EVERY Saturday morning Tommy kept Granny Tregennis company, for it was then that Aunt Keziah Kate made her pastry. Granny Tregennis had lived for a great many years and was getting very tired; so until twelve o’clock each morning she stayed in bed. Her bed was a very high one with a long post at each corner, and curtains hung all around.

Tommy knew that Granny was always very anxious for his visit; for when he came into the bedroom she was thinking of him audibly. “Where can Tommy Tregennis be?” he would hear her say: “Surely ’tis time for him to come to his granny!”

Then Tommy would creak across the room on tip-toe, climb first of all on to a hassock, and from this to a chair; lifting up a corner of the curtain, “Bo,” he would cry, and Granny always gave a little start. “Why, ’tis the very boy I was thinkin’ of; ’tis Tommy Tregennis himself.”

When these friendly greetings had passed between them, they settled down comfortably for the morning.

By the fireplace in Granny’s room was a small cupboard, and in this cupboard Tommy’s Saturday playtoys were kept. One of his favourite toys was a massive bedroom candlestick in shining brass.

Granny had many stories to tell a little boy about that candlestick. The very night that Tommy’s father was brought to her, years and years ago, she had stuck a lighted dip in the brass candlestick and had put it in this very bedroom window, because GranfÄather Tregennis was out on a rough, wild sea catching pilchards.

There was no light at the end of the Frying Pan then, for the pier was not yet built and the men in the boats looked to the cottage windows for guidance. When GranfÄather came home, very cold and very wet, in the grey light of the dawn, the candle was just guttering out. In the candlestick were little runnings of grease, and in the big fourposter bed, along with Granny, was a son.

Tommy could picture GranfÄather’s great surprise when he came upstairs and found a new boy in the house. It was disconcerting to feel that new children might appear in this way at any moment. Whenever Tommy had been away from home for some hours, he was always just a little apprehensive lest another child should have come in his absence, knowing, as he did, how very suddenly his own father had been brought to Granny on the night of the storm.

Among the playtoys, too, were a pair of wee, patent-leather slippers. They were cracked now and stiff with age, and the tiny buckles that used to be so bright were quite yellow. These were the first leather shoes that Tommy’s Daddy had ever worn. Tommy knew exactly how his Daddy had tried to walk in them holding on to the horse-hair sofa downstairs, and how he had sat down suddenly in the middle and sucked the patent-leather toes.

“And then my Daddy tried to get up again,” Tommy would say, “but he was so very, very little that he rolled right over ’n hit his head on the sofy leg, ’n had brown paper on the big lump, ’n vinegar.”

When Granny had duly corroborated this version of the accident, they set aside the worn old slippers and passed on to another toy.

At eleven o’clock quite punctually Aunt Keziah Kate brought up a glass of hot milk for Granny. This was the signal for Tommy to go downstairs and help with the pastry. Quickly he ran down the twists and turns of the quaint old-fashioned stairway, so that he might be the first to get to the kitchen and hide behind the roller-towel before Aunt Keziah Kate saw him.

Like the ostrich Tommy was perfectly contented in his hiding-place, utterly oblivious of the fact that the towel, hanging from the kitchen door, only covered the upper part of him; from his knees downwards he was exposed to the full view of the public.

The public, in the guise of Aunt Keziah Kate, walked briskly into the kitchen, “Now then, ma man,” she was saying, “you shall have the rolling-pin and a bit o’——”

Then there was a start and an exclamation. “Why, my blessed fÄather, and where is the boy? Surely ’n to goodness, I must have left ’e upstairs.”

While Aunt Keziah Kate returned to Granny’s room to look for the missing nephew, a wriggling Tommy, some inches of runnerin’ in his mouth, gave rise to distracting undulations in the roller-towel.

Back once more in the kitchen his Aunt instituted a thorough search; behind the rocking-chair covered with the big woolwork antimacassar; under the horse-hair sofa round which Daddy had walked in the new patent-leather shoes; in the kitchen cupboard; even in the coal-box and other probable and improbable places.

There was one breathless moment when Aunt Keziah Kate rinsed her fingers under the tap, and actually came to the roller-towel to dry them. Even then she did not find the missing boy.

By this time she was overcome with grief and sitting down on the sofa, in an attitude of despair, gave way to tears; leastways she produced a large handkerchief of granfÄather’s from her overall pocket, covered her face with it, and rocked to and fro.

“How shall a tell his mother?” she wailed; “oh, ma lamb, ma blessed little lamb! His mother’ll have to get a new little boy as none of us knows, ’n poor little Tommy gone no one knows where.”

But this was the breaking strain. The roller-towel heaved and pulled, and with clenched fists out rushed Tommy.

“Hush, hush, hush!” he screamed. “I’m here, Aunt Keziah Kate, I’m right here.” Then in reply to her incredulous stare, “I was hidin’,” he explained, “hidin’ behind the runnerin’-towel,” and he jerked his thumb in the direction of the kitchen door.

“Found,” said his Aunt, gasping for breath, “found!” She clasped her hands tightly and closed her eyes, repeating, “Ma lamb is found.”

Then with a sudden descent to the things of everyday, “Now then, Tommy Tregennis, here’s the rollin’ pin, ’n put your lame leg first and press forwards, ’n get your bit o’ pastry made, or we’ll be all behind with the cleanin’ up when your granfÄather comes home.”

Tommy’s jam turn-over took up more time in the making than all the rest of the pasties and tarts put together. First of all the paste had to be rolled very heavily and very often; rolled so heavily and so often in fact that it wore too thin in the middle. It was then pulled and scraped from the board to which it stuck, and was all pinched up by grubby fingers into a lump again. When it had been rubbed once more into the shape of a ball, the rolling-pin was again used. By the time the size, shape and thickness of the pastry satisfied Tommy’s requirements, it was of a uniform grey colour relieved, here and there, by darker shades. Tommy then spread on the jam, doubled it over and pinched it well to keep the open sides together. Tough from much handling and hot from the oven the turn-over was eaten by Tommy himself at the end of dinner.

“Can’t think,” GranfÄather Tregennis had said one Saturday, “can’t think why you let the boy eat that muck, Keziah Kate!”

“Must have a peck o’ dust in his lifetime, fÄather.”

“Yes, ’n so he must, but surely ’n to goodness he needn’t have it all to wanst.”

Tommy, entirely unmoved, ate on.

When dinner was over Tommy grew restless. He had not been home since breakfast; that was a very long time ago and in his absence much might have happened.

He slipped from his chair and thrust his hands into his trouser-pockets. “I’d best be goin’ now, Granny,” he said, and when the old woman put her arms round him and kissed him he wriggled away, and addressed his GranfÄather, for another man would understand.

“GranfÄather,” he said, “ma Mammy’ll be missin’ me.”

“To be sure she will, Thomas, to be sure she will.”

GranfÄather removed his pipe from his mouth and with unerring aim spat into the heart of the glowing coals; “you’d best be runnin’ home now, ma man; your Mammy’ll mebbe be missin’ you.”

After this there was no detaining Tommy. He snatched his cap and ran all the way home. The door was shut, and he hammered on it with his fists, and kicked with his toes in nervous dread.

Mammy came to the door singing; how happy she sounded. “Be you all alone, Mammy?” he demanded.

“’N who should be with me, ma lovely?”

“Daddy, or——”

“Your Daddy’s up to the station helpin’ Uncle Sam.”

He ran into the kitchen. Everything seemed all right there, but what about upstairs in his little cot? “’N there’s no other little boy here, is there?” he asked hesitatingly.

Mammy’s arms were round him in an instant. “’N what other little boy should I be wantin’, Tommy Tregennis?” she managed to say between his hugs. “Why, you’re just the best little boy as ever I had!”