Mother Beggarlegs, so unaccustomed to politeness that
she could not instantly recognize it, answered him with
an imprecation at which he, no doubt, retreated, suddenly
thrown on the defensive hurling the usual taunt. One
prefers to hope he didn't, with the invincible optimism
one has for the behaviour of lovable people; but whether
or not his kind attempt at colloquy is the first indication
I can find of that active sympathy with the disabilities
of his fellow-beings which stamped him later so intelligent
a meliorist. Even in his boy's beginning he had a heart
for the work; and Mother Beggarlegs, but for a hasty
conclusion, might have made him a friend.

It is hard to invest Mother Beggarlegs with importance,
but the date helps me--the date I mean, of this chapter
about Elgin; she was a person to be reckoned with on the
twenty-fourth of May. I will say at once, for the reminder
to persons living in England that the twenty-fourth of
May was the Queen's Birthday. Nobody in Elgin can possibly
have forgotten it. The Elgin children had a rhyme about
it--

The twenty-fourth of May
Is the Queen's Birthday;
If you don't give us a holiday,
We'll all run away.

But Elgin was in Canada. In Canada the twenty-fourth of
May WAS the Queen's Birthday; and these were times and
regions far removed from the prescription that the