Part 18 (1/2)

”Oh, he's gettin' all right: goin' to school again Monday He've kicked up a rare shi+ne, 'cause they wouldn't let 'n go I likes 'n for that I likes to hear of a boy eager for learnin'--not to see 'm make a shi+ne and their mothers have to take 'em three parts o' the way Not but what I wanted makin' when I was a nipper Many's a tie, and that old 'oman” (I don't knohat old woman) ”come out an' drive me There wa'n't no school then nearer 'n Lyons's--where Sht lives now He used to travel with tea, and I dessay half a dozen of us 'd coe We'd start off an' say ouldn't go to school; but we _'ad_ to”

The frost, had it continued, would very soon have been calaoodidle in the town, at the street corners And Bettesworth said,

”Soun to cry out about it

They missed the Poor Man And I heared the landlord down 'ere at the Swan say he was several pounds out o' pocket by it”

_Deceot to work again; our gardening tasks could go forward My notebook has this entry for the 2nd of Dece turf this afternoon, in wonderful ht came to me one of those afternoons, Was it I, or was it Bettesworth, as growing dull? It ht well have been , in weather that had turned ue, and perhaps on that account the oldof re whether the livelier interests of his conversation ht not be almost over Had he much more to tell? Or had I heard it practically all?

At this turf-laying the parts were reversed now Time had been when, at similar employht was so bad that I could no longer leave hies fit I had to be down on the ground with him, or instead of him

And yet he would not accept criticishter,” he would rejoin, ”That's jest what I was a-goin' to do” Or, to my comment, ”That isn't a first-rate fit just there,”

”No, sir,” he would admit, ”I was only jest layin' it so ontil,” etc, etc ”You'll see that'll go down all right That'll go down all right Yes, that'll go down all right” And he would fumble unserviceably, while the sentence trailed away into inaudible reiterations Still, it was a rich, crea old voice that spoke

The habit of repeating his oords was growing upon the old man fast since his wife's death; and it irritatedto ain, however, he appeared to beco so he had said at home, he added in explanation, ”I was talkin'

to _ot nobody else to talk _to_” This was almost the only indication he allowed me to see of that loneliness which others assuredDid he, I wonder, fear that if I knew of it I should be urging hie? For whatever reason, he made no confidant ofindoors one evening by his fire, ”till he couldn't sit no longer,” but got up and walked up and down his garden, driven by crowding thoughts Another tis keeps comin' into s to which he condescended, in

It was very fortunate that he had excellent neighbours in old Mrs

Norris (old Nanny, he called her) and her son, known as Kid, Kiddy, or Kidder While stooping over our turfs I heard many tiny details of Bettesworth's kindly relations with these good people; and, as pleasantly as oddly, between theh the old man's mediation We seldom met; we knew little of one another save what he told us; but he one home and talked to them of me, just as he ca to like the to like enuineness my intercourse with Bettesworth himself But it was truly queer Old Nanny Norris--the skinny old woolian or Tartar face and eyes--took to stopping for a chat, if wewith so up fro round, nodding joyfully and grie--into a jolly say with russet and pink

Bettesworth was distressed only by Nanny's deafness ”_En't_ that a denial to anybody!” he exclaily ”There, I can't talk to her I always did hate talkin' to anybody deaf Everybody can hear what you got to say, and if 't en't nothing, still you don't want everybody to hear it Old Kid _breaks_ out at her soy! I'll _hs to myself to hear 'n, sittin' in there by myself”

He handedfor she that old Kidder en't never got married But she slaves about for 'n; nobody _could_n't do no ot home to dinner she come runnin' round She'd jest bin to pay all his clubs for 'n He belongs to three clubs: two slate clubs an' the Foresters”

”He doesn't rumbled up from the turf

”Not he Thirty-two shi+llin's a week he'll get, if he's laid up

There's Alf” (one of his half-brothers) ”and him--rare schemin'

fellers they be, nobrothers; but, in fine, ”Kidder 've always bin the darlin'

He's the youngest”

Fearless, black-bearded strong h very quiet, even silky and soft in his ordinary de” Along with Alf he was at work all through the su experts and earning a halfpenny an hour more than the co and walk the eight ht thee Once or twice they overtook ; and soardens, in the suht

When the weather worsened and the days shortened, Kid threw up his railork, and took a job at digging sea-kale for a large grower

The fields were scattered about the district; some of them within two miles, and the reI heard of his work, which, it appears, was new to hi to old Bettesworth), ”jest the parts he should ha' throay It did take soone down like tree-roots,” especially down there in such-and-such a field ”Up here above Barlow's Mill 'twan't half the trouble” The ot plenty o' trenchin' you can go on at, when the kale's up” Then said Kid to his gang, ”Some o' you chaps 'll have too' e, too ”Not a bad chap to work, so far as that goes, but too stiff, so the man's style