Mary Elizabeth Phillips

ON the day of Granny’s funeral Old John took care of Tommy.

Old John lived up towards the Barbican, in as neat a cottage as you could find in Draeth. No woman ever did a hand’s turn in his little, two-roomed crib; the old sailor washed and mended, cleaned and scrubbed, and kept his home so well that, as Mrs. Tregennis remarked, ’twould be possible to eat anything as ’e’d made, an’ eat it off his floor at that, an’ she for one would gladly do it.

It was not until Old John was getting on in years that he had married and set up a cabin of his own. He had given up sailorin’ then and turned fisherman, because he wouldn’t leave his bonny little maid so much alone.

Only to himself, never to any other, did Old John confess that the bonny little maid had proved a misfit. God, how he had loved her! Nigh on eighty was Old John now, and still he dreamed of her at night. Too much given to newsin’ she had been and that was all the trouble.

“’Ousin’ and tea-drinkin’ don’t hold in our line o’ life,” Old John had told her, but she had only laughed and followed her own bent. Under her care, or lack of care, the trim cottage by the Barbican had become a dirty hovel.

ON THE DAY OF GRANNY’S FUNERAL, OLD JOHN TOOK CARE OF TOMMY.

Before his love could wane she died. Thirty-five years had gone by since the night that Old John held her for the last time in his arms. In her place she left a son, and the son was more of a misfit than the mother who bore him.

“One o’ they creeperses!” was the judgement of Draeth, and Old John knew that the judgement was just. But not only was his John sly, he was idle and lazy as well.

“If I could only have had a son like Tommy, an’ a wife like ...,” then Old John checked himself sharply; there was disloyalty in the thought and he gave undivided attention to his guest.

“What be we a-goin’ to have for dinner?” Tommy was asking.

“Fish,” replied Old John.

“What did ee eat for breakfast?”

“Fish as I catched at sunrise.”

“An’ what’ll ee have for supper?”

“Fish again.”

“Seems a lot o’ fish in one day,” Tommy stated.

“Why, yes; of course. ’Twouldn’t be so cheap to live else, Tommy. Don’t ee know thicky tiddley verse:

The young voice and the old one said the lines over and over in a monotonous sing-song until Tommy knew them off by heart.

Movements overhead showed that John was getting up. Although it was nearly half-past nine he had not yet left the bedroom. When he came downstairs he looked sulky and unwashed and ate his breakfast in sullen silence.

“Fish to sell?” he muttered.

Old John pointed to his early morning catch.

As well as being sly and lazy John was also a bit soft, and never acted on his own responsibility.

“How much be I to get for they?” he asked.

It was only a small catch and Old John lifted the fish from the basket to estimate their value.

“Should fetch tenpence,” he decided, “but make what ee can. If ee can’t get tenpence, take eightpence; an’ if ’ee can’t get eightpence, take sixpence; but make what ee can. Should fetch tenpence, though,” he said again as he replaced the fish and passed the basket to his son.

John always followed the line of least resistance. Half-way to the quay he met a man who handled his fish with a view to buying.

“What do you want for they?” he was asked.

“My fÄather said get tenpence if ee can, or eightpence if ee can; or sixpence if ee can; just make what ee can. So what’ll ee give for they?”

Long before his return was expected John slouched into the cottage kitchen and threw four pennies on the table. “For they fish,” he said, and walked away to join a knot of idlers on the front.

Old John sighed as he gathered up the coins. He felt very old these days: he wasn’t by no means the man he used to be, and it was very difficult to live.

“Goin’ a-whiffin’ again to-day?” Tommy asked him, and he brought his mind to bear upon the needs of the moment.

“Not whiffin’, but afore tea I must see to my lobster pots,” he replied. “Did ought to get a good catch, too. What be a-goin’ to do, Tommy, when art a grown man? Fishin’?”

Tommy shook his head. “No,” he stated, emphatically. “My Mammy says it do be starvation to put a lad to fishin’ now. I’ll be a p’liceman an’ scare they children bravely, that I will.” Tommy drew himself up in proud anticipation of his authority-to-be.

“Bit lonely, bain’t ee sometimes, Tommy?” was Old John’s next essay.

Tommy did not understand, so Old John tried to make his meaning clear.

“’Twould be nice for ee to have a baby sister to play with an’ look after,” he said. Then he knew that he had blundered.

Tommy clenched his fingers, set his teeth together and breathed hard. “Ef a baby sister do come to my house,” he declared, “I shall upstairs with she, an’ out through the toppest window ’er’ll go.”

“Well, well, well!” Old John was at a loss. When you are close on eighty it is not easy to sustain a conversation with a boy of six.

“Where be my granny?” Tommy asked, unexpectedly.

Old John was confused. It did not come easy to him to talk o’ things as ’ad to do wi’ religion.

“In heaven,” he answered, hesitatingly.

Tommy went to the door and looked earnestly upwards at the clouds,

His eyes filled with tears, but he blinked them bravely back. Mammy had said not to cry, and he tried hard to be a man.

“I wonder if God wanted she as much as us,” he said. Then a feeling of unutterable loneliness came upon him. His bravery fell from him, and he ran sobbing to Old John.

“I be frightened,” he sobbed. “I want Mammy; will Mammy have gotten home?”

Clumsily Old John held him in his arms, and, six years old though he was, Tommy fell asleep just like a little boy. Since Saturday everything had been so sad and so unusual; he had not been to school and the days had dragged. He had gone to bed late and got up early, and now he was quite tired out. Old John carried him upstairs and laid him gently upon the unmade bed. There Tommy slept until he was awakened for the dinner of fish.

Before tea Tommy left Old John’s cottage, and Old John went to see to his lobster pots.

In her unaccustomed black Mammy’s pale face looked still paler. Daddy was wearing his wedding-suit and a broad black tie. It was all so unusual that Tommy felt almost a stranger in his own house. Auntie Martha came in early in the evening and brought with her a coat of Mabel’s which she thought would do for Tommy to wear to school in the coming winter months.

“It do be a bit small for Mabel, anyhow,” she explained, “an’ now as her do be a-wearin’ black it ain’t but little good to she.”

It was a fawn coat with brown velvet collar and cuffs—a beautiful coat, Tommy thought. This present was a gleam of brightness in a dreary day, and he wished the winter would come quickly that he might wear it at once.

“Come along to bed, Tommy,” said Mammy, “and bring the noo coat with ee.”

“All right, Mammy,” he replied, “won’t be but a minute,” and he walked to the door.

“Where be a-goin’?” Mammy spoke very gently.

“To say good-night to my Gran.”

Then realization came. “She isn’t there,” he whispered, and, turning, went silently upstairs.

In his prayers that night he stumbled. “Bless granfÄather——” he prayed, and stopped. Then, “an’ please God kiss my Granny good-night for me,” he asked, “an’ make me a brave, good boy.”

As Mrs. Tregennis went downstairs Tregennis came in from the sea. “Ellen,” he said, in an awestruck voice, “Ellen, Old John ’e be drownded.”

“Can’t be,” said Mrs. Tregennis. “Why, he was here but an hour agone. You see’d ’e yourself, Tom.”

Tregennis nodded. “He was lobster-catchin’, Crudely way. The men were seine-fishin’ an’ up on the cliffs the ’ooers was a-’ooin of ’em on. Old John he looked up at the ’ooers an’ somehow missed atween the rocks and his boat and slippen down. Seiners they came up quick, but they haven’t found ’e yet. I wanted just to come in an’ tell ee, Ellen, didn’t want ee to hear accident-like. I must go back now and help,” and Tregennis returned to do what he could.

But not until late the next day did they find Old John’s body. John, his son, put on his father’s best clothes, and idled on the front while the fishermen of Draeth dragged the water near the Crudely rocks. When he found anyone willing to listen to him he spoke. “Funny thing,” he muttered, “very funny thing. FÄather’s been to sea all these years, an’ never got drownded afore. Very funny thing it do be for sure, an’ what be I a-goin’ to do now?”