The Project Gutenberg eBook ofTommy TregennisThis ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.Title: Tommy TregennisAuthor: Mary Elizabeth PhillipsIllustrator: M. V. WheelhouseRelease date: May 29, 2013 [eBook #42835]Most recently updated: October 23, 2024Language: EnglishCredits: E-text prepared by Juliet Sutherland, Matthew Wheaton, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TOMMY TREGENNIS ***
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.
Title: Tommy TregennisAuthor: Mary Elizabeth PhillipsIllustrator: M. V. WheelhouseRelease date: May 29, 2013 [eBook #42835]Most recently updated: October 23, 2024Language: EnglishCredits: E-text prepared by Juliet Sutherland, Matthew Wheaton, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team
Title: Tommy Tregennis
Author: Mary Elizabeth PhillipsIllustrator: M. V. Wheelhouse
Author: Mary Elizabeth Phillips
Illustrator: M. V. Wheelhouse
Release date: May 29, 2013 [eBook #42835]Most recently updated: October 23, 2024
Language: English
Credits: E-text prepared by Juliet Sutherland, Matthew Wheaton, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TOMMY TREGENNIS ***
The Project Gutenberg eBook, Tommy Tregennis, by Mary Elizabeth Phillips, Illustrated by M. V. Wheelhouse
TOMMY TREGENNISBY MARY E. PHILLIPSILLUSTRATED BY M. V. WHEELHOUSE
TOMMY TREGENNISBY MARY E. PHILLIPSILLUSTRATED BY M. V. WHEELHOUSE
NEW YORKE·P·DUTTON & COMPANYPUBLISHERS
Facing pageStill the ladies talked only to Mammy20When breakfast was over, Tommy led Dobbin proudly up and down the alley24“My lamb,” she murmured, “my own precious lamb”50It was very slow progress that the two made along the uneven cobbles94Towards evening Mrs Tregennis grew restless and uneasy, and went down to the front and looked out anxiously over the angry sea122At the Cobbler’s window she stopped152On the day of Granny’s funeral, Old John took care of Tommy186
TOMMY TREGENNIS
THEREwas Daddy, of course, and Mammy and home. Outside home was the world, and the world was a stretch of golden sand. It was a very perplexing world to a small boy, for it had a trick, when one least expected it, of hiding under the sea. At such times the confines of the world narrowed, and the world itself became a succession of rocky ledges entirely made up of don’t-go-there-Tommy places, and most of the fun was spoiled.
There was always the danger, too, in the world of rocks that clothes would not stand the extra strain they were called upon to bear. In sliding down their sea-washed sides “Take care of your trousers, ma handsome!” was forgotten until the bottom of the rock was reached and the mischief done. Tommy’s trousers were never very durable even in the beginning of things, for they were made out of Mammy’s worn-out skirts and cast-off coats (all but the Sunday pair, that is) and so little friction seemed to wear them into holes.
Just as often as the warning concerning his clothes was given him, just so often did Tommy disregard it, but never were the consequences so disastrous as on that July evening when he walked slowly up the cobble-paved alley to his home; a boy who had lost his illusions; a boy who regarded sliding down sloping rocks as a highly over-rated form ofenjoyment. With one fat hand he held together a yawning rent, while with the other now and again he rubbed his eyes. Slowly he trailed unwilling feet over the cobbles, and only half-heartedly did he kick the little pile of dust left under the wall near the Church door, neglected by the dustman on his morning round.
Mammy was standing in the doorway and saw him coming. “Surely this cannot be Tommy Tregennis?” she said, in a puzzled, uncertain voice.
Tommy’s heart stood still. Suppose she didn’t know him; suppose she wouldn’t have him in the house; suppose he had to sit out on the cobble-stones all night! There was no end to the awful supposings.
However “’Tis me, Mammy!” he explained, and tried to put matters on a pleasant basis by butting her in the stomach as he ran head foremost.
But Mammy drew back, a hurt, surprised look in her eyes. “Itsoundslike Tommy Tregennis’s voice,” she said uncertainly, “but surely neither Tommy Tregennis nor his fäather ever comes home with they trousers tore! I’m just waitin’ for ma handsome, now,” she volunteered, “he’s been out playin’ in the——”
“I’m your handsome, Mammy,” declared a choking, muffled voice. “I’m your Tommy, I am, but I’ve tore me trousers on the Skiddery Rock.”
It was dreadful to make such a confession, but necessity calls for decided action; and the effect of the confession was good, for Mammy admittedher graceless son and followed him into the kitchen.
“No, don’t sit down,” she exclaimed, “let me see just what you’ve been up to, young man. I’ll tell your fäather when he comes home, Tommy Tregennis, you tearin’ up the good trousers he goes to sea to get for ee!”
Unprotesting, Tommy was led up to bed. “To-morrow,” suggested Mammy, “you’d best run fast all the way to school so as no one shan’t see ee, and start early before they other children goes out.”
There was a moment’s silence, then a wailing cry: “Oh, Mammy, Mammy, can’t ee mend they trousers to-night?” Conclusively Mammy proved the impossibility of such rapid repair and it was a broken-hearted Tommy who knelt in his little cot. “Bless Mammy, ’n Daddy, ’n make Tommy a good boy. Please get me trousers mended, Amen.” Then “Give I just another chanst, Mammy, just one more chanst.”
“But you’ve said that again and again, Tommy Tregennis, an’ it’s just been untruth, untruth every time.”
“Well, it’ll be truth this time, Mammy, for sure it will; just one more chanst.” Then very pleadingly, “Put ’em in the rag-bag, Mammy.”
Mrs. Tregennis looked horrified. “An’ that I won’t, my son. Do you think I bemadeof trousers that I can afford to use them for house-cleanin’ just because you’ve got ’em tore slidin’ on SkidderyRock?” And Mammy kissed her son somewhat coldly and went down the creaking wooden stairs.
There was no sleep for the culprit; the evening light coming in at the window mocked his misery. The sea was going down now, and in the distance he could hear the laughter of the children who still played on the widening sands; the very children who, to-morrow, would laugh at him, Tommy Tregennis, because his trousers was tore.
He decided that he would leave for school before breakfast as Mammy had advised, and run very fast all the way. But even so, Tommy was five now, and when you are five years old you no longer sit on the window-seat in Miss Lavinia’s school-room. When you are five your legs are supposed to be so long that you can be given an ordinary chair at the long, narrow table.
Of course it was very grand to be promoted from the window-seat; it meant one was definitely growing up. In spite of the promotion Tommy often had regrets, for the outside world, as viewed from the window, was most attractive. The window opened on to Miss Lavinia’s back-garden, and there were always sparrows, and often cats; bees in the summer, too, and the gay colours of the flowers. The window-seat was very low (that was why it was your place when you were only four) and it would have been so easy to sit down there backwards. But a chair was quite another matter. That meant standing on a spindle first, then stretching upwards beforeyou turned round and sat; and detection would seem inevitable.
There was the new game, too; the game in which you all lay flat on the ground in a ring and blew at the bonfire in the middle, having first of all piled it up with leaves and sticks (pretending leaves and sticks, of course). And you sang all the time. Then you crawled nearer and nearer to the centre until Miss Lavinia said: “Take care, Tommy; suppose you should burn!” and you wriggled hurriedly back to your place in the ring.
But for such games trousers must be entire. Tommy broke down utterly and sobbed beneath the bed clothes.
Mammy must still be standing in the doorway for now and again he heard a heavy tread up the alley. “Evenin’,” a hearty voice would say, and “G’d evenin’,” Mammy would reply.
Then there came a much lighter step, and through the open window Tommy heard another voice which caused him to still his sobs and sit up in bed, his hands tightly clasped and his little chest heaving under the flannelette nightshirt.
“Good-evenin’, Miss Lavinia.” This was exactly what Tommy had feared.
“I’ve just had to put my Tommy to bed. He’s tore his trousers on the rocks, and I cannot mend they to-night. He must come early to school to-morrow and bide still all day, so that the children won’t laugh at him. Yes, thank you, Miss; if he may go back to the window-seat that’ll be fine,and Billy Triggs can have his chair, then they children won’t see.”
When these arrangements had been made Miss Lavinia said “Good-night” and her footsteps died away round the corner.
The evening light grew dimmer and dimmer. Grotesque shadows lengthened in the room and Tommy was still wide awake. At last he could bear it no longer.
“Mammy, Mammy!” he cried; but there was no response.
A second call, however, brought her to the foot of the stairs, for he distinctly heard her toe hit the stair-rod at the bottom that held the linoleum in place. So he knew that she was really listening and called once more. “Mammy, Mammy, don’t let anyone have me!”
“But who should wantyou, Tommy Tregennis?”
“I don’t know, Mammy,” he shouted back in his lusty, young voice. “I don’t know, but I thought if you was in the kitchen some one might come up the stairs and get I.”
“But who should want to take you away, Tommy Tregennis? Who should want a little boy as tears his trousers when his Daddy’s away at sea?”
There it was again! Even a fly, unpardonably late in going to bed, was buzzing on the window-pane, “Tommy’s tore his trousers; Tommy’s tore his trousers!” Finally the moon looked in at the window laughing at his grief, and Tommy fell into a troubled sleep.
Many hours later he was wakened by the striking of a match and a flare of light. Mammy was putting the kettle on the spirit-lamp at her bedside, and by this Tommy knew that Daddy was home again. Rubbing his eyes he sat up and looked anxiously at the foot of his cot. He saw that the torn trousers were no longer there. He gave a deep sigh of relief; it was true then; he had feared that it was perhaps only a dream. But they were not there, so now he knew that the odd little red-haired man who danced in the moonlight had really taken away those dreadful trousers to make them into tiny coats for the ten little boys and girls whom he invariably left at home on his nights out.
Sleepily Tommy watched his mother’s movements. When she had poured water into the tea-pot he crept into the big bed, and as soon as Daddy came the feast began. Some potato and gravy from the cold pasty oozed out of Tommy’s share and fell upon his nightshirt. It was too good to be left, so Tommy licked vigorously making very sure that none was wasted. Quickly the midnight meal ended.
“Now, ma handsome,” said Mammy (she must have forgotten about the trousers), “skip back to bed like a fly in a jaboon.”
So Tommy skipped. Daddy blew out the candle, and soon their regular breathing testified that all three slept.
AFTERall Tommy Tregennis had breakfast at the proper time the following morning; and although he left home a little earlier than usual it was with no intention of hurrying. Rather did he choose to swagger slowly through the crooked streets, while every now and again he bent ostentatiously to pick up a stone to throw at a sparrow, or a lamp-post, or an old tin in the gutter. It did not matter in the least what he aimed at, sparrow, post or tin, for never by any chance did he hit it; but it mattered greatly that those children who had laughed last night, laughed while he was sobbing in bed, should know that there was no need for him to stand upright unless he cared to do so. Without shame he could now assume any attitude he chose. For Tommy Tregennis wore a new pair of trousers!
Tommy himself had not known of their existence, but weeks before, at night while he slept, Mammy had planned and cut and sewn by the light of the kitchen lamp. With puckered brow, and tightly compressed lips holding two or three pins, she had spread her old green coat carefully on the kitchen table, smoothed out every wrinkle, and upon it placed a piece of newspaper which bore some resemblance to the shape of Tommy’s legs.
The first plan was faulty; the curve of the arm-hole interfered. The newspaper pattern was taken up, Mammy’s mouth held more pins and her frown grew deeper. It was only after much anxious thought that she decided finally that it was possible to cut a strip from a sleeve of the coat and join it to the top of the trousers in such a way that when Tommy’s jersey was well pulled down the seam would not show. So the pattern was pinned on more firmly, the first cut was made half-an-inch from the edge of the paper, and after that there was no drawing back.
As Mammy planned and pinned and cut and sewed in the yellow light of the lamp the silence of the little kitchen was only broken by the fall of a cinder now and again, and by the steady ticking of the clocks.
One clock stood on the chimney-piece, a canister on either side, and beyond each canister a china dog with staring yellow eyes. It was the chimney-piece clock that told the time. Nailed to the wall, to the left of the fireplace, with long slender chains dangling and throwing shadows in the lamplight, hung a cuckoo clock that was Tommy’s most cherished possession. All day and all night it ticked steadily through the hours, but as the hands never moved it was not considered trustworthy more than once a day; this was at five minutes past twelve, when (at any rate on Saturdays and Sundays) Mammy would look up to the wall, and say: “Deary me, five minutes past twelve; my dear soul, why ’tis time to put on the potaties!”
As the clocks ticked, and the cinders fell, and the oil in the lamp burned low, Mammy’s deft fingers moved very busily, and her thoughts were very busy too. They carried her a long way back—ten years back, in fact—to the time before she was Mammy, to the days when Tommy, and even Tommy’s father, had not yet come into her life.
She was just Ellen in those days; Ellen Pertwee really, but no one seemed to remember that she had a second name more than once a year when it was all written in full in her Sunday School prize. For four years Ellen had been a willing little servant-maid at Tomses the draper’s, but when she was eighteen there was a great change in her life, for she went to the doctor’s as house-parlour-maid, and her wages were twelve pounds a year. She was very hazy at the time as to the meaning of her grand new title; but the money was very real, and she remembered even now how dazzled she was at the thought of so much gold.
With her first month’s wages, ten years ago, she had bought the cloth for her new green coat. It had cost her much deliberation and several sleepless nights, but at last she had gone back to Tomses on her fortnightly night-out, and made the important purchase. Night after night she had cut and shaped and pinned and stitched, much as she was cutting and shaping now. At last the coat was finished (all sewn by hand, too, for Ellen had no machine in those days) and she wore it in Church on her next Sunday out.
It was after Church that very night that Tom Tregennis, much to her surprise, asked her to walk out with him, and——. Well, now the new green coat was the old green coat, and was being made into trousers for little Tommy Tregennis to wear!
SOfar Draeth is comparatively unknown, for it lies a little off the beaten track and hurrying tourists do not find it easily. The Limited Express does not pull up at Scard, the junction, but hurries on, through beautiful country, from Plymouth to Falmouth without a stop. Visitors to Draeth, therefore, travel by a slower train from Mill Bay and leave the main line at Scard. Here, seizing their own hand-luggage (for the porters, like the express, are limited, and unlike the express are slow), they cross the line by the bridge, and pass along a bit of dusty road, following the direction indicated by a painted hand under which is written “To the Draeth and Scard Branch Railway.”
The independence of the branch line is emphasized by the fact that the Draeth train remains just outside the station until all the passengers are in line upon the platform. It then steams up alongside with much unnecessary fuss. When at last it starts it runs very slowly and the line is single, but as a precaution against possible accidents an iron bar passes across the window of each compartment. Thus, if a traveller wishes to look out at the narrow East Draeth river, at the willows and alders on its banks, and at the clumps of Rose Bay and Willowherb that give rich colour to the line,he rubs his nose on the dusty bar while he knocks his forehead on the window-frame above.
So steep is the gradient from Scard to Draeth that half-way there the train stops, and the engine steams away alone. Returning it is coupled at the rear and now pulls the train backward at first doubling on its track. Those who cannot travel facing the engine change places with those who cannot sit with their backs in the direction in which they are going. By the time these changes are effected the narrow East Draeth river expands into a wide sheet of water if the tide is up, or into a series of mud flats when the tide is low. Five minutes later the train enters what is surely the prettiest of all Cornish stations, and the journey is at an end.
There was a man once who lived in Draeth who made many plans for beautifying and improving the town. He built the Frying Pan Pier, and it was he, too, who opened up the Pentafore Estate. The branch railway also owes its existence to him. He dreamed of a modern sea-front all asphalt and glittering lights, of a grand Hydro, too, which was to front the sea on a commanding bit of cliff-coast less than a mile eastward of the town. But he died and his plans came to naught, and Draeth is still just Draeth!
Beyond the station the East and West rivers join and together run out to sea, dividing East Draeth from West Draeth and forming a safe harbour for the fishing smacks that have safely weathered so many storms. Lately the fishing has been poor inDraeth because the steam-trawlers have driven away the fish, and in winter there is much poverty in the town.
It was dread of the winter that led the Tregennises to give up their three-roomed cottage and move into a house that had eight windows in the front and rose three stories high. The change was made in April so that all might be in readiness for the summer and the visitors the summer brought.
The new home was only a stone’s throw from the old one, and there was much running backwards and forwards between the two houses, much fetching and carrying, until the last moments in the old home came, and nothing remained but to lock the door and give up the key to the landlord. Then Mrs. Tregennis leaned up against the kitchen sink and cried, while Tommy, not in the least understanding why, cried, too.
“Mammy,” he wailed, “Oh, Mammy, what’ve I done to ee?” “Done, ma lamb, done?” Mrs. Tregennis spoke breathlessly between her sobs. “Why, nothin’, ma handsome; you’re just the best little boy as ever I had.”
Then, having wiped Tommy’s eyes and her own with a large red-bordered handkerchief, Mrs. Tregennis ran upstairs for the last time, took one more look at the empty rooms and, with set mouth and without a backward glance, came slowly down the stairs. She took Tommy’s hand in hers, and silently and tearfully mother and son passed through the open door, locked it behind them and crossed thecobble-stone alley to the imposing double-fronted house which was henceforth to be home.
Much more furniture was wanted in the three-storied house than in the forsaken cottage, and for some months past the Tregennis family, Daddy, Mammy and Tommy had attended all the neighbouring sales. They were almost too nervous to bid when the articles they wished to buy were put up for auction; when shame-facedly they had made their nod they were held upon the tenterhooks of despair while some one else, who could not possibly want the goods as much as they did, bid against them and so raised the price.
Now the furnishing was complete. The kitchen and one bedroom held the old things, but in the other four rooms Mrs. Tregennis arranged with pride the bargains collected at the sales, and the new things sent out from a Plymouth shop.
It was all so grand and wonderful that she could scarcely realize that the rooms were her very own. Morning after morning, for many weeks, as soon as she was dressed, she opened the door of the tiny sitting-room on the first floor and looked round almost with awe on its beauty and newness. On tiptoe she then advanced into the room, picked a piece of cotton off the gay Brussels carpet, dusted an imaginary fleck from the green art-serge tablecloth, and stroked out the fringe of the plush mantel-border. Then, having slightly altered the position of one of the velvet upholstered chairs, she passed out with a sigh of contentment, and gently closed the door behind her.
The final act of preparation in the new house was to hang up, in the lower sitting-room window, a long narrow card bearing in gold letters the word “Apartments.” After this the Tregennis family settled down and waited.
June was a blank month for Draeth that year. It was unusually wet and cold, and very few visitors came to the little fishing-town, and none at all to the double-fronted house. Whenever a stranger walked up the alley Mrs. Tregennis’s hopes rose high, but not until July did anyone knock at her door and ask about the price of rooms. Outwardly Mrs. Tregennis was very calm but her inward agitation was great. She displayed her rooms with pride, they were taken, and after that with one party and another she was busy until the end of August.
Early in September, towards the end of the afternoon, she was interrupted in her dressing by the rapping of knuckles on the door. She buttoned her bodice as she came downstairs, shook out her skirts and hurriedly put on an apron before she opened it. “We wondered if you could take us in just for the night,” said the taller of two ladies who stood on the step. “We are on a cycling tour and are going on further to-morrow.”
“Please come in,” said Mrs. Tregennis, and they passed into the downstairs sitting-room, which was just on the left-hand side of the door.
“We’ve tried so many places,” said the lady who had already spoken, “and no one can take us.”
Mrs. Tregennis pulled forward two Windsor chairsfor the ladies and stood before them smoothing a non-existent crease from her white apron.
“Well, I might manage it, Miss,” she said, “if the young gentleman didn’t mind, for I have this room free.”
“Oh, I do wish you could, for it’s getting late to go on, and we’re so tired.”
“It would be no better to go on, Miss, the rooms at all the places is full, I know. It’s like this, you see, Miss.” Mrs. Tregennis again smoothed her apron. “Two young gentlemen really belongs to a party at my sister-in-law’s and only sleeps here, they have one bedroom. Another young gentleman has the other bedroom and the upstairs sitting-room. If it should be as how he would have a chair-bed in his sitting-room for the night, then you could have his room.”
“Well, I do hope he will, Mrs. ——?”
“Tregennis, Miss.”
“But Mrs. Tregennis, if the young gentleman doesn’t wish to sleep on a chair-bed what shall we do?”
“There’s the Royal Standard, Miss.”
“No, we had a very unsatisfactory lunch there, badly cooked and badly served; the waitress wore a dirty apron and her hair was in curling pins. We really couldn’t go there!”
“Well, Miss, will you call again in an hour’s time; the young gentleman will be in then, and I’ll let you know for certain.”
“Tom,” she said, when they had left, “there’stwo young ladies asking for rooms for the night. They’re on a cycling tour, but they’d no bikes with them, and they hadn’t a scrap of luggage. I’ve said I’ll take them if the young gentleman doesn’t mind the chair-bed.”
Tregennis slowly uncrossed his legs as he sat in front of the kitchen fire, and with his forefinger re-arranged the tobacco in the bowl of his pipe. “Well, Ellen,” he said slowly, “and suppose they be just frauds?”
“All I can say is as they don’t look it, an’ after all we’m got to take our risks. A room for one night isn’t much, but all the littles add up, and the summer’s nearly gone.” After a pause she resumed. “The Royal Standard isn’t good enough for they, Thomas Tregennis, I’d have you know, when folks wants things done in real style they comes to the likes of we.”
Mrs. Tregennis cleared her throat and prepared her husband’s tea.
Two hours later the ladies had brought their bicycles and carry-alls from the hotel-stable, and were sitting down to supper in Mrs. Tregennis’s sitting-room, for the young gentleman had proved most accommodating in the matter of the chair-bed.
It was after supper that the meeting with Tommy took place. The arrival of unexpected visitors had put off his bedtime, and when these visitors passed the kitchen door on their way out, he had only just had his bath. He was standing on a chair while Mammy vigorously brushed up hisstiff fair hair. Peeping out below the pink nightshirt were toes almost as pink as his flushed little face. All the time his hair was being rubbed and brushed, he went through a rhythmic motion of the body, slowly bending his knees, and rapidly straightening them again. The upright movement frequently brought his head into sharp contact with the hair-brush, but this in nowise disconcerted him.
When Mammy’s ladies appeared in the doorway, then in response to Mrs. Tregennis’s invitation actually walked into the kitchen, he was overcome with shyness and hid his eyes in his hands. To his great surprise, however, the ladies talked to Mammy, neglecting him utterly. He was accustomed to much consideration, and gradually his tight little fingers relaxed that he might peep through the gaps and see what manner of strangers these were who were so ignorant of his importance and of his claims upon them.
Still the ladies talked only to Mammy. He could bear it no longer, so, dropping his hands, he pursed up his mouth and whistled; at least he called it whistling, but it was very much the same noise that Daddy made each morning when the tea in his saucer was too hot. Its value as a whistle, however, mattered very little, as it had the desired effect. The taller lady, the one in the blue dress, looked at him in surprise; evidently until now she had had no idea that he was there.
“Hallo, Tommy,” she said, and made a dash for his toes.
“Hallo,” he half-screamed, half-gurgled. “Hallo, Blue Lady,” and flung two chubby, suffocating arms tightly around her neck. Then, peeping over her shoulder, “Hallo, Brown Lady,” he laughed. Thus their friendship began.
STILL THE LADIES TALKED ONLY TO MAMMY.
STILL THE LADIES TALKED ONLY TO MAMMY.
ATbreakfast the following morning the Blue Lady looked up from her pilchards. She was eating slowly for pilchard bones are many in number and very small. “Dorothea,” she asked, “what about this cycling tour? Do you want to go on to-day, or wouldn’t it be rather nice to stay here for one more night and just enjoy Draeth?”
“I should love it!” the Brown Lady replied.
Mrs. Tregennis was summoned. No, she didn’t think the young gentleman would at all mind having the chair-bed again; he’d slept very well indeed and had been quite comfortable. As for her, well, she’d be delighted for the ladies to stay.
Thus it was settled, and they stayed.
The tide was high that morning, and they pulled slowly up the beautiful West River. After lunch they took photographs of Tommy at play on the sands, and sat on the rocks reading. In the evening they bathed for the second time that day, and went to bed at night completely under the spell of Draeth.
The next morning it was arranged that they should stay yet one more night, and it ended in the young gentleman sleeping on the chair-bed in his sitting-room for a week. Then, however, the ladies were obliged to leave. By the end of the week they hadplanned to reach Padstowe after cycling all round the Cornish coast, and had arranged that luggage should be awaiting them there at the Salutation Inn where they had already engaged rooms.
The evening before they left the ladies went into Mrs. Tregennis’s bedroom to hear Tommy say his prayers. He was kneeling in the cot, and by judicious pressure made the mattress rise and fall in such a way that his petitions were more broken than is usually considered quite reverent.
“Please God take care of Daddy, ’n bring the fishes, ’n Mammy, ’n keep me good, ’n——”
A sudden somersault choked the rest. “I’ve got a sweet, Miss!”
The opening of the right hand disclosed a hot, melted chocolate cream, whose pink inside now filled up the lines of the small, fat palm. After much licking brown and pink disappeared, but an uncomfortable stickiness was left behind. The Brown Lady brought a sponge and towel and washed the stickiness away.
“Tommy,” said the Blue Lady, “when you waken in the morning a wooden horse called Dobbin will be downstairs under the kitchen table. That’s his new stable.”
“Who be it for?” asked Tommy all thought of sleep dispelled.
“Well, itmightbe for Jimmy Prynne.”
“Mammy, Mammy,” with even more than customary vigour, “is the Dobbin that’s goin’ to be under the kitchen table for Jimmy Prynne?”Then with a catch suspiciously like a sob, “Jimmy Prynne doesn’t wipe his nose with a hankycher; he sniffs does Jimmy Prynne.”
“Oh, my dear soul,” replied Mammy, in the doorway, “I haven’t got no Dobbin. ’Tis a grand thing for Jimmy Prynne if he’s goin’ to have a horse for to ride. He’ll be like the quality will Jimmy Prynne.”
“Mammy,” brokenly, “do you think as sometimes Jimmy Prynne’ll lend his wooden horse to me?”
“Tommy Tregennis,” said the Blue Lady, throwing her arms round the dejected figure still kneeling on the bed, but no longer bobbing up and down. “Tommy Tregennis, if you go tightly to sleep, now at once, I shouldn’t be at all surprised if that wooden horse turned out to be for you, and not for Jimmy Prynne at all.”
At once Tommy lay down in bed and screwed up his eyes. Then, rubbing his forehead, “There ain’t no sleep there,” he said.
So the Blue Lady held one hot hand in hers, and sitting on the side of the cot sang many a nursery rhyme.
“Hush-a-bye, baby,” was sleepily demanded a second time.
“Hush-a-bye, baby, thy cradle is green,Thy father’s a nobleman, thy mother’s a queen;Thy sister’s a lady and wears a gold ring,And Johnnie’s a horseman, and rides for the king.”
“Hush-a-bye, baby, thy cradle is green,Thy father’s a nobleman, thy mother’s a queen;Thy sister’s a lady and wears a gold ring,And Johnnie’s a horseman, and rides for the king.”
“Hush-a-bye, baby, thy cradle is green,
Thy father’s a nobleman, thy mother’s a queen;
Thy sister’s a lady and wears a gold ring,
And Johnnie’s a horseman, and rides for the king.”
“Was the horse called Dobbin?” Tommy asked, but before the answer came he was riding a kicking wooden steed in the wonderful land of dreams.
Later in the evening Tommy’s Ladies bought Dobbin. Mrs. Tregennis said that no fisher-child in Draeth had ever before possessed such a toy. It was dapple-grey and very strong; it moved on wheels and was high enough from the ground for a boy of five to sit astride, slip his feet into the stirrups, and so prepare to set out on great adventures.
Tommy was downstairs in his night-shirt at five o’clock the next morning. He sat on Dobbin’s back, kissed his carmine nostrils, poked his glassy eyes, and wished to waken up the Prynne household to show Jimmy Prynne his treasure and assert to him emphatically that Dobbin was his, Tommy’s, and his alone.
From this course, however, his mother dissuaded him. She told him that as yet the horse did not belong to him; until it had been given to him, he was certainly not justified in calling it his own.
“Perhaps after all,” Mrs. Tregennis demurred, “it may be for some other little boy in Draeth.”
“No, Mammy, no; the ladiessaidit was to be for me if I slept tight. They said so, Mammy, they said it was mine.”
To make quite sure of ownership, however, Tommy hurried up the two flights of stairs and with both clenched fists hammered on the bedroom door. “My ladies, my ladies; is the Dobbin for me?”
He returned to the kitchen triumphant, and convicted Mammy of lack of faith.
When breakfast was over Tommy led Dobbin proudly up and down the alley by the real leatherreins. Three—then four—five—six—seven children followed the horse and his master.
WHEN BREAKFAST WAS OVER, TOMMY LED DOBBIN PROUDLY UP AND DOWN THE ALLEY.
WHEN BREAKFAST WAS OVER, TOMMY LED DOBBIN PROUDLY UP AND DOWN THE ALLEY.
Then Jimmy Prynne stepped forward: “Tell ee what, Tommy Tregennis, ’ll give ee two cherries to ride him wanst down.”
This bargain was concluded.
Ruby Dark parted with three treasured rusty pins for the privilege of herself leading Dobbin three steps, one pin for each step. Although she made her strides as long as possible her turn was soon over, and other contracts were entertained.
In half-an-hour’s time the Tregennis household was richer by three rusty pins, one screw, one length of stamp-edging, one dead rose, a parrot’s feather and a piece of string.
After lunch that day the ladies left. Tommy smiled until they had turned the corner, then a sudden despair seized him and he screamed with grief. Dobbin’s placid, glassy stare irritated him so much that he hit him full in the face with his open palm. Afterwards in a fit of remorse he flung his arms around the wooden neck and sobbed bitterly into the flowing mane. Ten minutes later he and Dobbin slept together on the kitchen floor.
The house seemed strangely quiet to Mrs. Tregennis when the ladies had gone. No other visitors had become so much a part of the household.
A few days later the three gentlemen also left Draeth, and Mrs. Tregennis prepared her house for the winter months. All the ornaments from the sitting-rooms were wrapped up in paper and putaway in a box under the bed. The curtains and blinds were washed and folded carefully to be in readiness for the spring; the Brussels carpet upstairs was well swept and overlaid with newspapers; the velvet mantel-border was turned up and brushed, and it, too, was swathed in a paper covering. The best knives, spoons and forks were folded separately in tissue paper and locked away in the cupboard underneath the stairs.
When all these preparations were complete Mrs. Tregennis realized that winter was indeed upon them.
ALTHOUGHMiss Lavinia’s door was sorely in need of a coat of paint, no house in Draeth had a brighter knocker, and no door-step was whiter than hers. The twenty boys and girls who were Miss Lavinia’s pupils had learned to respect the whiteness of this step, and on muddy days they jumped over it so that no footprint should mar its cleanliness. More than twenty children Miss Lavinia could not take. The back sitting-room was used as the schoolroom. There were tables and chairs for the children with the longest legs, while the very little ones sat on the two low window-seats.
Tommy loved going to school, and he was never late. At twenty minutes to nine each morning he left home, his face shining with soap and his hair neatly brushed. On his way he almost always called for Ruthie, who was now only his cousin, but who in the future was to be his wife. Hand in hand the two children ran round the twists and corners of the narrow alleys, until they were in Main Street itself. At the top of Main Street, this side of the bridge, stood Miss Lavinia’s house. At this time of day the shabby green door stood wide open, and in the narrow rather dark passage one saw the low wooden pegs on which the children hung hats and jackets as they entered.
When the new Guildhall clock struck nine Miss Lavinia walked into the schoolroom, and the twenty children, standing in their places, made a little bobbing curtsy and wished her “Good morning.” Then when all the hands were clasped and all eyes tightly closed they said “Our Father” together, and after this sang a hymn led by Miss Lavinia’s sweet though trembling voice.
Tommy enjoyed the hymn-singing very much. He had absolutely no idea of tune, but as he learned the words very quickly that did not matter, and his voice could always be heard above the rest.
His quite favourite hymn was one about Angels in Heaven, and with great energy he sang, “Bright songs they sing, sweet harps they hold,” but (if Miss Lavinia had only known!) his interpretation was “sweethearts they hold.” Ofharpshe was quite ignorant, but his Mammy often called him “sweetheart.” He had a very vivid picture of a chorus of Angels all with golden hair, white robes and beautiful wings. They sang songs all day long, and each held by the hand a little boy. In his fancy all the boys were very much like Tommy Tregennis, as Tommy Tregennis appeared to himself in the looking-glass that hung by the kitchen sink.
His second favourite hymn was “Shall we gather at the river?” for Angels came in that, too. He wished the verses did not leave it quite so indefinite as to what it was that was gathered; after a little thought he decided that it must be grasses and forget-me-nots and dismissed the subject from his mind.
Once he did speak to Miss Lavinia about it. “It means they meet together, Tommy,” she explained.
“Meet to gather?” asked Tommy.
“Yes,” replied Miss Lavinia, and Tommy’s difficulty remained.
Although Miss Lavinia had no time-table to refer to, all the children were kept busily occupied in one way or another from nine o’clock until twelve.
The first lesson was writing when for half-an-hour or so slate-pencils squeaked unremittingly. The older boys and girls copied from a book, but those who sat on the window-seats had a line set at the top of the slate, and this they wrote out eight times below. During the writing-lesson Miss Lavinia was able to run upstairs, make her bed and dust the rooms. On her return the writing was put on one side, and while some of the children did sums the younger ones read. Reading, of course, meant saying letters and putting together words of one syllable. Ruby Dark could go backwards from Z Y X to C B A without a pause!
The naughtiest girl in the school was Lizzie Wraggles. Lizzie sat on the window seat. She was only four and looked very shy, but Miss Lavinia said she was naughty and uncontrolled. It was always in the reading-lesson that difficulties arose for Lizzie would not read properly.
Tommy’s Ladies had left Draeth on a Saturday, and it was on the Monday morning following that Lizzie was naughtier and more uncontrolled than she had ever been before. On the Friday she hadlearned, after saying it many times over, that S-O spelledso. This morning, in reading a column of letters and little words, she had pronounced T-O astow.
“Too,” corrected Miss Lavinia.
“S-O,so; T-O,tow,” murmured Lizzie in a low, sing-song voice.
The squeaking of slate pencils ceased, and all the older children stopped doing sums to listen.
Miss Lavinia became agitated: “Say T-O,tow, Lizzie,” she ordered sternly, and Lizzie said “T-O,tow.”
Miss Lavinia flushed deeply: “I made a mistake,” she explained. “T-O,too.”
“Tow,” whispered Lizzie.
Then Miss Lavinia stood up and slapped her! It was a real slap on her bare arm; a slap that was heard by every child in the room. The school held its breath.
Lizzie Wraggles looked straight into Miss Lavinia’s eyes, dropped her slate, and “Tow” she said, in quite a loud voice.
Miss Lavinia picked up both Lizzie and the slate, and with a shake put them on a hassock in the corner. Miss Lavinia was thoroughly perturbed. “There you must sit,” she said, “and write T-O fifty times before you go home to dinner.”
The children had no proper play-time because there was no place in which they could really play. But at half-past ten, while Miss Lavinia did one or two odd jobs in the kitchen, they sat anywhere inthe school-room, and those who had brought lunch with them ate it then. Miss Lavinia stayed away from the room longer than usual this morning. The encounter with Lizzie Wraggles had upset her altogether. Never before had she either slapped or shaken a child, and she could have cried with vexation.
When she returned to the school-room the chairs and tables were pushed on one side so that the middle of the floor was left clear for a game. Then they all joined hands in a ring and played “Luby Loo.”