Ragged Trousered Philanthropists by Robert Tressell (read novel full TXT) 📖

Chapter 41

The Easter Offering. The Beano Meeting

 

By the beginning of April, Rushton & Co. were again working nine hours

a day, from seven in the morning till five-thirty at night, and after

Easter they started working full time from 6 A.M. till 5.30 P.M.,

eleven and a half hours - or, rather, ten hours, for they had to lose

half an hour at breakfast and an hour at dinner.

 

Just before Easter several of the men asked Hunter if they might be

allowed to work on Good Friday and Easter Monday, as, they said, they

had had enough holidays during the winter; they had no money to spare

for holidaymaking, and they did not wish to lose two days’ pay when

there was work to be done. Hunter told them that there was not

sufficient work in to justify him in doing as they requested: things

were getting very slack again, and Mr Rushton had decided to cease

work from Thursday night till Tuesday morning. They were thus

prevented from working on Good Friday, but it is true that not more

than one working man in fifty went to any religious service on that

day or on any other day during the Easter festival. On the contrary,

this festival was the occasion of much cursing and blaspheming on the

part of those whose penniless, poverty-stricken condition it helped to

aggravate by enforcing unprofitable idleness which they lacked the

means to enjoy.

 

During these holidays some of the men did little jobs on their own

account and others put in the whole time - including Good Friday and

Easter Sunday - gardening, digging and planting their plots of

allotment ground.

 

When Owen arrived home one evening during the week before Easter,

Frankie gave him an envelope which he had brought home from school.

It contained a printed leaflet:

 

CHURCH OF THE WHITED SEPULCHRE,

MUGSBOROUGH

 

Easter 19—

 

Dear Sir (or Madam),

 

In accordance with the usual custom we invite you to join with us in

presenting the Vicar, the Rev. Habbakuk Bosher, with an Easter

Offering, as a token of affection and regard.

 

Yours faithfully,

A. Cheeseman }

W. Taylor } Churchwardens

 

Mr Bosher’s income from various sources connected with the church was

over six hundred pounds a year, or about twelve pounds per week, but

as that sum was evidently insufficient, his admirers had adopted this

device for supplementing it. Frankie said all the boys had one of

these letters and were going to ask their fathers for some money to

give towards the Easter offering. Most of them expected to get

twopence.

 

As the boy had evidently set his heart on doing the same as the other

children, Owen gave him the twopence, and they afterwards learned that

the Easter Offering for that year was one hundred and twenty-seven

pounds, which was made up of the amounts collected from the

parishioners by the children, the district visitors and the verger,

the collection at a special Service, and donations from the

feeble-minded old females elsewhere referred to.

 

By the end of April nearly all the old hands were back at work, and

several casual hands had also been taken on, the Semidrunk being one

of the number. In addition to these, Misery had taken on a number of

what he called `lightweights’, men who were not really skilled

workmen, but had picked up sufficient knowledge of the simpler parts

of the trade to be able to get over it passably. These were paid

fivepence or fivepence-halfpenny, and were employed in preference to

those who had served their time, because the latter wanted more money

and therefore were only employed when absolutely necessary. Besides

the lightweights there were a few young fellows called improvers, who

were also employed because they were cheap.

 

Crass now acted as colourman, having been appointed possibly because

he knew absolutely nothing about the laws of colour. As most of the

work consisted of small jobs, all the paint and distemper was mixed up

at the shop and sent out ready for use to the various jobs.

 

Sawkins or some of the other lightweights generally carried the

heavier lots of colour or scaffolding, but the smaller lots of colour

or such things as a pair of steps or a painter’s plank were usually

sent by the boy, whose slender legs had become quite bowed since he

had been engaged helping the other philanthropists to make money for

Mr Rushton.

 

Crass’s work as colourman was simplified, to a certain extent, by the

great number of specially prepared paints and distempers in all

colours, supplied by the manufacturers ready for use. Most of these

new-fangled concoctions were regarded with an eye of suspicion and

dislike by the hands, and Philpot voiced the general opinion about

them one day during a dinner-hour discussion when he said they might

appear to be all right for a time, but they would probably not last,

because they was mostly made of kimicles.

 

One of these new-fashioned paints was called `Petrifying Liquid’, and

was used for first-coating decaying stone or plaster work. It was

also supposed to be used for thinning up a certain kind of patent

distemper, but when Misery found out that it was possible to thin the

latter with water, the use of `Petrifying Liquid’ for that purpose was

discontinued. This `Petrifying Liquid’ was a source of much merriment

to the hands. The name was applied to the tea that they made in

buckets on some of the jobs, and also to the four-ale that was

supplied by certain pubs.

 

One of the new inventions was regarded with a certain amount of

indignation by the hands: it was a white enamel, and they objected to

it for two reasons - one was because, as Philpot remarked, it dried so

quickly that you had to work like greased lightning; you had to be all

over the door directly you started it.

 

The other reason was that, because it dried so quickly, it was

necessary to keep closed the doors and windows of the room where it

was being used, and the smell was so awful that it brought on fits of

dizziness and sometimes vomiting. Needless to say, the fact that it

compelled those who used it to work quickly recommended the stuff to

Misery.

 

As for the smell, he did not care about that; be did not have to

inhale the fumes himself.

 

It was just about this time that Crass, after due consultation with

several of the others, including Philpot, Harlow, Bundy, Slyme, Easton

and the Semidrunk, decided to call a meeting of the hands for the

purpose of considering the advisability of holding the usual Beano

later on in the summer. The meeting was held in the carpenter’s shop

down at the yard one evening at six o’clock, which allowed time for

those interested to attend after leaving work.

 

The hands sat on the benches or carpenter’s stools, or reclined upon

heaps of shavings. On a pair of tressels in the centre of the

workshop stood a large oak coffin which Crass had just finished

polishing.

 

When all those who were expected to turn up had arrived, Payne, the

foreman carpenter - the man who made the coffins - was voted to the

chair on the proposition of Crass, seconded by Philpot, and then a

solemn silence ensued, which was broken at last by the chairman, who,

in a lengthy speech, explained the object of the meeting. Possibly

with a laudable desire that there should be no mistake about it, he

took the trouble to explain several times, going over the same ground

and repeating the same words over and over again, whilst the audience

waited in a deathlike and miserable silence for him to leave off.

Payne, however, did not appear to have any intention of leaving off,

for he continued, like a man in a trance, to repeat what he had said

before, seeming to be under the impression that he had to make a

separate explanation to each individual member of the audience. At

last the crowd could stand it no longer, and began to shout `Hear,

hear’ and to bang bits of wood and hammers on the floor and the

benches; and then, after a final repetition of the statement, that the

object of the meeting was to consider the advisability of holding an

outing, or beanfeast, the chairman collapsed on to a carpenter’s stool

and wiped the sweat from his forehead.

 

Crass then reminded the meeting that the last year’s Beano had been an

unqualified success, and for his part he would be very sorry if they

did not have one this year. Last year they had four brakes, and they

went to Tubberton Village.

 

It was true that there was nothing much to see at Tubberton, but there

was one thing