Chapter IV: Part 4

ONE ANOTHER’S BURDENS

OLD Mrs Spencer picked her way daintily along the path which led from the Frisbys’ little gate to their house-door. The path in question had been raked and was devoid of weeds, and if it had not been for a presumably recent addition of bones and broken crockery in one corner, and a large pool of dirty water, from which shallow streams were slowly making their way to the gate aforesaid, would no doubt have been tidy. The old lady hopped from side to side in the attempt to keep her neat little feet dry, and when she came to the pool itself, on which rings of suds were eddying, stopped short with a disgusted air, and raising her voice, called for Mrs Frisby.

The door slowly opened, and a slatternly-looking woman stood upon the threshold. A stout two-year-old child sat on one arm, while the other hand held a penny novelette. A wisp of hair hung loosely over her face, which was as dirty as that of the child; the bodice of her dress was held together by pins, and she altogether presented a most uninviting appearance. She started at sight of the visitor.

“I beg pardon, m’m,” she said. “I wish I’d known you was comin’. Thursday is a busy day with us.”

“So I see,” responded Mrs Spencer, suffering her eyes to wander over the woman’s figure, and thence towards the corner of the garden, where she could see some dingy-looking clothes hanging on the line. “Most people have finished their washing by Thursday, but you are evidently in the middle of yours.”

“Yes, m’m,” admitted Mrs Frisby, dolefully. “There, with all those childern, ye know, m’m, and Frisby coming in and making so much mess, ’tis hard to get on with the work.”

“It’s a curious thing,” remarked Mrs Spencer, “that you should prefer to empty your suds out of the front door—and do you find you get on quicker with your work if you read while you’re doing it?”

“Well ’m, I’m sure, m’m, I had but just sat down for a minute. Little Harry was a bit peevish, and I couldn’t let him cry—he chanced to prick his finger with a pin, ye see, m’m—”

“If there’d been a button there,” said Mrs Spencer, “or a hook and eye, that accident couldn’t have happened. And pray”—peering at the dreadful little book with her sharp eyes—“were you reading ‘Lady Selina’s Lover’ out loud to amuse the baby?”

During the confused pause which ensued, the little old lady made a leap across the muddy space, and, waving Mrs Frisby on one side, entered the house. Such a house! Dirty windows, a dirty floor, a grate which had not been cleaned for several days, and beneath which was such a pile of cinders and ashes that the fire would scarcely burn. Everything in the room was dusty, and in the very middle of the floor lay a pair of man’s muddy boots.

“I’m sure I beg your pardon, m’m,” said Mrs Frisby. “’Tis a dreadful untidy place for you to come into. Dear to be sure, just look at Frisby’s boots! He’ve left them there ever since last night, and I can’t get him to so much as clean a window for me.”

“Can’t you really?” said Mrs Spencer. “No, I don’t think I’ll sit down, thank you. So Frisby won’t clean the windows or put his boots on one side? Well, you know, there are some wives, Mrs Frisby, who would think it a little hard to ask their husbands to clean windows when he had been working all day, and who would even put away his boots if he did chance to leave them on the floor. The husband, after all, is the breadwinner. Frisby works very hard—I’ll say that for him—and he’s earning good wages, and is always ready to earn a little more by doing odd jobs after hours. Then, when he’s finished those, he has his allotment to see to, and the garden here, which would, I see, be very tidy if you did not allow your children to strew things all over the place.”

“I’m sure I’m always telling the childern not to throw their rubbish about,” said Mrs Frisby, tearfully, “but what am I to do? I can’t be indoor and out too. Frisby might very well see to the childern in the garden, I think, when I’m busy in the house.”

“It’s all Frisby’s fault, in fact,” said Mrs Spencer, pursing up her lips. “I suppose,” she added, looking round the room, “he ought to dust, and clean the grate, and scrub the floors too.”

The old lady spoke so seriously that Mrs Frisby stared hard without replying.

“I must say,” continued the former, after a pause, “your husband has worked on my estate for nearly ten years—since he was quite a little boy, in fact—and I have always found him extremely industrious, good-tempered, and obliging. I can’t understand how it is that you seem to give him such a different character.”

“Well ’m,” said Mrs Frisby, shifting the child from her right arm to her left, “I don’t altogether complain, but I do think Frisby might be a bit more good-natured, knowin’ how poorly I feel, and so many childern to see to.”

“Somebody told me,” said Mrs Spencer, “that Frisby very often helps to dress the children.”

“Well ’m, and if he do they’re his childern so well as mine. I get faint now and then.”

“I don’t wonder,” said the other. “Do you by any chance ever open a window here?”

Mrs Frisby burst into tears. “I think ’tis very hard o’ Frisby to go complainin’ of me,” she sobbed. “A body can but do their best. With four childern and such poor health as I have, I think it’s wonderful I can get along at all. And as to cleanin’ up after Frisby (casting a sour look at the boots), I’m sure I can’t be expected to do that.”

“Good morning,” said Mrs Spencer, turning sharply round and walking out of the house.

As she drew near her own home she came upon Frisby himself, looking hot and tired, and walking with a lagging step. There had been no preparations of any kind for dinner at his cottage, and she wondered if the poor man would be obliged to get it himself, while his wife read her trashy paper, and dandled the big child, which could perfectly well have been taught to amuse itself happily while its mother was busy.

“I’ve just been to your house,” she remarked, as she came up to him.

Poor Frisby murmured something about wishing he had known, and fearing she had found things a bit upset.

“Now listen to me, James,” said the old lady. “I’ve known you too long to let you go downhill so fast without trying to help you. I’ve been turning over a plan in my mind, which may possibly make that wife of yours think a little more seriously of her duties.”

James got red, but listened in silence while Mrs Spencer began to talk in a low rapid voice. He looked more and more astonished as she proceeded, and finally burst out laughing.

“’Twould be a good notion,” he said, “a very good notion, but—”

“Try it for a week,” said Mrs Spencer. “That’s all I ask, try it for a week; I’ll undertake that you shan’t be the loser, and of course you must not say a word to your wife about having met me.”

* * *

“’Tis past six, Jim,” said Mrs Frisby on the following morning, as she stood by the bed, after having reluctantly clothed herself. “Didn’t ye hear church-clock go?”

“I heard it,” said Jim drowsily. “I’m not feelin’ so very well, this mornin’, my dear; I don’t think I can get up.”

Mrs Frisby, in real alarm, questioned him as to the nature of his malady. Did his head ache—was his back bad—was he feeling his heart any ways queer?

Her husband, after reflecting for a moment or two, replied that it was just “all-overishness,” and that he thought a rest would do him good.

“Dear!” exclaimed Mrs Frisby, “but I haven’t a drop of water in the house. Who’s to fill the bucket at the well?”

“I’m afraid you’ll have to do it, Sally,” returned Jim. “’Tis very unfortunate—very, I’m sure, but I can’t think how else it is to be managed.”

“Well, I’m not going to do it, then,” cried Sally. “I never heerd of such a thing! You great lazy fellow, lying in bed with nothing the matter with ye.”

“I tell you,” repeated Jim, “I’m all-overish, same as you be so often. My heart don’t feel quite right neither. If ye was to bring me up a cup of tea, same as I do when you’re not feeling yourself, I fancy it might just keep it off.”

“If ye expect me to go cartin’ your breakfast upstairs you’re much mistaken,” said Sally. “I’m a poor eater myself at best of times, and I don’t care whether I have my breakfast or not. But I’ll not go drawin’ water for you.”

“A pipe o’ baccy is as good as a breakfast to me any day,” said Jim, reaching out his hand for his pipe. “I dare say I’d be well enough to mind the childern while you was busy, Sally,” he continued, mildly. “I can manage the childern very well. You can turn ’em all in here while you’m a-cleanin’ up. P’raps ’tis just as well I should be at home once in a way,” he added, pleasantly. “You always say you can never get on wi’ your work wi’ the little ones in your way. Now they’ll be out o’ your way.”

“Ye can fetch childern yourself if you want them,” retorted Mrs Frisby, marching indignantly downstairs.

Jim crept cautiously out of bed and went to the window, chuckling to himself as he presently saw her laboriously filling her bucket at the well. He dressed himself with great speed and dexterity for one in his delicate condition, and, going into the adjoining rooms, roused the children and washed and dressed the younger ones, directing the others to do the same for themselves.

When he brought them downstairs presently, the kettle was already boiling, and Mrs Frisby, with a flushed face was getting down the teapot; if truth be told, she was not at all averse to her breakfast.

“Just in time,” observed Jim. “It doesn’t take so very long, you see, my dear, to get the childern dressed if ye take a bit o’ trouble wi’ ’em. Now, shan’t we put a cloth on the table?”

Sally murmured indistinctly something about lazy people not deserving to be cocked up with cloths.

“Meaning me?” said Jim. “It’s me what pays for the cloths, though. See, Rosie, it’s yonder on the dresser. Take it down, there’s a good little maid, and spread it nice—that’s the way.”

“If ye can’t do your own work, I don’t see why ye need come interfering with mine,” remarked Sally.

“I’ve more time to see to things when I don’t go out to work myself,” explained her husband. “I’m going to train Rosie a bit. She’s getting a big girl, now, and could easy learn to be useful.”

“You’re not going to work!” gasped Sally.

“I don’t feel up to my work to-day, you see,” said Jim. “I’ll just sit quiet in a corner and rest me. Have you got a book handy? What have you done with that nice book you were reading yesterday?”

“’Tis very ill-done of you to make a mock of me,” cried his wife. “I’m sure you didn’t ought to grudge me the little bit of amusement I took after working so hard all day—washing and all.”

“I don’t grudge it to you, my dear,” responded Jim. “I’m going to imitate you, that’s all. I work hard, week by week, month by month, and year by year. I’m going to take a bit of amusement now, and I’m sure you won’t grudge it to me. Now then, Rosie, set the cups out, and the plates—the cups at the top, ye know, and the plates all round. Jack, fetch Daddy’s boots there, and I’ll tell ye what to do with them.”

The little boy obeyed, and Jim in spite of his feeble state, found himself able to take the child out to the shed at the back, and there instruct him in the art of boot-cleaning, of which he proved himself a capable scholar. By the time they returned breakfast was ready.

Mrs Frisby looked up with an attempt at a smile as they came in.

“I am glad to see you are better,” she said. “Maybe you’ll be able to go to work after all.”

But Jim shook his head with a despondent air.

“No use expectin’ too much,” he remarked, quoting one of his wife’s favourite speeches; then, as she stared, “I’ll jist see to the little uns an’ help ye a bit with the cleanin’ if I don’t find it knocks me up too much.”

Mrs Frisby finished her breakfast in silence, and Jim, after disposing of his meal, turned his attention to the children.

“Now then, let’s see how useful you can make yourselves. See, I’ll carry the things over to the sink, and Rosie can wash ’em up, and Jack here can dry them.”

“Ye’ll have ’em smashed to atoms,” said Sally sulkily.

“Not a bit of it; they’re a deal more in danger of getting smashed lying about, as they generally do, half the morning.”

He superintended the carrying out of both operations, and then desired the children to wash their hands and smooth their hair before going to school.

“Dear!” he exclaimed, as he clumsily tied a pinafore string. “All your things do seem in terr’ble need of mendin’. I tell ye what, Sally, while you do a bit o’ cleanin’ up I’ll see if I can’t make shift to sew on a button or two.”

“I thought you was too bad to work!” exclaimed Sally tartly.

“Anybody can do a bit o’ sewin’,” said Jim. “Now, my dear, as soon as ye’ve taken away tea-things, ye can begin on the grate.”

Having procured needle and cottons and a card of buttons, a trifle damaged on account of Baby Harry having been allowed to chew it on the day it had been bought, Jim set to work, while Mrs Frisby reluctantly knelt down before the hearth.

“Take out the big cinders, Sally,” he directed, “and put ’em on one side. It ’ud save ye a deal o’ trouble,” he continued mildly, “if ye’d do it first thing in the morning, for then the children ’ud give ye a helpin’ hand. Now I think,” said Jim, leisurely threading his needle, “that we’ll have a bit o’ black-lead, my dear. It’s wonderful what a difference it makes to the look of a place.”

Sally worked away in gloomy silence, and Jim sewed on buttons, and whistled under his breath. If truth be told he soon grew extremely tired of the operation, and longed to be digging potatoes or hoeing weeds. He continued, however, to direct his wife, and, though Mrs Frisby felt herself very much aggrieved, she did not dare to disobey his orders.

Presently the couple migrated to the bedrooms, for Jim found himself so indisposed he was obliged to lie down while Sally gave the three rooms a thoroughly good cleaning. Angry as she was it was wonderful how quickly she managed to get through her work on that particular morning, for with Jim’s eye upon her she could neither sit down to read, nor stand staring out of the window.

Jim, meanwhile, had taken charge of little Harry, and though he neither dandled him nor played with him, he contrived so well to teach him how to amuse himself that the child was quite happy. It was true he found time to say an encouraging word now and then to the little fellow, and made a safe plaything for him out of three or four empty cotton reels securely fastened to a piece of white tape. These Harry could rattle, or slide up and down, and they were safer to chew than linen buttons on a shiny green card.

After dinner Jim thought the air might do him good. He strolled out into the garden, therefore, itching to be at work, but resolutely keeping himself in check; and presently he invited Sally to clean herself and bring her sewing out there too.

By and by Mrs Frisby joined him, looking quite tidy, and gazing almost in alarm at her husband. She half expected him to request her to do a bit of gardening, but he only smiled as she approached, and told her she looked downright bonny with her face so nice and clean; more like the girl he used to court in by-gone days than he ever thought to see her again.

Putting his arm round her he made her sit down on the little bench beneath the apple-tree, and there the couple passed an hour or two in great content, till Sally remarked that it was time to go in and get tea ready.

“Do,” said Jim, “and mind ye sweep up the hearth, my dear. It do make it look more cheerful.”

The hearth actually was swept up when he entered, and all the children sitting round the table with smooth hair and clean faces and hands.

“If we was to get a door-mat it would keep the place nicer,” Sally observed. “I could train the childern to wipe their feet on’t.”

She announced this fact with the air of one who had made an important discovery, and Jim, delighted with the turn affairs were taking, agreed with alacrity.

“It puts more heart into a man if he finds things is made good use of; but when you go spendin’ an’ spendin’ all what you’ve worked hard for to get, knowin’ they’ll be let fall to pieces for want of a stitch, or else ruined with rust and dirt, you have no pride or pleasure in doin’ anythin’.”

Sally did not answer, but looked penitently at her husband.

After tea, when the children were in bed she came and stood by his chair.

“I hope ye’ll be able to go to work to-morrow,” said she.

“I hope so, I’m sure,” he replied. “’Tis a bad thing when ye come to think on’t, Sally, for the man to be laid by—him as has to earn the money to fill all the little mouths. Wet or dry, sick or well, off he has to go to his work. If a man didn’t do his work reg’lar he’d get turned off pretty quick. The women don’t remember that when they sit idle at home, without ever giving a thought to their husbands’ peace or comfort. Yet, if the husbands wasn’t there, what would become of them all? Did you find it hard work fillin’ that bucket this mornin’, Sally?”

“Terr’ble hard,” said Sally, with a quivering lip.

“Ah, I’m sorry for that. D’ye think ye’ll be able to chop sticks for to-morrow’s fire?”

“Ye oughtn’t to ask me to do such work,” said she, with a sob. “Ye know I’m not fit for it.”

“Winter an’ summer, year in, year out, I fill that bucket—and every evenin’, no matter how tired I may be, I chop them sticks. When I had the lumbago last year, I filled your bucket all the same, and when I sprained my wrist I managed to use the chopper with my left hand. Yet, if you’ve the least little ache or pain, you never do a hand’s turn, Sally. I ask you straight, is that fair?”

Sally gazed at him in silence, her lip still trembling, her eyes filled with tears.

“An’ if ye’d take a bit o’ pride in yourself an’ the childern,” he went on, “there’d be some pleasure in comin’ home. Yes, and I’d be glad, too, to save up an’ take ye for an outing now and again. But when I look at ye with the clothes dropping off ye, and a face that hasn’t as much as nodded at cold water, I feel—well, I feel that, if I wasn’t a proper temperance man, it’s to the public I’d go every night of my life.”

Sally looked down still without speaking.

“Just think of it,” he went on; “you have your share of work, no doubt; but I have mine too. If we each do our own, and pull together, we can get along right enough. Come, little ’ooman, see how nice you’ve made the place look—it didn’t take so very long, did it? An’ what a lot of mendin’ ye did this afternoon—not to mention the buttons I sewed on for ye,” he added, with a twinkle in his eye—“it wasn’t so very much trouble once ye set about it. Now, shall we make a fresh start? I’ll go to work to-morrow morning if you’ll get out your needles and thread, and throw them nasty silly story books in the fire. And let’s make the childern useful, my dear—a little bit o’ light work is as good as play to a child.”

Sally glanced up with an odd look, in spite of the tears that were still upon her face.

“I never heard ye make such a long speech in your life, Jim,” said she. “I wonder—I wonder if anybody’s been putting you up to all the games you’ve been playing this day. Mrs Spencer now—she called here yesterday—”

“She did,” said Jim, beginning to laugh a little. “Well, I’ll tell you the truth, Sally, the notion did come from her. Ye mustn’t be vexed, my dear; but I think ’twas a good notion. ‘If ever any folks should bear one another’s burdens,’ says the mistress, ‘it’s husband and wife.’ Come, Sally, I’ll do my best for you if you’ll do your best for me.”

Sally dried her eyes, and held out her hand to her husband: “I will,” she said.

She actually kept her resolution, and Jim had good reason to be grateful to his mistress for that happy thought of hers, though he sometimes said with a laugh, that she had taught him a lesson too, and that he would rather plant cabbages all day than sew on a dozen buttons.

HOW NED BLANCHARD EMIGRATED

ALICE BLANCHARD was wheeling the perambulator slowly along the most rutty curve of the “Drove,” or steep lane which led from the high road to the downs, when she caught sight of her father’s sturdy figure behind the almost leafless hedge. Farmer Bolt was a short, thick-set man, with more brown in hair and beard than was usual in a man of his years, and with a corresponding amount of unlooked-for vigour and energy in his sturdy frame. He was at work now on a task that would have been despised by most men of his standing. He was clipping one of his own hedges in fact, wielding his bill-hook with a rapidity and dexterity which did not prevent his keeping a sharp look-out on the movements of the men who were carting swedes at the further end of the field.

Alice wedged the “pram” firmly against the bank, pulled on the baby’s hood, which had fallen back, arranged its golden fluff of hair so that a becoming tuft appeared beneath the frill, and then going to the other end of the small vehicle made little Abel sit straight and smoothed out the creases in his pinafore.

“Ye’ve got your face all of a mess wi’ blackberries,” she said, in a vexed tone. “I don’t know whatever granfer’ll think of ’ee. There, I reckoned to tidy thee up in grandma’s room afore he see’d thee.”

As Abel was strapped fast in his seat, and could by no possibility have procured the blackberries without his mother’s aid, the reproach seemed a trifle unreasonable; but as Abel had not yet reached a time of life when he could discourse on feminine inconsequence, he merely smiled broadly, and repeated the word “b’ackberries” in an expectant tone.

“Bless your little heart,” said Alice. “That’s granfer, look-see, t’other side o’ the hedge. Ye must call out ‘granfer,’ when we get a-nigh en.”

She shook out her own dress, a somewhat faded print, and set her hat straight, apparently anxious to present as brave an appearance in her father’s eyes as in former days she had to those of her admirers.

A few years ago Alice Bolt had been the handsomest girl in the parish, and even now, though her figure had lost much of its roundness, and her curly dark hair was arranged with less skill, was pretty enough to call for a second glance from all who passed her.

But her blue eyes had acquired a scared look of late, and the bloom had faded in her cheeks. What else was to be expected? The wolf was always at the door, and the fear of it was perpetually present in the heart of the wife and mother.

Farmer Bolt, in the intervals of chopping at his twigs and superintending the leisurely tossing of “roots” into the cart, found time to scan the windings of the Drove, and had indeed observed his daughter long before she had caught sight of him. It may be presumed that he took note of her hasty endeavours to make herself and her family presentable, yet he appeared to be absorbed in his own labours when she halted beneath the bank on which he was stationed.

“Be that you, father? Look, Abel, look-see, ’tis granfer!”

Mr Bolt parted the thin screen of shoots surmounting the hedge and peered over.

“’Tis you, be it?”

“It’s me. I be just goin’ down to the house to have a chat wi’ mother.”

“Ah,” said the farmer.

He lifted his bill-hook and examined it as though he had never set eyes on it before; then he ran his finger thoughtfully along the edge.

“That’s granfer, look-see,” repeated Alice in a tone of assumed cheerfulness. “Look at granfer’s hedgin’ hook, Abel! Call ‘Granfer,’ lovey!”

“Gran-fer!” cried Abel, obediently.

It was the first time his grandfather had heard the child pronounce an articulate word, and at sound of it he was unable to resist the impulse to lean forward a little more and gaze down at the perambulator and its occupants.

“Learnt to talk, has he?” he enquired, ungraciously enough, yet eyeing the little fellow with a sort of curiosity.

“Well, he can only say a few words,” explained the mother, almost stammering in her haste to bring out the information before the grandfather’s interest had waned. “‘Granfer’ was one o’ the first words he said. He says it very plain, don’t he?”

“Plain enough,” responded the farmer, gruffly, and he let the twigs which he had been holding slap back again into their ordinary position.

“He’ve come on a good bit since ye see’d him last,” hazarded the mother. “Folks about us thinks he’s come on wonderful. Don’t ye think he’s come on, father?”

Her father parted the screen of twigs again, and as the bearded face was thrust forth once more, Abel junior tilted himself back in his place and gleefully shouted “Cuckoo!”

For the life of him the grandfather could not help smiling. He did not speak, but gazed at the child for a moment or two, the lines of his countenance relaxing.

“Cuckoo!” cried Abel junior, anxiously watching the upper twigs of the hedge.

“He thinks you’m playin’ a game wi’ en,” explained the mother tremulously.

“Oh,” said Farmer Bolt, reflectively. “Do he? It’s more in my line to work nor to play though.” He loosed the twigs which immediately flew back into place, and Baby Abel, imagining that this was done solely for his benefit cried “Cuckoo!” again, and watched the top of the hedge with dancing eyes. When the farmer, with apparent inadvertence, looked forth again, he threw himself back once more with uproarious laughter, kicking out at the same time with sturdy little feet, clothed in very battered boots.

“He do seem a jolly little chap too,” said the elder Abel, with the air of one making a concession. “T’other’s a girl, bain’t it?”

“Ees, she’s a girl. I called en Margaret after mother, same as the bwoy be Abel after you. We do think little Abel terr’ble like you, father.”

The farmer surveyed his descendant dubiously; and the two pairs of blue eyes met; the child’s twinkled in expectation of the renewal of the game, and by-and-by the old man’s began to twinkle too. As he glanced at the baby, however, his face clouded over.

“The maid be a regular Blanchard, though,” he said, in a vexed tone. “Yellow hair an’ all. There, when she do laugh she be the very image of her grammer, what used to drive a little donkey-cart wi’ rags and bwones, an’ sich, an’ what died in the Union.”

“The child can’t help that, an’ neither can Ned,” said Alice, with a sudden flash in her eyes. “The poor body did die when he were quite a little chap. ’Twas none of his fault if she did die in the Union. So soon as he could work he kept hisself.”

“It mid be none of his fault that his mother was what she was, but I d’ ’low ’tis your fault that my grandson should be what he is, belonging to trampin’ folks, wi’ a father as was born i’ the Union, and as’ll die i’ the Union I shouldn’t wonder. Did ever anybody see a ’ooman so downtrod as what you be, an’ you as was such a handsome maid. Why can’t the chap keep ye in a bit more comfort now he’s got ye? That’s what I want to know.”

“We’ve had a deal o’ trouble, father,” faltered Alice. “What wi’ the childer comin’ so fast, an’ what wi’ Ned breakin’ his leg this spring, we’ve been put about terr’ble.”

“Well, there’s no use cryin’ about spilt milk,” said her father, roughly. “Ye took the crooked stick an’ now ye must put up wi’ en. You as mid ha’ married as well an’ better nor any maid i’ the place, ye must go an’ take up wi’ a beggarly feller as I hired out o’ charity to begin wi’.”

“Ned always worked hard for his wage,” interpolated Alice, hotly, “always! He was worth the money ye paid en.”

“Ees, but I didn’t know that at first. I took en straight fro’ the Union wi’out no more character nor what the master up yonder could give en. An’ when I did do that I didn’t look to bein’ robbed o’ my only child. There, there’s no use talkin’. I must get on wi’ my work. Get along and chat wi’ mother if ye want to.”

“Cuckoo!” cried little Abel as the twigs were once more released; but Granfer did not respond. After an admonitory shout to one of the carters who had spent what he considered an undue time in consideration of the horizon, he resumed his labours with the bill-hook.

Mrs Blanchard trundled her perambulator onwards with a sore heart and an anxious face. Her transient anger had left her, and she reproached herself for having lost her temper.

“’Twas a bad start,” she thought, ruefully, “a very bad start. I d’ ’low I’ve spoilt my chance.”

Mrs Bolt was peeling potatoes when her daughter came to the door, but she laid down her knife with an exclamation of delight when she caught sight of her.

“’Tis never you, my dear, so early an’ all, an’ sich a long ways to come! To think o’ your travellin’ seven mile at this time o’ marnin’! Dear, to be sure, how Abel have come on! There, I never see’d a child shoot up like that. Bless his little heart, he be a fine child. An’ Baby too, she be a-comin’ on jist about.”

“Feel the weight of her,” said Alice, taking the child out of the perambulator and laying her in her mother’s arms; there was a pretty flush in her face and a light in her eyes.

Mrs Bolt weighed her small namesake, and uttered various disjointed exclamations of rapture.

“She be gettin’ sich a lot o’ hair, look-see,” continued the proud mother, jerking off the child’s hood. “An’ she’s got two teeth very near through. She be cuttin’ them early, bain’t she? An’ sich a good baby. There, she do sleep right through the night, an’ by day when I’m busy at my work, ye know, she’ll sit an’ suck at her titty wi’out a murmur.”

“She be a-lookin’ for it now,” remarked grandma.

The much chewed indiarubber ring was unearthed from beneath the baby’s cape, and the flat lozenge-shaped adjunct thereto thrust into her mouth, both women laughing delightedly on noting its possessor’s satisfaction.

“Come in, my dear, an’ sit down, do,” said Mrs Bolt. “I’m sure ye must be jist about tired. Come, Abel love, an’ see what grandma’s got for ’ee. A ripe apple won’t do en no harm,” she added, turning to Alice. “They golden pippins be beautiful to-year—jist so sweet as honey. I do r’ally think that dear child favours his granfer,” she exclaimed, as having reached the living-room, she divested Abel of his hat.

“I do wish father ’ud take to en!” ejaculated Alice, dropping into the elbow-chair. “We met en jist now hedgin’ in the Drove. He did seem to notice him a bit at first, but then he turned nasty about Ned as he do always do, an’ began glenin’ an’ carryin’ on about the Union.”

“There, love, don’t ye mind en; ye do want a lot o’ patience wi’ father. ’Tis what I do always say. Who’s to know it if not me? But he’ll come round in time—he’ll come round.”

“’Tis easy to say ‘in time,’” groaned poor Alice, “but we do find it so hard to get on now, mother. We’ve a-had sich bad luck, ye see. Ned had to spend the bit o’ money he’d saved on the furniture we wanted, an’ stockin’ the garden—’tisn’t as if we’d anybody to help us.”

Mrs Bolt eyed her daughter compassionately. She was a good-looking, fresh-coloured woman, with a kindly, good-natured face. Her daughter resembled her in complexion and build, but not in disposition, for Mrs Bolt was placid and easy-going, while Alice had inherited her father’s energy and quickness of temper. Mrs Bolt had been as much grieved as her husband at Alice’s unprosperous marriage, but, having protested in vain, resigned herself to the inevitable, and had indeed forgiven her daughter before the ceremony took place. Mr Bolt, too, had, to outward seeming, become reconciled with his daughter, though he steadily refused to permit her husband to cross the threshold, and to help the hapless couple in any way. Alice, too, was proud, and when her mother would have surreptitiously bestowed on her sundry dozens of eggs and pecks of potatoes, she had rejected the gifts.

“I won’t take nothin’ o’ father’s wi’out his consent,” she said once, bitterly. “An’ you do know so well as me, he’d rather let us all starve nor help Ned.”

“’Tis very hard, I’m sure,” said Mrs Bolt, now in a commiserating tone. “I did hope your husband ’ud better hisself, an’ earn better wage nor what father gived en. But he’s worse off now it seems.”

“He’s terr’ble bad off,” agreed Alice gloomily. “Jobs be so scarce round our way. An’ when Ned was out o’ work last spring along o’ his accident, we got into debt. There’s the interest to pay along wi’ everything else. We couldn’t afford to be too particular. Ned had to take the first place he could get—’tis but ten shillin’ a week he’s earnin’ now, along o’ havin’ a house free, ye know. But ten shillin’ a week’s soon gone.”

“’Tis, sure,” agreed her mother dolefully.

Alice looked up at the handsome, ruddy face now puckered with sympathetic distress, and hesitated.

It is sometimes harder to ask a favour from our nearest and dearest than from a stranger. “I wonder if you could guess what’s brought me this morning, mother?” she asked.

Mrs Bolt did not commit herself.

“Ned chanced to meet Jim Pike at Wimborne the other day. He had to go and haul coal, you know, fro’ the station. And Jim did tell en he were thinkin’ o’ leavin’ father arter Christmas an’ goin’ out abroad.”

“Ees,” said Mrs Bolt. “Jim be a-goin’ to emmygrate, that’s what he be a-goin’ to do. He’ve a had a letter from his brother what be livin’ out yonder in America, and do want en to j’ine en out there. Jim be fair set on the notion.”

“He did tell Ned as father had rose his wage to fourteen shillin’ a week. ’Tis good wage that, an’ there’s the house too. ’Tis a deal more nor what Ned be earnin’.”

“Oh,” said her mother, sinking her voice and casting a scared glance at her. “You was thinkin’ maybe father ’ud give your ’usband Jim’s place when he’ve a-left?”

“Well,” rejoined Alice, instantly on the defensive, “it do seem hard as father should be willin’ to pay away all that to a stranger when his own flesh an’ blood is pretty nigh starvin’. There! mother, I do assure ’ee there’s times when I wonder where I’m to get the next bit to put in little Abel’s mouth. Many a time I go hungry myself, an’ that’s not so very good for me nor for baby.”

“Dear heart alive!” groaned Mrs Bolt, dropping into the opposite chair and resting a hand on either knee. “God knows I’m broken-hearted to think o’ your bein’ in sich trouble—broken-hearted I be!”

“That little house o’ Jim Pike’s ’ud do us nicely,” went on Alice eagerly. “’Tis a snug little place, an’ it ’ud be nice to be near you, mother.”

“It would,” agreed Mrs Bolt, sucking in her breath, and exhaling it again with a deep sigh. “It would jist about. I’d love to have the childern trottin’ in an’ out, an’ you an’ me could help each other, Alice.”

“We could,” agreed Alice, eyeing her mother with pathetic anxiety.

“But father be sich a terr’ble one for stickin’ to a notion,” went on Mrs Bolt gloomily. “He’ve reg’lar took again’ your ’usband, reg’lar took again’ him he have.”

“Well, ’tis a hard world,” said Alice, rising hurriedly. “I’d best go home-along. There’s not mich use my bidin’ here—but I did have hopes. ’Tisn’t as if I was axin’ for a favour—I only want Ned to get the chance father be willin’ to give any other man. But we’ll never have a chance here—I see that. I wish to the Lard we could scrape up enough money to take us out abroad too. I’d be willin’ enough to emmygrate, and so would Ned—nobody wants us here!”

Mrs Bolt gazed at her daughter meditatively, laying a restraining hand upon her arm to prevent her departure.

“Jim Pike’s brother Robert, what emmygrated first, went travellin’ by hissel’,” she observed. “He didn’t take his wife an’ childern wi’ en—he couldn’t afford the expense, d’ye see, but as soon as he were doin’ well he sent for ’em to come an’ j’ine him.”

“Well?” said Alice doubtfully, as she paused.

“Well,” continued her mother, “there, sit ye down, my dear. I can’t say all what’s in my mind if I think you’m ready to rush off every minute. Sit down an’ let’s talk proper. Now see here, the notion did come to I all at once while ye was talkin’ jist now. Why shouldn’t Ned go out abroad wi’ Jim Pike an’ look for work out in Ameriky? You could come to us while ye was waitin’—father ’ud be pleased enough to have you an’ the childern.”

“Mother!” exclaimed Alice indignantly. She would have started from her chair again had not Mrs Bolt pinned her to her seat with one large heavy hand.

“Now don’t ye fly out like that, don’t ye,” went on the good woman, impressively. “I am but thinkin’ what’s for the best. You’m our own flesh an’ blood, as ye say yourself, an’ so’s the childer; father’d be fond enough o’ the childer if he was to have ’em nigh en. ’Tis but Ned as he’ve a-took again’.”

“Well, but I bain’t a-goin’ to desert Ned,” cried Alice, hotly. “My own ’usband what I’ve a-chose and what have a-been sich a good ’usband an’ sich a good father. I’m sure he’d work his fingers to the bwone for me an’ the childern!”

“Bide a bit, bide a bit,” returned Mrs Bolt. “I’ve been a-piecin’ of it out in my mind. If you an’ the little ones was once here, ye’d soon get round father—I d’ ’low he’d never want to part from ye again. There, ye be the only child what was spared to us. I can’t but think so soon as there was talk o’ your j’inin’ Ned in Ameriky he’d tell ye to send for him to come back again, sooner nor let ye go.”

Alice was silent for a moment, struck in spite of herself, by the idea.

“’Tis true,” she said. “There mid be a chance o’ that. Father used to be awful fond o’ me when I was a little maid, an’ I couldn’t but see he noticed the childern to-day. He said Abel was a jolly little chap. Abel was tryin’ to play cuckoo wi’ his granfer. He’s sich a friendly little feller, I can’t but think as father’d soon take to en.”

“I d’ ’low he would,” agreed Mrs Bolt, eagerly.

“As for poor baby,” went on her daughter, in an aggrieved tone, “I can’t see no sich great likeness to the Blanchards. Father will have it she takes after Ned’s mother—I can’t see that.”

“Nor I,” agreed the living grandmother, gravely, considering the sleeping baby.

“But still,” went on Alice, suddenly reverting to the main point from which she had been momentarily diverted by the various side issues which seemed to present themselves, “I couldn’t let Ned go travellin’ all by hisself. I couldn’t ever part wi’ en. Summat mid happen as I mid never know. An’ he midn’t get on out there—an’ he midn’t be able to find the money to come home wi’ if father was to let him come—Oh, mother!”

This latter exclamation was uttered in a totally different tone. She caught her breath with a gasp, her countenance suddenly illuminated.

“What’s to do?” cried Mrs Bolt eagerly. Little Abel, who had finished his apple, came trotting across the room to share in the excitement. But he was not destined to hear what was going on. Mrs Blanchard, leaning forward in her chair, whispered eagerly in her mother’s ear. The latter’s face, at first astonished, grew gradually alarmed, but finally assumed an expression of admiring delight.

“Well, I shouldn’t wonder but what it mid answer,” she said slowly. “I know father’d be overj’yed to have you an’ the childern here. But whatever ’ud your husband say?”

“Oh, I’ll manage Ned if you’ll manage father. ’Tis worth tryin’. Dear to be sure, how happy we mid be all livin’ together!”

“Father ’ull be fit to kill us all if he do find out.”

“He won’t find out. He can’t be vexed wi’ you anyhow. Ye need only say that I’ve a-told ye so, an’ axed ye to speak to en for I.”

“Well, that’s true. There, my dear, I’d be simply out o’ my wits wi’ joy. I’ve missed ye—there, I can’t tell ye how much I’ve missed ye.”

They clung together, half laughing, half weeping, and the remainder of Alice’s visit was spent in the congenial task of building castles in the air.

Farmer Bolt was rather taciturn at dinner-time, and his wife deemed it more prudent to postpone operations till a more favourable moment. In the evening, however, when milking was done, and tea over, and Mr Bolt drew up his chair to the fire and filled his pipe, he himself gave her the opportunity for which she had been hoping.

“Ye had Alice wi’ ye to-day?”

“Ees, she told me she’d passed ye in the Drove—how did ye think she was lookin’?”

The farmer smoked for a moment or two with a gloomy expression.

“She’ve fell away,” he said at last. “Fell away terr’ble.”

“She have,” agreed his wife with a sigh. “I d’ ’low ’tis a hard struggle for she. There, she were a-tellin’ me she be often put to it to find a bit to put in little Abel’s mouth—them was her very words. ‘An’ I do often go hungry myself,’ says she, ‘an’ it bain’t so very good for me or baby.’”

Farmer Bolt removed his pipe and glowered fiercely at his wife, as though she were responsible for this pitiable state of affairs.

“An’ what could she expect,” he demanded, “when she took up wi’ that dalled chap? She threw herself away on en—wouldn’t hear a word again’ him, an’ he can’t so much as keep her. What’s the chap good for if he can’t earn enough to keep his wife an’ childer.”

“He’s a good worker, ye know,” said Mrs Bolt tentatively; “ye did never have no fault to find wi’ en when he were wi’ us.”

“I find fault wi’ en now, though,” shouted her lord. “Why don’t he do summat? Why don’t he turn his hand to summat? He’s all my daughter have got to look to now. I says to her when she took en, ‘Alice,’ I says, ‘ye must choose between Ned Blanchard an’ me.’ An’ she chose Ned Blanchard. Well, let him do summat, then.”

“He be just a-thinkin’ o’ doin’ summat, my dear,” returned Mrs Bolt mildly. “Alice were tellin’ I to-day he were goin’ to emmygrate.”

“What!” exclaimed the farmer aghast. “He be goin’ out abroad—he be goin’ to tole our Alice an’ them two little bits o’ childern out across the sea? Well, mother, how ye can sit lookin’ at me—”

“Nay now, my dear, it bain’t so bad as that,” said Mrs Bolt, in the same meek and ingratiating tone. “He be a-goin’ to look for work, that’s what he be a-goin’ to do; an’ so soon as he’ve a-found it an’ have a-got a comfortable home ready, then he’ll send for our Alice an’ the childern to j’ine en. That’s the notion.”

“Oh,” said her husband, staring at her hard. “That’s the notion, be it?”

He sucked at his pipe for a moment or two, still fixing his unwinking gaze upon her; finally, he enquired in a stern and disapproving tone what she supposed would become of their daughter and her children in the meantime.

“Well, that’s just it,” said Mrs Bolt gently. “’Tis that what brought our Alice here to-day.”

The farmer grunted without speaking.

“The journey to Ameriky ’ull take every single shillin’ Ned Blanchard can scrape together,” she continued.

“He be a-goin’ to send Alice an’ the childern to the workhouse I d’ ’low,” remarked Mr Bolt, hitching his chair a little nearer to the hearth and holding up one foot to the blaze. “He be a-goin’ to scuttle off wi’ hisself to Ameriky an’ leave his wife an’ family on the rates.”

“Nay now, nay now,” protested Mrs Bolt in a soothing tone. “You’d never be the one to allow that, Bolt, you know you wouldn’t.”

“Me!” said Bolt, turning round with an expression of great surprise. “What have I got to do wi’ it?”

“Why, ye know very well, my dear, you’d be the last to let sich shame overtake your own flesh an’ blood. If Ned was once away, you wouldn’t ha’ no objections to your own daughter a-comin’ back here for a while, an’ your own grandchildern, would ye? They’d bring a bit o’ life about this place, an’ it ’ud be nice to have our Alice goin’ about the house again.”

There was a silence; Mr Bolt stirred up the contents of his pipe with the end of a match and lit it again.

“Little Abel be wonderful like his mother in his ways,” went on Mrs Bolt; “the very moral o’ what she used to be at his age. There’s her little chair in the corner, look-see. He found it out to-day an’ fetched it over aside o’ your chair, an’ sat hisself down in it—there, I declare for a minute I thought our Alice was a child again.”

Mr Bolt squinted round at the chair, but did not commit himself by speech. He was not an imaginative man, nevertheless the vision rose before him of the curly-headed child who used to sit in that chair, and whom he had loved as the apple of his eye. His wife put his thoughts into words.

“Ye mind our Alice, how pleased she used to be when ye called her over of an evening? Dear to be sure, what a bonny little maid she was, and what a pride we used to take in her. And now to think that poor creetur’ what come here to-day is her. There, I could ha’ cried to see her in that wold patched dress—’ees, an’ I did cry when she did tell I how she do often go hungry.”

“Well, I’m dalled if she shall go hungry while she bides wi’ us,” cried the farmer, sitting suddenly upright in his chair. “Let Master Ned emmygrate so soon as he pleases, an’ let the poor maid come to us—an’ the brats too. She’ll know what ’tis for a while, to eat wi’out stintin’. Let her come an’ bide so long as she likes—the longer the better, say I—the longer she’s shut o’ that n’er-do-weel o’ a husband the better pleased I’ll be.”

The following week Alice and her children took up their abode at her old home. Alice was pale and nervous at first, but soon regained her self-possession. The farmer was almost boisterous in his welcome.

After tea Mrs Bolt, with a wink at her daughter, installed the little boy in the chair before referred to, at his grandfather’s side, an arrangement in which the latter acquiesced silently, yet with evident pleasure. Abel watched him with round inquisitive eyes while he filled and lit his pipe, and leaning back in his chair, crossed his legs luxuriously. Presently, possessing himself of a bit of stick which lay beside the hearth, the child wedged it in a corner of his own small mouth, and trotting back to his chair, settled himself in it, in as close an imitation of his grandfather’s attitude as the differences of age and size, and a slight difficulty in distinguishing his right leg from his left, would admit of. Abel the elder stared for a moment, and then, realising the state of affairs, nudged his wife with a delighted chuckle.

“Look at that,” he exclaimed. “He be a sharp little chap if ever there was one. Ye shall have a better pipe nor that to smoke, sonny.”

The farmer was as good as his word, and on the next day purchased a supply of sugar-sticks, one of which he gravely handed to his grandson every evening before lighting his own pipe.

Whether it was because the little fellow was won over by this practical proof of consideration and regard, or whether the affinity which the women-folk were so fond of talking about, really existed, it is certain that before the Blanchard family were a week in the house, the two Abels were practically inseparable. Whether toddling along a furrow in his grandfather’s wake, or riding one of the farm horses, or perched on top of a pile of mangolds, the child was his grandfather’s constant companion.

Alice almost insensibly fell back into the ways of her girlhood, and, as the days passed, her youth itself seemed to return to her. She grew plump and rosy, sang as she went about her work, played with her little ones as though she were a child herself. Had it not been for the presence of the children, indeed, Mrs Bolt often declared she could have fancied old times were back again, and their maid had never left them. The good food, the freedom from petty anxieties, had no doubt much to do with this happy change, but it was chiefly brought about by the new hope in her heart which grew and brightened day by day.

One morning, however, Mr Bolt, coming back unexpectedly from the field where he had been ploughing, and happening to take a short-cut through the orchard, came upon Alice who was hanging out clothes to dry. Now it was Mrs Bolt’s custom to let the world know that she had been washing, by setting the linen to dry in front of the house; the larger articles being draped on clothes-lines that ran from the corner of the milk-house wall to the post by the wood-shed, while the smaller were neatly spread upon the hedge. But here was Alice setting up a private clothes-line of her own, and hanging garments on it—not her own, or her children’s garments, as her father first supposed, but socks and shirts, even a pair of nankeen trousers.

“What mid ye be doin’ here?” he enquired, at the top of his voice, and so suddenly that poor Alice dropped her basket.

“Dear, to be sure, father, how you frightened me!” she exclaimed, stammering.