The White Peacock. D. H. Lawrence
cool them, and then held back her nightdress again. Her auburn hair hung in heavy coils down her gown. A boy sat on the steel fender, catching the dropping fat on a piece of bread. "One, two, three, four, five, six drops," and he quickly bit off the tasty corner, and resumed the task with the other hand. When we entered he tried to draw his shirt over his knees, which caused the fat to fall wasted. A fat baby, evidently laid down from the breast, lay kicking on the squab, purple in the face, while another lad was pushing bread and butter into its mouth. The mother swept to the sofa, poked out the bread and butter, pushed her finger into the baby's throat, lifted the child up, punched its back, and was highly relieved when it began to yell. Then she administered a few sound spanks to the naked buttocks of the crammer. He began to howl, but stopped suddenly on seeing us laughing. On the sack-cloth which served as hearth rug sat a beautiful child washing the face of a wooden doll with tea, and wiping it on her nightgown. At the table, an infant in a high chair sat sucking a piece of bacon, till the grease ran down his swarthy arms, oozing through his fingers. An old lad stood in the big arm-chair, whose back was hung with a calf-skin, and was industriously pouring the dregs of the teacups into a basin of milk. The mother whisked away the milk, and made a rush for the urchin, the baby hanging over her arm the while.
"I could half kill thee," she said, but he had slid under the table—and sat serenely unconcerned.
"Could you"—I asked when the mother had put her bonny baby again to her breast—"could you lend me a knitting needle?"
"Our S'r Ann, wheer's thy knittin' needles?" asked the woman, wincing at the same time, and putting her hand to the mouth of the sucking child. Catching my eye, she said:
"You wouldn't credit how he bites. 'E's nobbut two teeth, but they like six needles." She drew her brows together and pursed her lips, saying to the child, "Naughty lad, naughty lad! Tha' shanna hae it, no, not if ter bites thy mother like that."
The family interest was now divided between us and the private concerns in process when we entered;—save, however, that the bacon sucker had sucked on stolidly, immovable, all the time.
"Our Sam, wheer's my knittin', tha's 'ad it?" cried S'r Ann after a little search.
"'A 'e na," replied Sam from under the table.
"Yes, tha' 'as," said the mother, giving a blind prod under the table with her foot.
"'A 'e na then!" persisted Sam.
The mother suggested various possible places of discovery, and at last the knitting was found at the back of the table drawer, among forks and old wooden skewers.
"I 'an ter tell yer wheer ivrythink is," said the mother in mild reproach. S'r Ann, however, gave no heed to her parent. Her heart was torn for her knitting, the fruit of her labours; it was a red woollen cuff for the winter; a corkscrew was bored through the web, and the ball of red wool was bristling with skewers.
"It's a' thee, our Sam," she wailed. "I know it's a' thee an' thy A. BC"
Samuel, under the table, croaked out in a voice of fierce monotony:
"P. is for Porkypine, whose bristles so strong
Kill the bold lion by pricking 'is tongue."
The mother began to shake with quiet laughter.
"His father learnt him that—made it all up," she whispered proudly to us—and to him.
"Tell us what 'B' is Sam."
"Shonna," grunted Sam.
"Go on, there's a duckie; an' I'll ma' 'e a treacle puddin'."
"Today?" asked S'r Ann eagerly.
"Go on, Sam, my duck," persisted the mother.
"Tha' 'as na got no treacle," said Sam conclusively.
The needle was in the fire; the children stood about watching.
"Will you do it yourself?" I asked Emily.
"I!" she exclaimed, with wide eyes of astonishment, and she shook her head emphatically.
"Then I must." I took out the needle, holding it in my handkerchief. I took her hand and examined the wound. But when she saw the hot glow of the needle, she snatched away her hand, and looked into my eyes, laughing in a half-hysterical fear and shame. I was very serious, very insistent. She yielded me her hand again, biting her lips in imagination of the pain, and looking at me. While my eyes were looking into hers she had courage; when I was forced to pay attention to my cauterising, she glanced down, and with a sharp "Ah!" ending in a little laugh, she put her hands behind her, and looked again up at me with wide brown eyes, all quivering with apprehension, and a little shame, and a laughter that held much pleading.
One of the children began to cry.
"It is no good," said I, throwing the fast cooling needle on to the hearth.
I gave the girls all the pennies I had—then I offered Sam, who had crept out of the shelter of the table, a sixpence.
"Shonna a'e that," he said, turning from the small coin.
"Well—I have no more pennies, so nothing will be your share."
I gave the other boy a rickety knife I had in my pocket. Sam looked fiercely at me. Eager for revenge, he picked up the "porkypine quill" by the hot end. He dropped it with a shout of rage, and, seizing a cup off the table, flung it at the fortunate Jack. It smashed against the fire-place. The mother grabbed at Sam, but he was gone. A girl, a little girl, wailed, "Oh, that's my rosey mug—my rosey mug." We fled from the scene of confusion. Emily had hardly noticed it. Her thoughts were of herself, and of me.
"I am an awful coward," said she humbly.
"But I can't help it——" she looked beseechingly.
"Never mind," said I.
"All my flesh seems to jump from it. You don't know how I feel."
"Well—never mind."
"I couldn't help it, not for my life."
"I wonder," said I, "if anything could possibly disturb that young bacon-sucker? He didn't even look round at the smash."
"No," said she, biting the tip of her finger moodily.
Further conversation was interrupted by howls from the rear. Looking round we saw Sam careering after us over the close-bitten turf, howling scorn and derision at us. "Rabbit-tail, rabbit-tail," he cried, his bare little legs twinkling, and his little shirt fluttering in the cold morning air. Fortunately, at last he trod on a thistle or a thorn, for when we looked round again to see why he was silent, he was capering on one leg, holding his wounded foot in his hands.
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