Page:Poor Cecco - 1925.djvu/107

Rh take in any more, do what I will, there’s no space left for it anywhere!”

Looking about him, Poor Cecco saw that every corner of the room was piled with bundles of laundry, each tied up just as it had come from the owner; in fact there was very little space left anywhere, and he thought at once that Mrs. Woodchuck would do better, instead of taking so much washing in, to send some of it out again, and he told her so.

“I know!” said Mrs. Woodchuck, untying her apron and rolling it into a ball which she flung under the table. “I know—I’ve thought so myself at times, but what can I do? There’s so much to look after in this house that I never get a minute, and besides—I hate washing. I was never brought up to it! And now,” she continued, “you had better go and fetch your friends and we’ll have a little supper.”

Mr. Woodchuck led Poor Cecco to the real doorway, down a passage so stacked with washing on either side that the woodchuck, being extremely fat, had great difficulty in squeezing past. “You see how it is,” he whispered hoarsely, pointing with his pipe. “We’re being pushed out of house and home, and to hear the old woman talk you’d think no one did a hand’s turn but herself!”

Poor Cecco ran down the hill, glad to be in the open air again. The ball was over; the lights were turned out, the placard taken in, and the door of the molehill shut fast.