D. H. Lawrence's 'Odour of Chrysanthemums'

"Why, mother, it's hardly a bit dark. The lamp's not
lighted, and my father's not home yet."

"No, he isn't. But it's quarter to five! Did you see
anything of him?"

The child became serious. She looked at her mother with
large, wistful blue eyes.

"No, mother, I've never seen him. Why? Has he come
up an' gone down Old Brinsley? He hasn't, mother, 'cos I
never saw him."*

"He'd watch that," said the mother bitterly,"he'd take
care as you didn't see him, child.* But you may depend upon
it, he's seated in the 'Prince o' Wales' He wouldn't be this
late."

The girl looked at her mother piteously. The boy sat with
his head bowed over his bit of wood. The mother let loose,
now, the silent anger and bitterness that coiled within
her. She said little, but there was the grip of "trouble,"
like the tentacle of an octopus, round the hearts of the
children.

"Let's have our teas*, mother, should we?" said the girl,
plaintively; with woman's instinct for turning aside from the
thing she feared. The mother called John to table. He took
the mat to shake the bits in the fire first.

"Nay," said his mother,"that's a sloven's trick!" and she
put him back with her hand. "Take it outside."

He went very slowly. She opened the door for him and
leaned out to look across the darkness of the lines. All was
deserted: she could not hear the winding-engines.

"Perhaps," she said to herself,"he's stopped to get some
ripping* done."

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