Although May had come Tommy's Ladies had not yet gone. Much to Mrs.
Radford's annoyance their money was still holding out.
Here and there in the woods of Draeth late primroses lingered; while
purple-tinged anemones still caught the sun that was cut off more and
more each day by the slowly unfolding leafy screen of the oaks.
Miss Lavinia had read lately that in other schools children were
learning about flowers and birds and even about the things that
crawled. In connexion with this she had read much of Educational
Values that she did not understand in the very least. But it seemed to
her a delightful change that sometimes in the afternoon the little
girls should put aside their hemming and that the little boys should
sponge out their sums, and that they should then talk about the
flowers the children gathered in the woods and in the lanes.
Miss Lavinia bought a book which helped her to look intelligently at
the flowers and to understand the wonders that were there. Again and
again she was surprised to find that the children, as a result of
their own observations, saw many things that she herself did not know
of until she had read about them in her little book.
Mr. Toms, the draper, sent his children to Miss Lavinia's school. This
Mr. Toms was the son of the Mr. Toms from whom Tommy's Mammy bought
the cloth for her green coat so many years ago. He was a very
practical, go-ahead man, was the present Mr. Toms; a man whose motto
was "Progress," and by progress he meant "Push," and "Getting on in
the World."
Mr. Toms felt that afternoons spent in the study of common wild
flowers represented so much waste of time. So keenly did he feel this
that one early closing day he called on Miss Lavinia to talk to her
about the matter. Miss Lavinia received him in the best parlour and
was very nervous, for a visit from the parents of her pupils was a
most unusual event.
Mr. Toms sat down on the extreme edge of one of Miss Lavinia's
Chippendale chairs, and after clearing his throat loudly explained to
her that what he paid for was a good sound education with no
high-falutin' nonsense. Sums and such had made him the man he was;
sums and such would surely train his boys to follow worthily in their
father's footsteps.
The flow of words quite paralysed Miss Lavinia; she had no answer to
give.
Mr. Toms again cleared his throat. "It's in this way, Miss Lavinia,"
he continued, "time is given us to be used. An all-merciful Providence
has put us here to do the best we can, and we must make the most of
our talents. They mustn't be wrapped up in a napkin and hid."
By this time Mr. Toms's thumbs were in his arm-holes and he was in his
best platform vein.
"There's them as doesn't heed, but _I_ say 'waste not, want not,'
whether it be bread, or money, or time. Let not the talents be abused!
And when my boys come home and talk about primroses and such, well
then I feel annoyed and rightly so."
Again he cleared his throat, but was arrested in the further
expression of his views by the tears that filled Miss Lavinia's faded
blue eyes.
In spite of pompous manners and in spite of push, Mr. Toms was a
kindly man at heart, and a little old maid's tears made him feel
ashamed. "Oh, I say, Miss Lavinia ...," he stammered, "oh, I say ...!"
"I am very foolish," she answered him. "I think I am a little tired.
But about the flowers! I read that it was being done in quite big
schools. I myself know very little about them but I thought that I,
too, would like to try." Then her delicate cheeks flushed as she went
on speaking. "I thought, too, that as God himself has made all these
wonders, it could not possibly be waste of time for us to stop now and
again and look at the beauty that he gives. But ... I do not know.
Perhaps I am wrong...."
Again Mr. Toms cleared his throat. "Upon my word, Miss Lavinia," he
interrupted; "upon my word, I believe that it's me. Anyhow, go on, go
on; I'll say no more! It can't do no harm anyhow, and who knows but it
may be good."
When the following week Miss Lavinia took her school to walk, two by
two, through the woods of the West River, Mr. Toms was glad that the
afternoon was fine. In the evening, when his boys showed him little
twigs of oak already bearing the future acorns, he was so much
interested that he took old Mr. Toms's magnifying glass, until now
used in reading the Bible only, and through it saw the flowers on a
larger scale.
"Well, it caps me, Mother," he remarked to his wife as he replaced the
lens in the drawer of the bureau. "Forty-five years have I lived in
this town and never till to-day did I know as oak trees flowered!"
It was after this walk in the woods that Tommy discovered that the
Tregennises had a garden. Naturally he was greatly excited by the
discovery and ran into the kitchen volubly explaining the need for
watering at once without a moment's delay.
"My dear soul, Tommy Tregennis, what's all this?" asked his mother.
"Oh, Mammy, Mammy, gimme some water in a cup to water my garden; give
it to me to wanst please Mammy, or my garden'll mebbe die."
Mrs. Tregennis did as she was commanded. Taking from the cupboard an
enamelled mug she filled it with water at the tap above the sink,
handed it to her son and followed him to the door.
There, sure enough, underneath the window, in three separate places
little blades of grass had pushed their way upwards between the
cobble-stones.
Tommy pointed to these with pride, then, stooping, he put the mug upon
the ground. But the stones were uneven there and the mug of water
wobbled. In all moments of stress Tommy's tongue curled round the
corner of his mouth. It curled now. Then with care and deliberation he
chose another and a safer place where the cup stood firm.
After this Tommy himself knelt upon the uneven stones and tenderly
stroked the fresh green blades. "Now, Mammy, look!" he said; and while
Mammy looked he lifted up the enamelled cup, bent slightly forward,
over-balanced, and fell upon his garden-plot.
There was a moment of deep suspense, but when Tommy found that not one
of his plants was injured he smiled happily.
"S'more water, please Mammy," and he passed the cup towards the
doorway.
"But all they plants be just flooded with water, my sweetheart,"
objected Mrs. Tregennis. "They'll be drownded quite if you water 'em
any more."
"_That_," Tommy explained patiently, "was accident; that wasn't
waterin', that wasn't."
This was an unanswerable argument and without further ado Mammy
refilled the cup.
After this, in sun or rain, Tommy watered his garden twice a day. It
was to him an unfailing source of joy.
He told the Blue Lady all about it as they walked up from the sands
together. "'N before I go to bed I must water my garden. There's seven
grasses in the one closest up to the drain; 'spect it gets splashed 'n
likes it. There be on'y five in the one in front, but there be
somethin' thick an' tight in the miggle of he. 'N there's ... I don't
'xactly remember how many grasses there do be under the wall. 'N what
be the thick an' tight thing in the miggle, Miss?"
"I can guess, Tommy, but I won't tell you. You watch and watch, and
just see for yourself what happens."
"I'm allus watchin' _an'_ watchin'," replied Tommy, gloomily. "It be
they cats! Goin' round the corner they run right over my garden, they
do. I be allus watchin' an' shooin', 'n Mammy she be allus a-shooin'
of they too."
By this time they were half-way up the alley and very near the house.
To his horror Tommy saw his Daddy, his own Daddy, walk ruthlessly over
the three small patches of green.
"Oh, oh, oh ...," he screamed, darting forward in a very passion of
anger. "You be a-killing of my garden, 'n I hates ee, I do, I just
hates ee!"
His eyes were tightly closed in his rage and with clenched fists he
hit out wildly at his Daddy, only to find his outstretched arms firmly
imprisoned in his mother's grasp.
Mrs. Tregennis addressed Miss Margaret. "You'll often have been
wondering, Miss, how my Tommy came by such a funny lookin' sort o'
face. 'Tis with cryin' so much that 'e got 'e. 'Tis a brave pity that
he be so plain."
Tommy choked down a sob. "I do know some boys as is uglier 'n me," he
affirmed.
"Oh?" Mammy sounded sceptical.
"Jimmy Prynne's worse ugly 'n me," said Tommy, still shaken with
sobs.
"I'd think shame if I was ee, Tommy Tregennis, callin' a likely boy
like Jimmy Prynne ugly, that would I."
Tommy wept more loudly.
"I shouldn't make a face like that, no, not even if my head was off."
Mammy was scornful.
Tommy felt that there was a flaw in the argument but sobbed more
noisily still.
Then Mammy grew stern. "Stop that noise, Tommy," she said, forcefully,
accompanying her words with a shake.
Tommy screamed all the louder.
"My blessed fäather," Mammy remarked to the empty air. The Blue Lady
and Daddy had discreetly vanished. "Whose boy may this be makin' such
a disgraceful scene. Whoever he be _his_ Mammy an' Daddy won't be
wantin' _'e_ any more. There's no pleasure in lookin' at a boy like
'e."
Tommy's screams ended quite suddenly and he consigned the whole
incident to oblivion. "Some water for my garden, please Mammy," he
said.
"No, my son, not to-night. We'll have no waterin' to-night. You'm a
naughty, hasty boy, 'n you'll go right up to bed this minute."
With a sob in his throat Tommy went.