Page 79 - sons-and-lovers

Adam an’ Eve got drownded,
Who do yer think got saved?’
An’ so I says: ‘Oh, Pinch-YOU,’ an’ so I pinched ‘im, an’ ‘e
was mad, an’ so he snatched my cobbler an’ run off with it.
An’ so I run after ‘im, an’ when I was gettin’ hold of ‘im, ‘e
dodged, an’ it ripped ‘is collar. But I got my cobbler—-‘
He pulled from his pocket a black old horse-chestnut
hanging on a string. This old cobbler had ‘cobbled’—hit and
smashed—seventeen other cobblers on similar strings. So
the boy was proud of his veteran.
‘Well,’ said Mrs. Morel, ‘you know you’ve got no right to
rip his collar.’
‘Well, our mother!’ he answered. ‘I never meant tr’a done
it—an’ it was on’y an old indirrubber collar as was torn
a’ready.’
‘Next time,’ said his mother, ‘YOU be more careful. I
shouldn’t like it if you came home with your collar torn
off.’
‘I don’t care, our mother; I never did it a-purpose.’
The boy was rather miserable at being reprimanded.
‘No—well, you be more careful.’
William fled away, glad to be exonerated. And Mrs. Mo-
rel, who hated any bother with the neighbours, thought she
would explain to Mrs. Anthony, and the business would be
over.
But that evening Morel came in from the pit looking very
sour. He stood in the kitchen and glared round, but did not
speak for some minutes. Then:
‘Wheer’s that Willy?’ he asked.

Sons and Lovers