James T. Boulton

finished he took it back: "And did you get tenpence, John?
Oh that's very nice! Now what should we have for dinner?"

"A hedgehog," suggested John gruffly.

"Oh, no, not hedgehog!"

But he insisted, and it had to be baked in clay. In a few
seconds it was done: a pair of the father's stockings, black specked
with red, rolled in a duster for clay. Annie was forced to
pretend to eat, though she dithered at the bare idea.

At last they wore the game out, and John demanded "pit."*
This Annie hated, but she would have played anything to avoid
a crisis.

John crept under the sofa, and, lying on his side as his
father had taught him, pretended to be hacking a hole in the
wall with a little stick -- "holing a stint," he said. Meanwhile
Annie dragged up a little box on wheels, and put in it all the
boots and slippers -- loading a waggon" -- and then "taking a
carfle* to the bottom." John could grunt and sweat in safety
under the sofa, but Annie had only her horse to address: "Gee
Dobbin! Whoa!" and the game at last grew to be too much
of a burden to her. She had no more heart to play.

The mother all this time sat in her rocking-chair making a
"singlet"* of thick cream-coloured flannel, which gave a dull
sound when she tore off the grey strip at the edge. She worked
at her sewing with energy, listening to the children, and her
anger wearied itself of pacing backwards and forwards like an
impotent caged creature, and lay down to rest, its eyes always
open and steadily watching, its ears raised to listen. Sometimes,
even her anger quailed and shrank, and the mother suspended
her sewing, tracing the footsteps that thudded along the sleepers
outside; she would lift her head sharply to bid the children
"hush," but she recovered herself in time, and the footsteps
went past the gate, and the children were not dragged out of
their play-world.

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