Mark Guy Pearse

“ For Jennifer boasted that she could sing. "If I can't do anything else I can sing," she said. There was very often a hymn on her lips and always one in her heart. She had her philosophy about singing. "I am not going to be beat [Pg 52] by the birds, and we are nothing but a sort of creeping thing till we can sing. What's the good of the blue sky above us if we can't fly up into it? And singing is wings to my thinking."
Eight months had gone by, and the time had come for the opening of the new chapel. ”

“ The happy little lads went bounding before her, the three of them the very picture of gladness.
Yet it was almost wicked of Jennifer to look so comfortable, when all the parish knew that there was not a poor body for miles around that had so much trouble. She certainly had no business to be anything but the most mournful and melancholy soul that ever went grumbling along the highroad, if you can measure people's happiness by their circumstances.
Follow her as she turns [Pg 33] down this narrow lane, skilfully picking her way in the mud. At the end of the lane is her cottage. ”

“ Then she herself was off with the dawn, and sometimes before, to work all day in the fields. Her rough dress was stained earth colour from head to foot; a sack was tied round the skirts which were tucked well up out of the way. A big sun-bonnet protected her more often from the bleak winds and bitter rains than from the sun. From dawn till dusk she worked for sixpence a day; and then came [Pg 40] home thanking God right heartily for the three shillings a week. And on that Jennifer managed to feed and clothe her household, and to pay the rent and to keep up her good looks. ”

“ Village people do not see much in what they see always, and Jennifer had lived among them all her days. There was a time when some of the younger folks thought they owed her a little bit of a grudge. For Sam Petch was the [Pg 13] tallest, and straightest, and handsomest of the village lads; and the maidens who strolled down the lane on a summer's evening would go home with fluttering hearts and delicious dreams if Sam had chanced to come that way, as somehow he generally did ”

“ Three pounds an acre was the price to be given for the clearing. And twenty acres came to nothing less than sixty pounds.
To Jennifer, who had not seen a bit of gold for years until she had given the half sovereign to the new chapel, it was really a terrible [Pg 87] thing to have to do with so much money. The little broken teapot looked full, and the top of the dresser was no safe place in which to keep such treasures. She could not sleep at night, but must needs get up and go fumbling about to feel if it was all right. ”

“ And if it be true that light hearts make easy travelling, they might well keep together, up hill and down. A glance was enough to show that things were flourishing with them. Their [Pg 20] cottage stood on the top of the hill, all set about with a garden fair, and at the side and back of the house grew "stuff" enough to send to market. Sam had rented a bit of a meadow where a couple of cows gave Jennifer the chance of showing her skill at clotted cream and butter. ”

“ I suppose they must be going out for to do something; but there, 'tis terrible hard for to think about their going away."
"Oh, but I don't think they need go away, Jennifer. I have come to tell you that I have bought that piece of coppice over there. Now, what I have [Pg 73] been thinking is this. You and your boys can cut it all down, and make up the faggots with the underwood, and sell it for what it will fetch. That shall go toward the new cottage. And when the land is cleared I will let it to you, and the boys can turn it into potato ground." ”

“ But there is one matter in which Jennifer sticks to her opinion and will yield to nobody.
"You may say what you mind to, after all said and done, crusties is more nourishinger and strengthener than tea. ”

“ The fields on every side were dotted with the tented sheaves piled up as the custom is in the "catching" weather of the West, one sheaf reversed on the top of the cluster, so as to form a kind of roof. ”

“ But very [Pg 65] soon I came to like it just as well. And I really do believe, after all said and done, 'tis more strengthener and more nourishinger than the tea.
"So the next Saturday, instead of asking a neighbour to bring home an ounce of tea, I put the threepenny bit in the broken teapot. And there was fourpence a week. And I changed it into a shilling; and then it grew into a half-crown; and last of all it came to half a sovereign.
"I was glad to have a bit of that colour. It was years since I had so much as seen one of them. 'Tis [Pg 66] the only colour that is good enough for Him. ”