Some Everyday Folk and Dawn | Page 7

in the irrepressible couch-grass, there was no lack of fodder that season, and even the lanes and byways would have served as fattening paddocks. Andrew leant upon his gun, and having delivered himself of certain statistics in rat mortality, and exhibiting some specimens by the tail, he began a conversation.
"Say, what did you think of Miss Thing-amebob, Miss Flipp I mean?"
"I didn't bother thinking anything at all about her."
Andrew looked interrogatively at me and broke into a grin.
"Well, I reckon she's the silliest goat I ever came across. She came out to me and asked did I think she looked pretty, as her uncle is coming up to-night, and if she looks nice he'll give her a present or something. I reckon she'd have to look not such a mad-headed rabbit before I'd give her anything but some advice to bag her head. And he must be a different uncle to Uncle Jake; I reckon he wouldn't give you nothing if you had on two heads at once. Here's Larry Witcom coming back from his rounds, and he promised me a bit of meat for Whiskey! Here, Whiskey! Whiskey!" he roared, and a small canine pet that had been hunting rats desisted from the fray and ran with his master. I also walked with him--this without exception, even in slum scenes on the stage, being the dirtiest escort I ever had had. His face was grimed, his shirt like an engine-rag, and his trousers dusty, while from a hole in the seat thereof fluttered a flag of garment--such an ingratiatingly wholesome blunderbuss of a boy!
"Here, you Larry," he yelled, "you promised me! Come on, Whiskey! Why, ain't he a bosker!" he enthusiastically exclaimed, as the hideously unprepossessing little mongrel stood on his hind legs and yelped in excited begging.
"Hullo, Andrew! Don't bust! Who's that you had with you?--(I had turned a corner)--a new boarder, I suppose? Rather an old piece!"
"Yes," said Andrew. "Her hair is a little white, but she ain't sour and stuck up."
"A chance for you to hang your hat up, Jake," said Larry.
"No, thanks! I'm cautious of them old maids. If you say a pleasant word to 'em they can't be shook off, and might have you up for breach of promise like with Tom Dunstan."
"I suppose there is a danger, you being so fascinating," chuckled the butcher as I went inside, with a premonition that should it come to taking sides in the Clay household, if avoidable I would not be on Uncle Jake's.
"Who is Uncle Jake?" said Carry in response to my inquiry, as she prepared four o'clock tea; "he's Uncle Jake, that's what he is, and enough for me too, that he is. The old swab wants hanging up by the beard."
"Yes, but what place does he hold in the house?"
"Place! that of walking round poking his nose in everywhere and growling about things that don't concern him. Mrs Clay keeps him--gives him fifteen shillings a-week--because he's her brother, and you'd think he owned everything. If you want to know what he is, he's a terribly bad example to Andrew. He's the greatest clumsy, lumbering, dirty lump (oh, you should see his clothes, what they are like to wash, and the only way to keep him clean would be to stuff him in a glass case!), but for all that he's a very fair kid. You can't expect much of boys, you know, and have to be thankful for any good points at all. O Lord!" she here exclaimed, looking out a window, where along a path through the orchard she descried approaching a fine buxom dame in a fashionably cut dress, "here's Mrs Bray in full sail. I suppose she saw the 'busman leaving you here to-day, and her curiosity couldn't stand any longer without coming on a tour of inspection."
"Who is Mrs Bray?"
"She won't let you overlook who she is, and what she owns, and what she 'done,' you'll soon hear it. She's the most inquisitive blow-hard I ever came across."
Dawn now appeared and invited me to afternoon tea, which was a friendly and hospitable meal spread on a big table on a back verandah, so enclosed by creepers and pot-plants and little awnings leading in various directions as to be in reality more of a vestibule. Mrs Bray hove into near view and took up a seat beside a bank of lovely maiden-hair fern.
"How are you living?" she asked Grandma Clay as she complacently shook hands. "Nice cool weather now and not so many beastly mosquitoes."
"By Jove! Did you know about the 'skeeters' here?" inquired Andrew of me. "They're big enough to ride bikes and weigh a pound. You wait till you hear 'em singing Sankey's hymns to-night."
"If I were you I'd hold my tongue and not draw attention to my