i 57926919a60851a7 by Unknown Read Free Book Online

water to color the egg shells.
    Each of them had carried his egg in his hand as if it were made of gold and then they had stood at the top of the rise over there, below which the land sloped steeply away. They had stood in a row on the rim and her da had shouted, "Ready, set, go!" and they'd all rolled their eggs down the hill and run, screaming gleefully, after them. But before they could come up the hill again it had started to rain while the sun was still shining, and they had scrambled into here and peeled their eggs and their da had sprinkled salt on them, and as they ate them they nearly choked with laughter at the funny things he kept saying. It had been a wonderful day.
    She walked nearer to the entrance and looked down at a patch of black earth. Someone had been here recently and had made a fire, likely a road tramp. She walked under the shelter of the jutting rock and gazed at the dim interior; then with deliberate steps she paced the distance to the wall. It was four steps in depth and five in width, which was larger than the room at home. She would take the wooden beds to bits and rig them up at each side, leaving the middle free. And that would hold the table. The clothes box could go to that side at the foot of one bed and the chest of drawers at the toot of the other. She wished the entrance weren't so high; it was going to be difficult to rig up something to keep the rain out if the wind was this way. They'd have the fire outside and concoct something on which to hang the round bottomed kale pot. But she wouldn't be able to bake, she'd have to buy bread. But what would she buy bread with?
    She walked into the open again, across the flat shelf of shale to the edge of a long slope which dropped to a rough road. The slope was covered with early foxgloves, saxifrage, and parsley fern. When she saw it last it had been dotted with patches of shy headed cowslips.
    She turned to her left and walked off the edge of the shelf and onto a grassy rise that ended in a hill, and from the brow she looked in the direction of Jarrow and the river. But she wasn't seeing the village or the little shipbuilding yard, she was seeing the mine.
    "I can't help it." She spoke the words aloud, as if she were answering her da, and on this she walked rapidly away.
    When, ten minutes later, she entered the house on the point of a run she startled the children by saying, "You, Mary; gather all the dishes together and the pans and put them in the cradle. Everything that will go in put in the cradle. And you, William; bundle up the beddin'....
    Where's Jimmy and Bella?"
    "Jimmy's out getting' wood and our Bella went out to play down by the bum."
    "Charlotte." Cissie turned to the five-year-old child and said harshly, "You go down and tell Bella to come back here this minute, she's wanted. And you, Sarah; gather the clothes up from the other room, everything. Bundle them big enough for you to carry." Then turning to William again, who was standing staring at her, she said,
    "Before you start, go and find Jimmy."
    "Where we goin', Cissie?" William's voice was small and she answered,
    "I'll tell you all about it when you bring Jimmy back. Now go on."
    Within five minutes Jimmy came running into the house with William behind him, and straightaway he asked the same question as William had done, "Where we goin', Cissie?"
    Before she answered him she went and picked up Nellie from the floor, and she was holding the child with one arm astride her hip when she said, "The cave near the quarry. We've got to get out by Friday; it's either that or the house. "
    The two boys stared at her, their lower lips sagging, and she looked from one to the other now and said, "And that's not all; you'd better come in here a minute."
    She went into the other room and they followed her, and after saying to Sarah, "Take that lot out into the kitchen," she closed the door on her. Then turning to the boys, her voice harsh again, she made a statement.
    "There'll be no work