A Sheaf of Corn Part 24

Because of the extreme weakness of the hands the process was a laborious one. A heavier pallor was upon the face, a cold moisture upon the sunken brow when it was accomplished.

"I'll kape on while I kin--I don' know as I shall ha' the strength much longer, Dora."

The child twitched her curls from the fingers that lay heavily upon them and turned on her mother fiercely. "Yu ha' got ter du 'em, then!"

she cried. She glared upon the faint head slipped sideways on the pillow. "Yu ha'n't got ter put none o' them parts on, du I'll let ye ter know."

Her eyes were suddenly wide and brilliant with tears; the fading sight of the mother was dazzled by the yellow s.h.i.+ne of them and of the richly-coloured hair. "My pretty gal!" she breathed; "my pretty Dora! I ha'n't got no strength, bor."

"I'll let yer ter know!" Dora cried with fury. "I'll hull yer pillars away, and let yer hid go flop, if ye say yer ha'an't got no strength.

I'll let yer ter know!"

She stopped, because the sobs which had been stormily rising choked her. She seized in her red little hands the pillow beneath her mother's head. No word of remonstrance was spoken, the faded eyes gazing wearily upon the child held no reproof.

"What d'ye look at me, that mander, for? Why don't ye ketch me a lump o' the hid?" the child cried fiercely; then gave way to the suppressed sobbing. "Oh, mother, yu ain't a-dyin'? Yu ain't a-dyin' yit?"

She flung her own head on the soiled pillow; all the crisply waving, long ringlets flew over the mother's sunken chest; one fell across her parched lips. She moistened them with her tongue, and made a feeble motion of kissing. A tear slid slowly down her cheek.

"Not yit, my pretty gal," she whispered. "Mother ain't a-goin' ter lave yer yit."

"Promus! Yer ain't a-tellin' no lies? Yer'll stop along of me till I kin carl my ringolets myself. I ha' got ter have 'em carled, and there ain't no one else to du 'em for me."

The mother promised.

"There's Jim and Jack--they don't want ye, mother. Their hairs is short. They kin play hopstick i' th' midder, alonger th' other boys.

Both on 'em kin put their own collars on. There's on'y me, what have carls, that'll want yer so. Mother! Mother!"

"Don' I kape on a-tellin' of yer I ain't a-goin'."

There was no time to sob for long on the mother's pillow. Dora was due at school. She wiped her crimsoned cheeks upon the corner of the sheet, stood up and put her sunburnt sailor-hat upon the carefully curled hair. She was neatly dressed in a brown woollen frock nearly covered by a white, lace-trimmed overall; she wore brown stockings and brown shoes. The mother watched her to the door with yearning eyes.

"My pretty gal!" she said.

The neighbour who waited on her in moments spared from her own household labours came in. She held a cup of paste made from cornflour in her hand, and stirred the mixture invitingly.

"It's time yu had suffin' inside of yer, Mis' Green," she said. "Yu ha'n't tasted wittels since that mossel o' bread-an'-b.u.t.ter yu fancied las' night."

She put a spoonful of the food, stirred over a smoky fire, to the parched lips.

"I'd suner, a sight, have a drink o' water," the sick woman said.

"There ain't nothin' I fare ter crave 'cept water now."

"There ain't no nouragement in water, Mis' Green. Take this here, instids," the neighbour said firmly.

Two spoonfuls were swallowed with difficulty.

"Come! Tha's as ter should be! That comfort ye, Mis' Green, bor?"

The faint eyes looked solemnly in the healthy, stolid face above her.

"There's nothin' don't comfort me, Mis' Barrett."

"An' why's the raisen?" the neighbour reprovingly demanded. "Because yu're a-dyin', Mis' Green, and yu don't give yer mind tu it. I ha' been by other deathbeds--the Lord reward me for it, as 'tis ter be expected He will--and I ha'n't never seed a Christian woman so sot agin goin' as yu are."

The reluctant one shut her eyes wearily; the dropped lids trembled for a minute, then were raised upon the same hard face.

"She don' look like a labourer's gal, Dora don't," she said faintly.

"She ha'n't got th' mander o' them sort o' truck."

"What then, Mis' Green?" the neighbour inquired, stern with the consciousness of her own large family of "truck." The supposed superiority of Dora of the ringolets hurt her maternal pride and raised a storm of righteous anger in her breast.

Mrs Green did not explain; the discoloured lids fell again waveringly over the dim eyes, the upper lip was drawn back showing the gums above the teeth.

It was the mere skeleton of a woman who lay there. She had suffered long and intensely; no one could look upon her now and doubt that the hour of discharge was very near. The woman standing above her reasoned that if a word of reproof or advice was to be given there was not much time to lose. Often, from open door to open door (for the pair inhabited a double dwelling), often, across the garden fence, she had called aloud her opinion of her neighbour's goings on; she would seize the opportunity to give it once again.

"And why ain't yer Dora like a labourer's gal, then?" she demanded, shrilly accusing. "Oh, Mis' Green! Don't yu, a-layin' there o' your deathbed, know right well the why and the wherefore? Ha'n't yu borrered right and left, ha'n't you got inter debt high and low, to put a hape o' finery on yer mawther's back? Ha'n't yu moiled yerself, an' yu a dyin' woman, over her hid o' hair? Put her i' my Gladus's clo'es, an'

see what yer Dora 'ud look like. Har, wi' her coloured shues, an' all!"

"They was giv' her," the dying woman faintly protested. "Her Uncle Willum sent them brown uns along of her brown hat wi' th' welwet bow."

"Now, ain't yu a-lyin', Mis' Green, as yu lay there o' yer deathbed?

Them tales may ha' flung dust i' th' eyes o' yer old man, them i' my hid is too sharp for no sech a story. Di'n't I see th' name o' 'Bunn o'

Wotton' on th' bag th' hat come out of? An' don't yer brother Willum live i' London, and ha'n't he got seven of's own to look arter? Ter think as I sh'd come ter pa.s.s ter say sich wards, an' yu a-layin' there a-dyin'! Ain't yer ashamed o' yerself, Mis' Green. I'm a-askin' of yer th' question; ain't yer ashamed o' yerself?"

"No, an' ain't," said Mrs Green, feebly whispering.

Beneath the flickering, bruised-looking lids, tears slowly oozed. The neighbour felt for a pocket-handkerchief under the pillow, and wiped them away.

"Fact o' th' matter, Mis' Green," she inflexibly pursued her subject, "yu ha' made a raglar idle o' that gal; yu ha' put a sight o' finery on 'er back, an' stuffed 'er hid wi' notions; an' wha's a-goin ter become on 'r when you're gone?"

"I was a-wonderin'," the dying woman said, "s'posin' as I was willin'

to speer this here parple gownd o' mine, rolled onder my pillar--I was a-wonderin', Mis' Barrett, ef so bein' as yu'd ondertake ter carl my gal's ringolets, now an' agin, for 'er?"

"No," the other said, spiritedly, n.o.bly proof against the magnitude of the bribe. "That'd go agin my conscience, Mis' Green. I'm sorrer ter be a denyin' of yer, but yer mawther's hid o' hair I ha'n't niver approved on; I can't ondertake it, an' so, I say, straight forrerd, at oncet."

The face so "accustomed to refusings" did not change, no flush of resentment relieved its waxen pallor or lightened its fading eyes.

"'Tis th' last thing I'm a-askin' of yer," the poor woman said, weakly.

"Try as I kin, I can't live much longer. 'Tis on'y nat'ral I should think o' Dora an' th' child'en."

"Yu think a sight too much on 'em, bor! 'Tis time yu give 'em up. Yu lay o' yer deathbed, Mis' Green, an' yu a mis'rable sinner; can't you put up a prayer to ask th' Lord ter have marcy on yer?"

"No," said Mrs Green.

"'No'--an' why not?"

"Cos I don' keer."

"Don' keer, Mis' Green?"

"No, Mis' Barrett, so's He look arter Dora an' th' child'en, I don't keer what He du ter me."