everybody's reach, had always made part of Maggie's
picture of gypsy life. She went on, however, and thought with some
comfort that gypsies most likely knew nothing about idiots, so there
was no danger of their falling into the mistake of setting her down at
the first glance as an idiot. It was plain she had attracted
attention; for the tall figure, who proved to be a young woman with a
baby on her arm, walked slowly to meet her. Maggie looked up in the
new face rather tremblingly as it approached, and was reassured by the
thought that her aunt Pullet and the rest were right when they called
her a gypsy; for this face, with the bright dark eyes and the long
hair, was really something like what she used to see in the glass
before she cut her hair off.

"My little lady, where are you going to?" the gypsy said, in a tone of
coaxing deference.

It was delightful, and just what Maggie expected; the gypsies saw at
once that she was a little lady, and were prepared to treat her
accordingly.

"Not any farther," said Maggie, feeling as if she were saying what she
had rehearsed in a dream. "I'm come to stay with _you_, please."

"That's pretty; come, then. Why, what a nice little lady you are, to
be sure!" said the gypsy, taking her by the hand. Maggie thought her
very agreeable, but wished she had not been so dirty.

There was quite a group round the fire when she reached it. An old
gypsy woman was seated on the ground nursing her knees, and
occasionally poking a skewer into the round kettle that sent forth an
odorous steam; two small shock-headed children were lying prone and
resting on their elbows something like small sphinxes; and a placid
donkey was bending his head over a tall girl, who, lying on her back,
was scratching his nose and indulging him with a bite of excellent
stolen hay. The slanting sunlight fell kindly upon them, and the scene
was really very pretty and comfortable, Maggie thought, only she hoped
they would soon set out the tea-cups. Everything would be quite
charming when she had taught the gypsies to use a washing-basin, and
to feel an interest in books. It was a little confusing, though, that
the young woman began to speak to the old one in a language which
Maggie did not understand, while the tall girl, who was feeding the
donkey, sat up and stared at her without offering any salutation. At
last the old woman said,--

"What! my pretty lady, are you come to stay with us? Sit ye down and
tell us where you come from."

It was just like a story; Maggie liked to be called pretty lady and
treated in this way. She sat down and said,--

"I'm come from home because I'm unhappy, and I mean to be a gypsy.
I'll live with you if you like, and I can teach you a great many
things."

"Such a clever little lady," said the woman with the baby sitting down
by Maggie, and allowing baby to crawl; "and such a pretty bonnet and
frock," she added, taking off Maggie's bonnet and looking at it while
she made an observation to the old woman, in the unknown language. The
tall girl snatched the bonnet and put it on her own head hind-foremost
with a grin; but Maggie was determined not to show any weakness on
this subject, as if she were susceptible about her bonnet.

"I don't want to wear a bonnet," she said; "I'd rather wear a red
handkerchief, like yours" (looking at her friend by her side). "My
hair was quite long till yesterday, when I cut it off; but I dare say
it will grow again very soon," she added apologetically, thinking it
probable the gypsies had a strong prejudice in favor of long hair. And
Maggie had forgotten even her hunger at that moment in the desire to
conciliate gypsy opinion.

"Oh, what a nice little lady!--and rich, I'm sure," said the old
woman. "Didn't you live in a beautiful house at home?"

"Yes, my home is pretty, and I'm very fond of the river, where we go
fishing, but I'm often very unhappy. I should have liked to bring my
books with me, but I came away in a hurry, you know. But I can tell
you almost everything there is in my books, I've read them so many
times, and that will amuse you. And I can tell you something about
Geography too,--that's about the world we live in,--very useful and
interesting. Did you ever hear about Columbus?"

Maggie's eyes had begun to sparkle and her cheeks to flush,--she was
really beginning to instruct the gypsies, and gaining great influence
over them. The gypsies themselves were not without amazement at this
talk, though their attention was divided by the contents of Maggie's
pocket, which the friend at her right hand had by this time emptied
without attracting her notice.

"Is that where you live, my little lady?" said the old woman, at the
mention of Columbus.

"Oh, no!" said Maggie, with some pity; "Columbus was a very wonderful
man, who found out half the world, and they put chains on him and
treated him very badly, you know; it's in my Catechism of Geography,
but perhaps it's rather too long to tell before tea--_I want my tea
so_."

The last words burst from Maggie, in spite of herself, with a sudden
drop from patronizing instruction to simple peevishness.

"Why, she's hungry, poor little lady," said the younger woman. "Give
her some o' the cold victual. You've been walking a good way, I'll be
bound, my dear. Where's your home?"

"It's Dorlcote Mill, a good way off," said Maggie. "My father is Mr.
Tulliver, but we mustn't let him know where I am, else he'll fetch me
home again. Where does the queen of the gypsies live?"

"What! do you want to go to her, my little lady?" said the younger
woman. The tall girl meanwhile was constantly staring at Maggie and
grinning. Her manners were certainly not agreeable.

"No," said Maggie, "I'm only thinking that if she isn't a very good
queen you might be glad when she died, and you could choose another.
If I was a queen, I'd be a very good queen, and kind to everybody."

"Here's a bit o' nice victual, then," said the old woman, handing to
Maggie a lump of dry bread, which she had taken from a bag of scraps,
and a piece of cold bacon.

"Thank you,' said Maggie, looking at the food without taking it; "but
will you give me some bread-and-butter and tea instead? I don't like
bacon."

"We've got no tea nor butter," said the old woman, with something like
a scowl, as if she were getting tired of coaxing.

"Oh, a little bread and treacle would do," said Maggie.

"We han't got no treacle," said the old woman, crossly, whereupon
there followed a sharp dialogue between the two women in their unknown
tongue, and one of the small sphinxes snatched at the bread-and-bacon,
and began to eat it. At this moment the tall girl, who had gone a few
yards off, came back, and said something which produced a strong
effect. The old woman, seeming to forget Maggie's hunger, poked the
skewer into the pot with new vigor, and the younger crept under the
tent and reached out some platters and spoons. Maggie trembled a
little, and was afraid the tears would come into her eyes. Meanwhile
the tall girl gave a shrill cry, and presently came running up the boy
whom Maggie had passed as he was sleeping,--a rough urchin about the
age of Tom. He stared at Maggie, and there ensued much incomprehensible
chattering. She felt very lonely, and was quite sure she should begin to
cry before long; the gypsies didn't seem to mind her at all, and she felt
quite weak among them. But the springing tears were checked by new
terror, when two men came up, whose approach had been the cause
of the sudden excitement. The elder of the two carried a bag, which
he flung down, addressing the women in a loud and scolding tone,
which they answered by a shower of treble sauciness; while a black
cur ran barking up to Maggie, and threw her into a tremor that only
found a new cause in the curses with which the younger man called
the dog off, and gave him a rap with a great stick he held in his hand.

Maggie felt that it was impossible she should ever be queen of these
people, or ever communicate to them amusing and useful knowledge.

Both the men now seemed to be inquiring about Maggie, for they looked
at her, and the tone of the conversation became of that pacific kind
which implies curiosity on one side and the power of satisfying it on
the other. At last the younger woman said in her previous deferential,
coaxing tone,--

"This nice little lady's come to live with us; aren't you glad?"

"Ay, very glad," said the younger man, who was looking at Maggie's
silver thimble and other small matters that had been taken from her
pocket. He returned them all except the thimble to the younger woman,
with some observation, and she immediately restored them to Maggie's
pocket, while the men seated themselves, and began to attack the
contents of the kettle,--a stew of meat and potatoes,--which had been
taken off the fire and turned out into a yellow platter.

Maggie began to think that Tom must be right about the gypsies; they
must certainly be thieves, unless the man meant to return her thimble
by and by. She would willingly have given it to him, for she was not
at all attached to her thimble; but the idea that she was among
thieves prevented her from feeling any comfort in the revival of
deference and attention toward her; all thieves, except Robin Hood,
were wicked people. The women saw she was frightened.

"We've got nothing nice for a lady to eat," said the old woman, in her
coaxing tone. "And she's so hungry, sweet little lady."

"Here, my dear, try if you can eat a bit o' this," said the younger
woman, handing some of the stew on a brown dish with an iron spoon to
Maggie, who, remembering that the old woman had seemed angry with her
for not liking the bread-and-bacon, dared not refuse the stew, though
fear had chased away her appetite. If her father would but come by in
the gig and take her up! Or even if Jack the Giantkiller, or Mr.
Greatheart, or St. George who slew the dragon on the half-pennies,
would happen to pass that way! But Maggie thought with a sinking heart
that these heroes were never seen in the neighborhood of St. Ogg's;
nothing very wonderful ever came there.

Maggie Tulliver, you perceive, was by no means that well trained,
well-informed young person that a small female of eight or nine
necessarily is in these days; she had only been to school a year at
St. Ogg's, and had so few books that she sometimes read the
dictionary; so that in travelling over her small mind you would have
found the most unexpected ignorance as well as unexpected knowledge.
She could have informed you that there was such a word as "polygamy,"
and being also acquainted with "polysyllable," she had deduced the
conclusion that "poly" mean "many"; but she had had no idea that
gypsies were not well supplied with groceries, and her thoughts
generally were the oddest mixture of clear-eyed acumen and blind
dreams.

Her ideas about the gypsies had undergone a rapid modification in the
last five minutes. From having considered them very respectful
companions, amenable to instruction, she had begun to think that they
meant perhaps to kill her as soon as it was dark, and cut up her body
for gradual cooking; the suspicion crossed her that the fierce-eyed
old man was in fact the Devil, who might drop that transparent
disguise at any moment, and turn either into the grinning blacksmith,
or else a fiery-eyed monster with dragon's wings. It was no use trying
to eat the stew, and yet the thing she most dreaded was to offend the
gypsies, by betraying her extremely unfavorable opinion of them; and
she wondered, with a keenness of interest that no theologian could
have exceeded, whether, if the Devil were really present, he would
know her thoughts.

"What! you don't like the smell of it, my dear," said the young woman,
observing that Maggie did not even take a spoonful of the stew. "Try a
bit, come."

"No, thank you," said Maggie, summoning all her force for a desperate
effort, and trying to smile in a friendly way. "I haven't time, I
think; it seems getting darker. I think I must go home now, and come
again another day, and then I can bring you a basket with some
jam-tarts and things."

Maggie rose from her seat as she threw out this illusory prospect,
devoutly hoping that Apollyon was gullible; but her hope sank when the
old gypsy-woman said, "Stop a bit, stop a bit, little lady; we'll take
you home, all safe, when we've done supper; you shall ride home, like
a lady."

Maggie sat down again, with little faith in this promise, though she
presently saw the tall girl putting a bridle on the donkey, and
throwing a couple of bags on his back.

"Now, then, little missis," said the younger man, rising, and leading
the donkey forward, "tell us where you live; what's the name o' the
place?"

"Dorlcote Mill is my home," said Maggie, eagerly. "My father is Mr.
Tulliver; he lives there."

"What! a big mill a little way this side o' St. Ogg's?"

"Yes," said Maggie. "Is it far off? I think I should like to walk
there, if you please."

"No, no, it'll be getting dark, we must make haste. And the donkey'll
carry you as nice as can be; you'll see."

He lifted Maggie as he spoke, and set her on the donkey. She felt
relieved that it was not the old man who seemed to be going with her,
but she had only a trembling hope that she was really going home.

"Here's your pretty bonnet," said the younger woman, putting that
recently despised but now welcome article of costume on Maggie's head;
"and you'll say we've been very good to you, won't you? and what a
nice little lady we said you was."

"Oh yes, thank you," said Maggie, "I'm very much obliged to you. But I
wish you'd go with me too." She thought anything was better than going
with one of the dreadful men alone; it would be more cheerful to be
murdered by a larger party.

"Ah, you're fondest o' _me_, aren't you?" said the woman. "But I can't
go; you'll go too fast for me."

It now appeared that the man also was to be seated on the donkey,
holding Maggie before him, and she was as incapable of remonstrating
against this arrangement as the donkey himself, though no nightmare
had ever seemed to her more horrible. When the woman had patted her on
the back, and said "Good-by," the donkey, at a strong hint from the
man's stick, set off at a rapid walk along the lane toward the point
Maggie had come from an hour ago, while the tall girl and the rough
urchin, also furnished with sticks, obligingly escorted them for the
first hundred yards, with much screaming and thwacking.

Not Leonore, in that preternatural midnight excursion with her phantom
lover, was more terrified than poor Maggie in this entirely natural
ride on a short-paced donkey, with a gypsy behind her, who considered
that he was earning half a crown. The red light of the setting sun
seemed to have a portentous meaning, with which the alarming bray of
the second donkey with the log on its foot must surely have some
connection. Two low thatched cottages--the only houses they passed in
this lane--seemed to add to its dreariness; they had no windows to
speak of, and the doors were closed; it was probable that they were
inhabitated by witches, and it was a relief to find that the donkey
did not stop there.

At last--oh, sight of joy!--this lane, the longest in the world, was
coming to an end, was opening on a broad highroad, where there was
actually a coach passing! And there was a finger-post at the
corner,--she had surely seen that finger-post before,--"To St. Ogg's,
2 miles." The gypsy really meant to take her home, then; he was
probably a good man, after all, and might have been rather hurt at the
thought that she didn't like coming with him alone. This idea became
stronger as she felt more and more certain that she knew the road
quite well, and she was considering how she might open a conversation
with the injured gypsy, and not only gratify his feelings but efface
the impression of her cowardice, when, as they reached a cross-road.
Maggie caught sight of some one coming on a white-faced horse.

"Oh, stop, stop!" she cried out. "There's my father! Oh, father,
father!"

The sudden joy was almost painful, and before her father reached her,
she was sobbing. Great was Mr. Tulliver's wonder, for he had made a
round from Basset, and had not yet been home.

"Why, what's the meaning o' this?" he said, checking his horse, while
Maggie slipped from the donkey and ran to her father's stirrup.

"The little miss lost herself, I reckon," said the gypsy. "She'd come
to our tent at the far end o' Dunlow Lane, and I was bringing her
where she said her home was. It's a good way to come after being on
the tramp all day."

"Oh yes, father, he's been very good to bring me home," said
Maggie,--"a very kind, good man!"

"Here, then, my man," said Mr. Tulliver, taking out five shillings.
"It's the best day's work _you_ ever did. I couldn't afford to lose
the little wench; here, lift her up before me."

"Why, Maggie, how's this, how's this?" he said, as they rode along,
while she laid her head against her father and sobbed. "How came you
to be rambling about and lose yourself?"

"Oh, father," sobbed Maggie, "I ran away because I was so unhappy; Tom
was so angry with me. I couldn't bear it."

"Pooh, pooh," said Mr. Tulliver, soothingly, "you mustn't think o'
running away from father. What 'ud father do without his little
wench?"

"Oh no, I never will again, father--never."

Mr. Tulliver spoke his mind very strongly when he reached home that
evening; and the effect was seen in the remarkable fact that Maggie
never heard one reproach from her mother, or one taunt from Tom, about
this foolish business of her running away to the gypsies. Maggie was
rather awe-stricken by this unusual treatment, and sometimes thought
that her conduct had been too wicked to be alluded to.

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: Maggie is so upset that she decides to run away from home and join the gypsies since everyone always tells her that she looks like a "wild gypsy" anyway. Maggie has heard that the gypsies often camp out on Dunlow Common so she heads off, guessing as to the right direction. After walking for a while, Maggie starts to get a little scared, tired, and hungry. Her overactive imagination kicks in and she worries about everything from robbers to demons. Rather abruptly, Maggie comes upon some gypsies. The gypsies are very nice to Maggie and quickly relieve her of most of her possessions. Maggie tells the gypsies that she has run away to live with them. They find this amusing. The gypsies give Maggie some food, but Maggie doesn't like it. Maggie starts to get scared and the gypsies discuss the situation in a language that Maggie doesn't understand. Some gypsy men show up and they agree to take Maggie back home after she tells them where she lives. But Maggie is scared by this point and is convinced that they are going to murder her. Luckily the gypsies are actually quite nice and they head towards Maggie's house. On the way, they run into Maggie's dad and she is glad to be reunited with him. When they get home, Mr. Tulliver tells his wife and son to lay off Maggie and the gypsy incident is never mentioned again.