Sybil Benjamin Disraeli (ebook reader for comics TXT) 📖

“You may well say Simmon’s, Mrs. Page; I only wish my master served in his field.”

“I have been here since half-past four, Mrs. Grigsby, with this chilt at my breast all the time. It’s three miles for me here, and the same back, and unless I get the first turn, how are my poor boys to find their dinner ready when they come out of the pit?”

“A very true word, Mrs. Page; and by this token, that last Thursday I was here by half-past eleven, certainly afore noon, having only called at my mother-in-law’s in the way, and it was eight o’clock before I got home. Ah! it’s cruel work, is the tommy shop.”

“How d’ye do, neighbour Prance?” said a comely dame with a large white basket, “And how’s your good man? They was saying at Belfy’s he had changed his service. I hear there’s a new butty in Mr. Parker’s field; but the old doggy kept on; so I always thought, he was always a favourite, and they do say measured the stints very fair. And what do you hear bacon is in town? They do tell me only sixpence and real home-cured. I wonder Diggs has the face to be selling still at ninepence, and so very green! I think I see Dame Toddles; how wonderful she do wear! What are you doing here, little dear; very young to fetch tommy; keeping place for mother, eh! that’s a good girl; she’d do well to be here soon, for I think the strike’s on eight. Diggs is sticking it on yellow soap very terrible. What do you think⁠—Ah! the doors are going to open. No⁠—a false alarm.”

“How fare you neighbour?” said a pale young woman carrying an infant to the comely dame. “Here’s an awful crowd, surely. The women will be fighting and tearing to get in, I guess. I be much afeard.”

“Well, ‘first come, first served,’ all the world over,” said the comely dame. “And you must put a good heart on the business and tie your bonnet. I dare guess there are not much less than two hundred here. It’s grand tommy day you know. And for my part I don’t care so much for a good squeedge; one sees so many faces one knows.”

“The cheese here at sixpence is pretty tidy,” said a crone to her companion; “but you may get as good in town for fourpence.”

“What I complain is the weights,” replied her companion. “I weighed my pound of butter bought last tommy day, and it was two penny pieces too light. Indeed! I have been, in my time, to all the shops about here, for the lads or their father, but never knew tommy so bad as this. I have two children at home ill from their flour; I have been very poorly myself; one is used to a little white clay, but when they lay it on thick, it’s very grave.”

“Are your girls in the pit?”

“No; we strive to keep them out, and my man has gone scores of days on bread and water for that purpose; and if we were not forced to take so much tommy, one might manage⁠—but tommy will beat anything; Health first, and honesty afterwards, that’s my say.”

“Well, for my part,” said the crone, “meat’s my grievance: all the best bits go to the butties, and the pieces with bone in are chopped off for the colliers’ wives.”

“Dame, when will the door open?” asked a very little palefaced boy. “I have been here all this morn, and never broke my fast.”

“And what do you want, chilt?”

“I want a loaf for mother; but I don’t feel I shall ever get home again, I’m all in a way so dizzy.”

“Liza Gray,” said a woman with black beady eyes and a red nose, speaking in a sharp voice and rushing up to a pretty slatternly woman in a straw bonnet with a dirty fine ribbon, and a babe at her breast; “you know the person I’m looking for.”

“Well, Mrs. Mullins, and how do you do?” she replied, in a sweet sawney tone.

“How do you do, indeed! How are people to do in these bad times?”

“They is indeed hard Mrs. Mullins. If you could see my tommy book! How I wish I knew figures! Made up as of last Thursday night by that little divil, Master Joe Diggs. He has stuck it in here and stuck it in there, till it makes one all of amaze. I’m sure I never had the things; and my man is out of all patience, and says I can no more keep house than a natural born.”

“My man is a-wanting to see your man,” said Mrs. Mullins, with a flashing eye; “and you know what about.”

“And very natural, too,” said Liza Gray; “but how are we to pay the money we owe him, with such a tommy-book as this, good neighbour Mullins?”

“We’re as poor as our neighbours Mrs. Gray; and if we are not paid, we must borrow. It’s a scarlet shame to go to the spout because money lent to a friend is not to be found. You had it in your need, Liza Gray, and we want it in our need; and have it I will, Liza Gray.”

“Hush, hush!” said Liza Gray; “don’t wake the little-un, for she is very fretful.”

“I will have the five shillings, or I will have as good,” said Mrs. Mullins.

“Hush, hush, neighbour; now, I’ll tell you⁠—you shall have it; but yet a little time. This is great tommy-day, and settles our reckoning for five weeks; but my man may have a draw after tomorrow, and he shall draw five shillings, and give you half.”

“And the other half?” said Mrs. Mullins.

“Ah! the other half,” said Liza Gray, with a sigh. “Well, then⁠—we shall have a death in our family soon⁠—this poor babe can’t struggle on much longer; it belongs to two burial clubs⁠—that will be three pounds from each, and after the drink and the funeral, there will be enough to