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Updated: June 15, 2025
"Like Old Brownsmith's toolips," said Shock, laughing. "I say, should we come up?" "Don't talk like that," I said angrily. "Don't you understand that we are buried alive." "Course I do," he said. "Well, what on it?" "What of it?" I said in agony, as the perspiration stood upon my brow. "Yes, what on it? They'll dig us out like we do the taters out of a clamp. What's the good o' being in a wax.
You ask him. He'll let you come." Ike was wrong, for when I asked Old Brownsmith's leave he shook his head. "No, no, boy. You're too young yet. Best in bed." "Too partickler by half," Ike growled when I let him know the result of my asking. "He's jealous, that's what he is. Wants to keep you all to hisself. Not as I wants you. 'Tain't to please me.
The time was passing, and the chances of my going over to Brownsmith's seemed to me growing remote, while I never seemed to have seen so much of Shock. It appeared to me that he must know of my disappointment; for whenever he saw me at the window, and could do so unseen, he threw dabs of clay, or indulged in derisive gestures more extravagant than ever.
"Old Brownsmith's brother looked at me and shook his head, but I stack to it I was right; and he said he'd go down to Portsmouth and see. "But he didn't, for next day he goes over to Isleworth, and as I was coming out of the garden next night he was back, and he stops me and takes me to the cottage. "`Good job, he says, `as Sir Francis ain't at home, for he thought a deal of that boy.
"Now take care and don't get into my clutches again." I did not understand it at the time, but that accident made me a very excellent friend in the shape of Ike, the big ugly carter and packer, for after his fashion he took me regularly under his wing, and watched over me during the time I was at Old Brownsmith's.
Next day she was gone again, and didn't come back, and on the fourth, when I was down the garden digging leastwise, I wasn't digging, for I was leaning on my spade thinking, up comes Old Brownsmith's brother with his mouth open, and before he could say a word I says to him, `Stop! I says; `I've got it, for it come to me like a flash o' lightning. "`What? he says.
I started, and dashed away a tear or two that made me feel like a girl, for just then there was a rustle, and looking round, there was one of Old Brownsmith's cats coming along the path with curved back, and tail drooped sidewise, and every hair upon it erect till it looked like a drooping plume.
He's nobody's boy, and sleeps in the sheds over there. One of Brownsmith's men picked him up in the road, and brought him home in one of the market carts. Brownsmith sent him to the workhouse, but he always runs away and comes back. He's just like a monkey, ain't he?
Ah, if I had known then, I say to myself, how different I might have been; how much more patient and helpful to her! But I did not know, for I was a very thoughtless boy. Now it came to pass one day that an idea entered my head as I saw my mother seated with her pale cheek resting upon her hand, looking out over old Brownsmith's garden, which was just then at its best.
Then I knew what it meant, and a flush of angry indignation came into my cheeks. "Boys after our pears!" I said to myself as my fists clenched. For I had become so thoroughly at home at Old Brownsmith's that everything seemed to belong to me, and I felt it was my duty to defend it.
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