black bonnet valiantly under her chin.
She glanced at the dish again. Both she and her enemy, the pot man, had an uncomfortable feeling, as if there were something between them. Suddenly he shouted:
“Do you want it for fivepence?”
She started. Her heart hardened; but then she stooped and took up her dish.
“I’ll have it,” she said.
“Yer’ll do me the favour, like?” he said. “Yer’d better spit in it, like yer do when y’ave something give yer.”
Mrs. Morel paid him the fivepence in a cold manner.
“I don’t see you give it me,” she said. “You wou1dn’t let me have it for fivepence if you didn’t want to.”
“In this flamin’, scrattlin’ place you may count yerself lucky if you can give your things away,” he growled.
“Yes; there are bad times, and good,” said Mrs. Morel.
But she had forgiven the pot man. They were friends. She dare now finger his pots. So she was happy.
Paul was waiting for her. He loved her home-coming. She was always her best so—triumphant, tired, laden with parcels, feeling rich in spirit. He heard her quick, light step in the entry and looked up from his drawing.
“Oh!” she sighed, smiling at him from the doorway.
“My word, you are loaded!” he exclaimed, putting down his brush.
“I am!” she gasped. “That brazen Annie said she’d meet me. Such a weight!”
She dropped her string bag and her packages on the table.
“Is the bread done?” she asked, going to the oven.
“The last one is soaking,” he replied. “You needn’t look, I’ve not forgotten it.”
“Oh, that pot man!” she said, closing the oven door. “You know what a wretch I’ve said he was? Well, I don’t think he’s quite so bad.”
“Don’t you?”
The boy was attentive to her. She took off her little black bonnet.
“No. I think he can’t make any money—well, it’s everybody’s cry alike nowadays—and it makes him disagreeable.”
“It would me,” said Paul.
“Well, one can’t wonder at it. And he let me have—how much do you think he let me have this for?”
She took the dish out of its rag of newspaper, and stood looking on it with joy.
“Show me!” said Paul.
The two stood together gloating over the dish.
“I love cornflowers on things,” said Paul.
“Yes, and I thought of the teapot you bought me——”
“One and three,” said Paul.
“Fivepence!”
“It’s not enough, mother.”
“No. Do you know, I fairly sneaked off with it. But I’d been extravagant, I couldn’t afford any more, And he needn’t have let me have it if he hadn’t wanted to.”
“No, he needn’t, need he,” said Paul, and the two comforted each other from the fear of having robbed the pot man.
“We c’n have stewed fruit in it,” said Paul.
“Or custard, or a jelly,” said his mother.
“Or radishes and lettuce,” said he.
“Don’t forget that bread,” she said, her voice bright with glee.
Paul looked in the oven; tapped the loaf on the base.
“It’s done,” he said, giving it to her.
She tapped it also.
“Yes,” she replied, going to unpack her bag. “Oh, and I’m a wicked, extravagant woman. I know I s’ll come to want.”
He hopped to her side eagerly, to see her latest extravagance. She unfolded another lump of newspaper and disclosed some roots of pansies and of crimson daisies.
“Four penn’orth!” she moaned.
“How cheap!” he cried.
“Yes, but couldn’t afford it this week of all weeks.”
“But lovely!” he cried.
“Aren’t they!” she exclaimed, giving way to pure joy.
“Paul, look at this yellow one, isn’t it—and a face just like an old man!”
“Just!” cried Paul, stooping to sniff. “And smells that nice! But he’s a bit splashed.”
He ran in the scullery, came back with the flannel, and carefully washed the pansy.
“Now look at him now he’s wet!” he said.
“Yes!” she exclaimed, brimful of satisfaction.
The children of Scargill Street felt quite select. At the end where the Morels lived there were not many young things. So the few were more united. Boys and girls played together, the girls joining in the lights and the rough games, the boys taking part in the dancing games and rings and make-belief of the girls.
Annie and Paul and Arthur loved the winter evenings, when it was not wet. They stayed indoors till the colliers were all gone home, till it was thick dark, and the street would be deserted. Then they tied their scarves round their necks, for they scorned overcoats, as all the colliers children did, and went out. The entry was very dark, and at the end the whole great night opened out, in a hollow, with a little tangle of lights below where Minton pit lay, and another far away opposite for Selby. The farthest tiny lights seemed to stretch out the darkness for ever. The children looked anxiously down the road at the one lamp-post, which stood at the end of the field path. If the little, luminous space were deserted, the two boys felt genuine desolation. They stood with their hands in their pockets under the lamp, turning their backs on the night, quite miserable, watching the dark houses. Suddenly a pinafore under a short coat was seen, and a long-legged girl came flying up.
“Where’s Billy Pillins an’ your Annie an’ Eddie Dakin?”
“I don’t know.”
But it did not matter so much—there were three now. They set up a game round the lamp-post, till the others rushed up, yelling. Then the play went fast and furious.
