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So Janny had his school, with a faint perfume of varnish, all to himself in a hot stillness of used-up air and little whirls of dust. And because that town seemed so barren, I met there a French General whom I would have gone very far to have encountered. He, like the others, had created and tempered an army for certain work in a certain place, and its hand had been heavy on the Boche.
But after the Cheap Jack's visit his constant cry was, "Jan make pitchers." And when Abel tried to confine his attention to the alphabet, he would, after a most perfunctory repetition of a few letters that he knew, and hap- hazard blunders over fresh ones, fling his arms round Abel's neck and say coaxingly, "Abel dear, make Janny PITCHERS on his slate."
"Just a drop more, Janny," said Hall. "Your nerves is all upset." They sent Millie across the street through the golden five o'clock sunshine to rouse up Mr. Sandy Wadgers, the blacksmith. Mr. Hall's compliments and the furniture upstairs was behaving most extraordinary. Would Mr. Wadgers come round? He was a knowing man, was Mr. Wadgers, and very resourceful.
Eh, there be a lapwing! Lap-py, lap-py, lap- py, there he go! Janny catch un!" And the baby would stretch his arms responsive to Abel's expressive signs, and cry aloud for the vanishing bird. If no living creature crossed the ether, there were the clouds.
But Tommy Green met I as a was coming down to school, and a snatched my vlowers from me, and I begged un to let me keep some of un, and a only laughed at me. And I daren't go back, for I was late; and now I've nothin' to give Janny Lake to make a draft of a pig for I." And, having held up for the telling of her tale, the little maid broke down in fresh tears.
The fame of Jan's "pitcher-making" had gone before him to Dame Datchett's school by the mouths of his foster-brothers and sisters, and he found a dozen little voices ready to dictate subjects for his pencil. "Make a 'ouse, Janny Lake." "Make thee vather's mill, Janny Lake." "Make a man. Make Dame Datchett. Make the parson. Make the Cheap Jack. Make Daddy Angel. Make Master Chuter.
We talked of what the French woman was, and had done, and was doing, and extolled her for her goodness and her faith and her splendid courage. When we parted, I went back and made my profoundest apologies to Janny, who must have had a mother.
"She do forget things so, and be so queer. She left the beer-tap running yesterday, and near two gallons of ale ran out; and this morning she put the kettle on, and no water in it. And she do cry terrible," Jan added, breaking down himself. "But Abel says to me the day he was took ill, 'Janny, he says, 'look to mother. And so I will." "You're a good lad, Jan," said the schoolmaster.
"Janny," he said, over the rail of the cellar steps, "'tas the truth what Henfrey sez. 'E's not in uz room, 'e en't. And the front door's onbolted." At first Mrs. Hall did not understand, and as soon as she did she resolved to see the empty room for herself. Hall, still holding the bottle, went first. "If 'e en't there," he said, "'is close are. And what's 'e doin' 'ithout 'is close, then?
Suddenly he raised himself, and cried, so loudly that the old man outside heard the cry, "Janny dear! He've turned his face to me. He be coming right to me. Oh! He" But HE had come. Jan took the fever. He was very ill, too, partly from grief at Abel's death. He had also a not unnatural conviction that he would die, which was unfavorable to his recovery.
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