old saucepan and a frying-pan, two
flat-irons very rusty, and a few other iron articles were there. But
both saucepan and frying-pan were in such a state that Matilda could
not think of using them. Days of purification would be needed first. So
she shut the cupboard door, and came back to the question of fire; for
difficulties were not going to overcome her now. And there were
difficulties. Mrs. Eldridge could not help her to any firing. She knew
nothing about it. None had been in the house for a long time.

Matilda stood and looked at the stove. Then she emptied her basket;
laying her little packages carefully on a chair; and went off on a
foraging expedition. At a lumber yard or a carpenter's shop she could
pick up something; but neither was near. The houses in Lilac Lane were
too needy them selves to ask anything at them. Matilda went down the
lane, seeing no prospect of help, till she came to the iron shop and
the livery stable. She looked hard at both places. Nothing for her
purpose was to be seen; and she remembered that there were children
enough in the houses behind her to keep the neighbourhood picked clean
of chips and brushwood. What was to be done? She took a bold resolve,
and went into the iron shop, the master of which she knew slightly. He
was there, and looked at her as she came in.

"Mr. Swain, have you any little bits of wood that you could let me
have? bits of wood to make a fire."

"Matilda Englefield, ain't it?" said Mr. Swain. "Bits o' wood? bits of
iron are more in our way--could let ye have a heap o' _them_. Bits o'
wood to make a fire, did ye say? 'twon't be a big fire as 'll come out
o' that 'ere little basket."

"I do not want a big fire--just some bits of wood to boil a kettle."

"I want to know!" said Mr. Swain. "You hain't come all this way from
your house to get wood? What's happened to you?"

"Oh, not for _our_ fire! Oh no. I want it for a place here in the lane."

"These folks picks up their own wood--you hadn't no need for to trouble
yourself about them."

"No, but it is some one who cannot pick up her own wood, Mr. Swain, nor
get it any other way; it is an old woman, and she wants a little fire
to make a cup of tea."

"I guess, if she can get the tea she can get the wood."

"Somebody brought her the tea," said Matilda, who luckily was not in
one way a timid child. "I will pay for the wood if I can get some."

"Oh, that's the game, eh?" said the man. "Well, as it's Mis'
En