Light Freights | Page 7

twice the size it was when I was a
young 'un."
He lit his pipe with the scientific accuracy of a smoker of sixty years'
standing, and shook his head solemnly as he regarded his altered
birthplace. Then his colour heightened and his dim eye flashed.
"It's the people about 'ere 'as changed more than the place 'as," he said,
with sudden fierceness; "there's a set o' men about here nowadays as
are no good to anybody; reg'lar raskels. And if you've the mind to listen
I can tell you of one or two as couldn't be beat in London itself.
"There's Tom Adams for one. He went and started wot 'e called a
Benevolent Club. Threepence a week each we paid agin sickness or
accident, and Tom was secretary. Three weeks arter the club was
started he caught a chill and was laid up for a month. He got back to

work a week, and then 'e sprained something in 'is leg; and arter that
was well 'is inside went wrong. We didn't think much of it at first, not
understanding figures; but at the end o' six months the club hadn't got a
farthing, and they was in Tom's debt one pound seventeen-and-six.
"He isn't the only one o' that sort in the place, either. There was Herbert
Richardson. He went to town, and came back with the idea of a Goose
Club for Christmas. We paid twopence a week into that for pretty near
ten months, and then Herbert went back to town agin, and all we 'ear of
'im, through his sister, is that he's still there and doing well, and don't
know when he'll be back.
"But the artfullest and worst man in this place--and that's saying a good
deal, mind you--is Bob Pretty. Deep is no word for 'im. There's no way
of being up to 'im. It's through 'im that we lost our Flower Show; and, if
you'd like to 'ear the rights o' that, I don't suppose there's anybody in
this place as knows as much about it as I do--barring Bob hisself that is,
but 'e wouldn't tell it to you as plain as I can.
"We'd only 'ad the Flower Show one year, and little anybody thought
that the next one was to be the last. The first year you might smell the
place a mile off in the summer, and on the day of the show people came
from a long way round, and brought money to spend at the Cauliflower
and other places.
"It was started just after we got our new parson, and Mrs. Pawlett, the
parson's wife, 'is name being Pawlett, thought as she'd encourage men
to love their 'omes and be better 'usbands by giving a prize every year
for the best cottage garden. Three pounds was the prize, and a metal
tea-pot with writing on it.
"As I said, we only 'ad it two years. The fust year the garden as got it
was a picter, and Bill Chambers, 'im as won the prize, used to say as 'e
was out o' pocket by it, taking 'is time and the money 'e spent on
flowers. Not as we believed that, you understand, 'specially as Bill did
'is very best to get it the next year, too. 'E didn't get it, and though
p'r'aps most of us was glad 'e didn't, we was all very surprised at the
way it turned out in the end.

"The Flower Show was to be 'eld on the 5th o' July, just as a'most
everything about here was at its best. On the 15th of June Bill
Chambers's garden seemed to be leading, but Peter Smith and Joe
Gubbins and Sam Jones and Henery Walker was almost as good, and it
was understood that more than one of 'em had got a surprise which
they'd produce at the last moment, too late for the others to copy. We
used to sit up here of an evening at this Cauliflower public-house and
put money on it. I put mine on Henery Walker, and the time I spent in
'is garden 'elping 'im is a sin and a shame to think of.
"Of course some of 'em used to make fun of it, and Bob Pretty was the
worst of 'em all. He was always a lazy, good-for-nothing man, and 'is
garden was a disgrace. He'd chuck down any rubbish in it: old bones,
old tins, bits of an old bucket, anything to make it untidy. He used to
larf at 'em awful about their gardens and about being took up by the
parson's wife. Nobody ever see 'im do any work, real 'ard work, but the
smell from 'is place at dinner-time was always nice, and I believe that
he knew more