Page 102 - sons-and-lovers

the black grains trickle down a crack in his palm into the
mouth of the straw, peppering jollily downwards till the
straw was full. Then he bunged up the mouth with a bit of
soap—which he got on his thumb-nail from a pat in a sau-
cer—and the straw was finished.
‘Look, dad!’ he said.
‘That’s right, my beauty,’ replied Morel, who was pecu-
liarly lavish of endearments to his second son. Paul popped
the fuse into the powder-tin, ready for the morning, when
Morel would take it to the pit, and use it to fire a shot that
would blast the coal down.
Meantime Arthur, still fond of his father, would lean on
the arm of Morel’s chair and say:
‘Tell us about down pit, daddy.’
This Morel loved to do.
‘Well, there’s one little ‘oss—we call ‘im Taffy,’ he would
begin. ‘An’ he’s a fawce ‘un!’
Morel had a warm way of telling a story. He made one
feel Taffy’s cunning.
‘He’s a brown ‘un,’ he would answer, ‘an’ not very high.
Well, he comes i’ th’ stall wi’ a rattle, an’ then yo’ ‘ear ‘im
sneeze.
‘Ello, Taff,’ you say, ‘what art sneezin’ for? Bin ta’ein’
some snuff?’
‘An’ ‘e sneezes again. Then he slives up an’ shoves ‘is ‘ead
on yer, that cadin’.
‘What’s want, Taff?’ yo’ say.’
‘And what does he?’ Arthur always asked.
‘He wants a bit o’ bacca, my duckie.’

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