Mrs. Tregennis sat at the kitchen table. With a short and rather blunt
pencil she was making calculations on a half-sheet of note-paper.
Never before in the month of April had they stood so well and known so
little fear. Mrs. Radford had been so very difficult and had tried
Mrs. Tregennis so sorely that early in January she had been asked to
leave; still during all the months she had lived there her money had
come in safely week after week and had been a great help. Then
Tregennis had been at work more or less regularly since the beginning
of January, not fishin', 'tis true, but diggin' and cartin', which he
found very hard, but to which he stuck doggedly all the same.
The digging and carting had been in connexion with the building of the
new Council Schools, which stood rather high up above the West River,
just opposite the station. Some weeks Tregennis had earned as much as
eighteen shillings, and as a result of this the little sum in the
bank, which represented summer visitors and summer fishing, had
remained untouched.
So Mrs. Tregennis was adding up. There was over eight pound from that
catch on the wreck when the boulter parted, and two weeks afterwards
there was nigh on three pound, and then there had been two pound five,
an' fifteen shillin', an'----
At this point Mrs. Tregennis lost count. Her little sums were all
upset by Tommy's return from school.
Tommy was evidently very angry. He half-kicked the door open, then
banged it behind him and stamped into the kitchen. When Mrs. Tregennis
looked up she saw that his fingers were tightly clenched and that he
was gritting his teeth. Without speaking, she put the lead pencil to
her lips and slowly made more figures on the piece of paper.
Tommy took off the coat he was wearing, threw it on the floor and
kicked it into the fender.
Then Mammy arose.
"Well, Tommy Tregennis," she said, "'an' shall I bring some more of
your clothes for ee to kick about the place? Will ee have the brown
jersey suit, my son, and the long sailor trousers?"
Tommy stood rigid and defiant. His eyes flashed as he answered his
mother. "I shan't wear 'e never no more." He pointed dramatically with
his right hand in the direction of the fireplace. "Never, no more, I
tell ee, no, _never_!"
"Pick you that coat out o' the ashes," Mrs. Tregennis ordered.
For a moment Tommy hesitated, then reluctantly he obeyed.
Mrs. Tregennis took it from him and put it on a chair. It was the coat
that had once been Mabel's--the coat that was trimmed with brown
velvet and that had been given to Tommy on the night of Granny's
funeral.
There was a brief silence, then Tommy spoke again. "I shan't wear 'e,
never no more," he repeated. If it had not been for the fact that he
was going on seven and had not cried for more than a month, Tommy
would certainly have cried now.
Mrs. Tregennis realized this. "Why not?" she asked sympathetically.
Then two tears came, but Tommy blinked them bravely back. Even to
Mammy he hesitated to give his reason, for shame had overwhelmed him,
and the mockery had hurt.
He clenched his fingers as he lived through the whole scene once more,
then he swallowed hard and explained. "The boys they do be a-sayin' as
Tommy Tregennis 'e do wear an old maid's coat." Then, "Mammy, Mammy, I
_can't_ wear 'e never no more! I needn't, Mammy, say it, oh, _say_
it!" he implored.
"Well, ma lovely," replied Mrs. Tregennis, "your Mammy would much like
to wear a beautiful silk gownd like the queen wears in London, but
she've gotten to wear just this." As Mrs. Tregennis sat down she drew
aside the apron that covered her plain serge skirt.
Instantly Tommy's arms were around her neck. "Mammy, Mammy," he
relented, "I'll wear 'e, sure I will; I'll wear 'e an' never heed they
boys, then ee can have a brave silk gownd, Mammy, just like the queen
do wear to London."
"Oh, never mind," said Mrs. Tregennis, "I'm not so set on a silken
gownd if it comes to that, wool'll do me in my line of life, an' I'll
give your coat to some little boy as is smaller 'an you, an' that'll
be fine all round." As she and Tregennis agreed afterwards Tommy'd
really wore that coat a lot, an' so they didn't ought to grumble, an'
he was really very good about his clothes, pore lamb; an' if he was
cold he could wear his best blue coat to school, 'twouldn't do it no
harm, not with care, and summer would be upon them very soon and no
coats needed then.
This happened to be the last day of Tregennis's work at the new school
buildings, and the following morning, with something of relief, he
went out shrimping. He came home with two quarts and more of very fine
shrimps, which Mrs. Tregennis boiled and took round for sale in the
afternoon. When she returned, having disposed of all the plates of
shrimps, she found that Tommy was home from school and was in a state
of great excitement.
For the first time he had been allowed to write in ink! He had made
only one quite little blot and one very small smudge!
"Miss Lavinia said 'twas brave an' handsome, Mammy," he told her. "She
said to take it home, Mammy, 'cos 'twas so fine an' lovely, so here 't
be for ee to see."
"Tom and Sam dig in the sand. The ant can run on the sand. The sand is
wet but the ant runs fast on the wet sand."
Mrs. Tregennis and Tommy together read out the written words, and
looked with pride at the "good" in red ink at the bottom of the page.
"This do be some fine, ma lovely," said Mammy, appreciatively, and,
going to the cupboard, she took her purse from the second shelf and
gave Tommy a penny.
"There's a penny and a saucer; run an' get some cream for your tea, ma
handsome, because your ink-writin' do be that beautiful."
Off Tommy ran to the one dairy in Draeth where cream can be bought by
the penn'orth.
It was all so thrilling and exciting that Tommy quite forgot his
manners, and on his return, rounding a corner, he ran up against
Auntie Jessie, and Auntie Jessie had seen him lick his finger after
sticking it well into the cream.
"My!" gasped Tommy.
"_Well!_" said Auntie Jessie, and walked on.
Tommy felt dreadful. "Now I shall get it somethin' awful," he
muttered. "Now I shall just be 'bout half killed." Then, holding the
saucer well in front of him, he ran quickly home.
"Mammy," he explained, somewhat breathlessly, "I didn't know as I was
a goin' to do it. 'Twent in quite of itself, it did. They be all
a-comin' to tell ee, Mammy, but don't ee hit I for I've telled ee of
it first. I didn't know as I was a-goin' to do it, but there 'twas,
an' Auntie Jessie she saw an' 'll tell ee, but 'twent in of itself, it
did, sure as sure it did, Mammy."
"What be all this about, Tommy Tregennis?" Mammy inquired. "Try to
talk a bit of sense, do ee now." And then she heard the story of
Tommy's lapse from decency.
Like Auntie Jessie, Mammy merely said, "_Well!_"
"I've never done no such thing afore, Mammy," argued Tommy, "'an' I've
seen other boys an' girls a-puttin' their fingers in pennorths of jam
one, two, three _an'_ four times."
"Oh, _they_ children!" replied Mammy, and Tommy knew that somehow his
line of defence was weak.
"Mammy," he said, very pleadingly, "Mammy, it did just slippen in, it
did," and he held the guilty finger up in front of him and looked at
it sadly as he slowly shook his head.
"Don't ee do it never no more, then," admonished Mrs. Tregennis, "an'
here's your Daddy so we'll have some tea."
"Cream on a week-day!" exclaimed Tregennis, in surprise.
"Yes," assented Mammy, "our Tommy's done some brave good ink-writin',
so we be all havin' a treat." "We'm properly livin' high," she
continued, "just like the gintry we be," and as she spoke she took a
small teaspoonful of cream from the saucer into which Tommy's finger
had slipped by mistake and emptied it carefully on to the side of her
plate.