Yorksher Puddin': A Collection of the Most Popular Dialect Stories from the Pen of John HartleyHartley, John
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Yorksher Puddin': A Collection of the Most Popular Dialect Stories from the Pen of John Hartley
Hartley, John
English language -- Dialects -- England -- Yorkshire; Yorkshire (England) -- Fiction
One mornin', about eight or nine months after that sailor's visit, a
young farmer happened to be walkin' across one o' th' fields 'at formed
a part o' th' Crow Tree Farm, when he saw a little hillock wi' fresh
gathered wildflowers, an' bending daan wondering at sich a thing should
be i' sich a place, all lonely an' barren, he noticed some fresh soil
scattered raand it. Rooting wi his fingers, he sooin com to a little
bundle, an' what should he see when he oppened it, but a bonny little
babby, lukkin' as sweet an' pure as th' flaars 'at had been strewed ower
it.
He wor a rough sooart ov a young chap, but noabody could ha handled that
little thing more tenderly nor he did. "That's noa place to bury the
likes o' thee," he sed; "aw dooant know who or what tha art, but tha
shall have a better burying place nor that, if aw have to pay for it
misen."
He folded it up carefully, an' carried it to th' farmhouse cloise by,
an' when he entered it, slowly an' solemnly, an' laid his strange bundle
on th' table, th' farmer's wife and dowters gethered raand an' eagerly
axed "What's to do, Burt? What has to getten thear? Thou luks as if
tha'd stown summat." "Aw've stown nowt, but aw've fun summat, an' aw've
browt it here to be takken care on, wol aw cun tell what to do wi' it."
He unteed his kertchey, an' when they saw what were in it th' lasses
shriked an' ran away, declaring they'd ha' nowt to do wi' it; but th'
owd woman luked at it a minit, and then turnin' to Burt, shoo sed,
"Burt, is this some o' thy work, or what is it? Tell me all abaat it,
an' mind tha spaiks truth."
Burt telled all he knew, an' wol he wor repeatin' ivvery thing just as
it happened, owd Mary (that's what th' farmer's wife wor allus called)
wor examinin' th' little thing, an' handlin' it as noabody but an owd
mother can handle sich tender things, "Why, Burt," shoo sed, "it cannot
ha' been thear monny minits, for it's warm yet." "Here, lasses," shoo
cried, "get me some warm water. Luk sharp, aw'm blessed if aw believe
th' little thing's deead." An' th' owd woman wor reight, for it, hadn't
been long i' th' warm watter when it opened its little peepers. An' if
onybody can say 'at Burt cannot dance a single step, Heelan' fling, a
hornpipe, an' owt else, all at once, aw say they lie, for th' way he
capered raand that kitchen wor a caution.
"Aw fun it, an' it belangs to me," he sed; "get aght o' th' gate,
there's noabody nowt to do wi' that but me."
"Hold thi din, tha gurt maddlin', are ta wrang i' thi head? Does ta
think tha can suckle a child?" This sooart o' sobered him. "Aw nivver
thowt o' that," he sed, "cannot yo' suckle it for me, Mary?" "If tha
tawks sich tawk to me, aw'll mash thi head wi th' rollin' pin; my
suckling days wor ower twenty years sin."
"Well, one o' th' lasses 'll happen suckle it for me," he sed. At this
t'dowters flew at him like two wild cats, an' wanted to know "if he'd
owt to say agen their karracters?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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