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The stock of fuel was kept under the stove with a funnel-shaped chimney, and in a corner stood the wash-tub in which the family linen lay, often steeping over-night in soapsuds. The nursery ceiling was covered with clothes-lines, the walls were variegated with theatrical placards and wood-cuts from newspapers or advertisements.
In America it was all right; but over here, where these inventions were unknown, a wash-tub had a peculiar significance: that a man should be found in his money through its services left persons in doubt as to his genealogical tree, which, as a matter of fact, was a very good one. As a boy his schoolmates had dubbed him "The Sweep" and "Suds," and it was only human that he should wish to forget.
"I don't know how to thank you. I don't know what to say. Oh, William! it seems too good to be true." "What you crying about, Mattie?" said he in sore distress. "Now hold on! Listen to me a minute! There's something I want you to do for me." "What is it?" she asked, drying her eyes. "For dinner to-morrow," he replied, "let's have a roast of beef about that size," indicating a wash-tub.
He arose, and looked shyly, almost shamefacedly, at Naomi. She had not turned. But her head was bowed; and, drawing near, he saw that the scalding tears were falling fast into the wash-tub. She had not wept when her husband was lost, nor since. "Go away!" she commanded, before he could speak, turning her shoulders resolutely towards him.
Under the circumstances, it was not surprising that her wash-tub bore about the same relationship to her real duties as does the crochet needle or embroidery hoop to the lives of less arduously engaged women. It was at once her fad and her relaxation, the dainty feminine accomplishment with which she whiled away the hours after a busy day spent with pick and shovel.
We have been pestered with these two countries, and with their annual revolutions, reminding us of a whirlwind in a wash-tub, until, in impatience of their restless, turbulent population, we have come to dislike their very names.
They belong to a little wash-tub that's laying alongside, and they're both as 'armless as they look." It's wonderful wot a uniform will do. The policeman just jerked his 'ead and said "out-side," and the men went out like a flock of sheep. The on'y man that said a word was the carman, who was in such a hurry that 'e knocked his bad shin against my foot as 'e went by.
"Pa dear, put the umbrella the other way up. It'll save us going out in the rain to fetch water. Come on, sisters, dear father's got us a new wash-tub. Here's luxury!" Round the umbrella, now held the wrong way up, the three sisters knelt and washed imaginary linen. Kathleen wore a violet skirt of Eliza s, a blue blouse of her own, and a cap of knotted handkerchiefs.
The daughter made match-boxes, and was paid 2 1/4d. for each gross; but out of that generous remuneration she had to buy her own paste and thread. The mother lived over a wash-tub. They all worked, slept, and ate, in the one room, of course, and the man was never outside it for a moment. At the time of my arrival in that house, the daughter had recently taken to her bed.
But I was not to be frustrated of my glory. I tore the tell-tale gills out ... then I beat the fish's head to a pulp, and I carried my capture home and proudly strutted in at the kitchen door. "Look, Granma, at what a big fish I've caught." "Oh, Millie, he's really got one," and Granma straightened up from the wash-tub. Millie came out snickering scornfully.
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