Every Saturday morning Tommy kept Granny Tregennis company, for it was
then that Aunt Keziah Kate made her pastry. Granny Tregennis had lived
for a great many years and was getting very tired; so until twelve
o'clock each morning she stayed in bed. Her bed was a very high one
with a long post at each corner, and curtains hung all around.
Tommy knew that Granny was always very anxious for his visit; for when
he came into the bedroom she was thinking of him audibly. "Where _can_
Tommy Tregennis be?" he would hear her say: "Surely 'tis time for him
to come to his granny!"
Then Tommy would creak across the room on tip-toe, climb first of all
on to a hassock, and from this to a chair; lifting up a corner of the
curtain, "Bo," he would cry, and Granny always gave a little start.
"Why, 'tis the very boy I was thinkin' of; 'tis Tommy Tregennis
himself."
When these friendly greetings had passed between them, they settled
down comfortably for the morning.
By the fireplace in Granny's room was a small cupboard, and in this
cupboard Tommy's Saturday playtoys were kept. One of his favourite
toys was a massive bedroom candlestick in shining brass.
Granny had many stories to tell a little boy about that candlestick.
The very night that Tommy's father was brought to her, years and years
ago, she had stuck a lighted dip in the brass candlestick and had put
it in this very bedroom window, because Granfäather Tregennis was out
on a rough, wild sea catching pilchards.
There was no light at the end of the Frying Pan then, for the pier was
not yet built and the men in the boats looked to the cottage windows
for guidance. When Granfäather came home, very cold and very wet, in
the grey light of the dawn, the candle was just guttering out. In the
candlestick were little runnings of grease, and in the big fourposter
bed, along with Granny, was a son.
Tommy could picture Granfäather's great surprise when he came upstairs
and found a new boy in the house. It was disconcerting to feel that
new children might appear in this way at any moment. Whenever Tommy
had been away from home for some hours, he was always just a little
apprehensive lest another child should have come in his absence,
knowing, as he did, how very suddenly his own father had been brought
to Granny on the night of the storm.
Among the playtoys, too, were a pair of wee, patent-leather slippers.
They were cracked now and stiff with age, and the tiny buckles that
used to be so bright were quite yellow. These were the first leather
shoes that Tommy's Daddy had ever worn. Tommy knew exactly how his
Daddy had tried to walk in them holding on to the horse-hair sofa
downstairs, and how he had sat down suddenly in the middle and sucked
the patent-leather toes.
"And then my Daddy tried to get up again," Tommy would say, "but he
was so very, very little that he rolled right over 'n hit his head on
the sofy leg, 'n had brown paper on the big lump, 'n vinegar."
When Granny had duly corroborated this version of the accident, they
set aside the worn old slippers and passed on to another toy.
At eleven o'clock quite punctually Aunt Keziah Kate brought up a glass
of hot milk for Granny. This was the signal for Tommy to go downstairs
and help with the pastry. Quickly he ran down the twists and turns of
the quaint old-fashioned stairway, so that he might be the first to
get to the kitchen and hide behind the roller-towel before Aunt Keziah
Kate saw him.
Like the ostrich Tommy was perfectly contented in his hiding-place,
utterly oblivious of the fact that the towel, hanging from the kitchen
door, only covered the upper part of him; from his knees downwards he
was exposed to the full view of the public.
The public, in the guise of Aunt Keziah Kate, walked briskly into the
kitchen, "Now then, ma man," she was saying, "you shall have the
rolling-pin and a bit o'----"
Then there was a start and an exclamation. "Why, my blessed fäather,
and where _is_ the boy? Surely 'n to goodness, I must have left 'e
upstairs."
While Aunt Keziah Kate returned to Granny's room to look for the
missing nephew, a wriggling Tommy, some inches of runnerin' in his
mouth, gave rise to distracting undulations in the roller-towel.
Back once more in the kitchen his Aunt instituted a thorough search;
behind the rocking-chair covered with the big woolwork antimacassar;
under the horse-hair sofa round which Daddy had walked in the new
patent-leather shoes; in the kitchen cupboard; even in the coal-box
and other probable and improbable places.
There was one breathless moment when Aunt Keziah Kate rinsed her
fingers under the tap, and actually came to the roller-towel to dry
them. Even then she did not find the missing boy.
By this time she was overcome with grief and sitting down on the sofa,
in an attitude of despair, gave way to tears; leastways she produced a
large handkerchief of granfäather's from her overall pocket, covered
her face with it, and rocked to and fro.
"How shall a tell his mother?" she wailed; "oh, ma lamb, ma blessed
little lamb! His mother'll have to get a new little boy as none of us
knows, 'n poor little Tommy gone no one knows where."
But this was the breaking strain. The roller-towel heaved and pulled,
and with clenched fists out rushed Tommy.
"Hush, hush, hush!" he screamed. "I'm here, Aunt Keziah Kate, I'm
right here." Then in reply to her incredulous stare, "I was hidin',"
he explained, "hidin' behind the runnerin'-towel," and he jerked his
thumb in the direction of the kitchen door.
"Found," said his Aunt, gasping for breath, "found!" She clasped her
hands tightly and closed her eyes, repeating, "Ma lamb is found."
Then with a sudden descent to the things of everyday, "Now then, Tommy
Tregennis, here's the rollin' pin, 'n put your lame leg first and
press forwards, 'n get your bit o' pastry made, or we'll be all behind
with the cleanin' up when your granfäather comes home."
Tommy's jam turn-over took up more time in the making than all the
rest of the pasties and tarts put together. First of all the paste had
to be rolled very heavily and very often; rolled so heavily and so
often in fact that it wore too thin in the middle. It was then pulled
and scraped from the board to which it stuck, and was all pinched up
by grubby fingers into a lump again. When it had been rubbed once more
into the shape of a ball, the rolling-pin was again used. By the time
the size, shape and thickness of the pastry satisfied Tommy's
requirements, it was of a uniform grey colour relieved, here and
there, by darker shades. Tommy then spread on the jam, doubled it over
and pinched it well to keep the open sides together. Tough from much
handling and hot from the oven the turn-over was eaten by Tommy
himself at the end of dinner.
"Can't think," Granfäather Tregennis had said one Saturday, "can't
think why you let the boy eat that muck, Keziah Kate!"
"Must have a peck o' dust in his lifetime, fäather."
"Yes, 'n so he must, but surely 'n to goodness he needn't have it all
to wanst."
Tommy, entirely unmoved, ate on.
When dinner was over Tommy grew restless. He had not been home since
breakfast; that was a very long time ago and in his absence much might
have happened.
He slipped from his chair and thrust his hands into his
trouser-pockets. "I'd best be goin' now, Granny," he said, and when
the old woman put her arms round him and kissed him he wriggled away,
and addressed his Granfäather, for another man would understand.
"Granfäather," he said, "ma Mammy'll be missin' me."
"To be sure she will, Thomas, to be sure she will."
Granfäather removed his pipe from his mouth and with unerring aim spat
into the heart of the glowing coals; "you'd best be runnin' home now,
ma man; your Mammy'll mebbe be missin' you."
After this there was no detaining Tommy. He snatched his cap and ran
all the way home. The door was shut, and he hammered on it with his
fists, and kicked with his toes in nervous dread.
Mammy came to the door singing; how happy she sounded. "Be you all
alone, Mammy?" he demanded.
"'N who should be with me, ma lovely?"
"Daddy, or----"
"Your Daddy's up to the station helpin' Uncle Sam."
He ran into the kitchen. Everything seemed all right there, but what
about upstairs in his little cot? "'N there's no other little boy
here, is there?" he asked hesitatingly.
Mammy's arms were round him in an instant. "'N what other little boy
should I be wantin', Tommy Tregennis?" she managed to say between his
hugs. "Why, you're just the best little boy as ever I had!"