Domestic fiction; Family -- England -- Midlands -- Fiction; Midlands (England) -- Fiction
“There’ll be no need to have a clock,” said Will Brangwen, peeping out
at the white clock-face on the tower, his neighbour.
At the back of the house was a garden adjoining the paddock, a cowshed
with standing for two cows, pig-cotes and fowl-houses. Will Brangwen
was very happy. Anna was glad to think of being mistress of her own
place.
Tom Brangwen was now the fairy godfather. He was never happy unless he
was buying something. Will Brangwen, with his interest in all
wood-work, was getting the furniture. He was left to buy tables and
round-staved chairs and the dressers, quite ordinary stuff, but such as
was identified with his cottage.
Tom Brangwen, with more particular thought, spied out what he called
handy little things for her. He appeared with a set of new-fangled
cooking-pans, with a special sort of hanging lamp, though the rooms
were so low, with canny little machines for grinding meat or mashing
potatoes or whisking eggs.
Anna took a sharp interest in what he bought, though she was not always
pleased. Some of the little contrivances, which he thought so canny,
left her doubtful. Nevertheless she was always expectant, on market
days there was always a long thrill of anticipation. He arrived with
the first darkness, the copper lamps of his cart glowing. And she ran
to the gate, as he, a dark, burly figure up in the cart, was bending
over his parcels.
“It’s cupboard love as brings you out so sharp,” he said, his voice
resounding in the cold darkness. Nevertheless he was excited. And she,
taking one of the cart lamps, poked and peered among the jumble of
things he had brought, pushing aside the oil or implements he had got
for himself.
She dragged out a pair of small, strong bellows, registered them in her
mind, and then pulled uncertainly at something else. It had a long
handle, and a piece of brown paper round the middle of it, like a
waistcoat.
“What’s this?” she said, poking.
He stopped to look at her. She went to the lamp-light by the horse, and
stood there bent over the new thing, while her hair was like bronze,
her apron white and cheerful. Her fingers plucked busily at the paper.
She dragged forth a little wringer, with clean indiarubber rollers. She
examined it critically, not knowing quite how it worked.
She looked up at him. He stood a shadowy presence beyond the light.
“How does it go?” she asked.
“Why, it’s for pulpin’ turnips,” he replied.
She looked at him. His voice disturbed her.
“Don’t be silly. It’s a little mangle,” she said. “How do you stand it,
though?”
“You screw it on th’ side o’ your wash-tub.” He came and held it out to
her.
“Oh, yes!” she cried, with one of her little skipping movements, which
still came when she was suddenly glad.
And without another thought she ran off into the house, leaving him to
untackle the horse. And when he came into the scullery, he found her
there, with the little wringer fixed on the dolly-tub, turning
blissfully at the handle, and Tilly beside her, exclaiming:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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