i f6c06dd9cf3fe221 by Unknown (100 books to read in a lifetime .txt) 📗

her grandma to make any reference to it, for it was an unspoken understanding that gran da was not mentioned in any way. Yet with her shouting out like that, she thought perhaps her grandma might have said something; and she couldn't remember seeing her grandma with her sleeves down before. But other strange things had happened like that after her gran da had shouted at her grandma; such as the time when she wore a scarf for weeks in the summer; and there was the time, too, when her finger was bad, and she had kept it wrapped up; and when it had mended it was crooked. She looked searchingly into her grandmother's face, but the pale eyes, with little wrinkled bags beneath them, crinkled at the corners reassuringly.

Annie put her arms around her neck and kissed her:

"Have I to put my clean vest and bloomers on?"

"No, not until tomorrow, hinny. And come on, now, and hurry downstairs and get washed."

When Annie was told to hurry downstairs and get washed it meant her gran da was coming into breakfast at half-past eight from the long shift, and that she must be ready and have had her breakfast and be sitting quietly while he ate, or go out to play, or down the yard.

She washed in the bowl that stood on the backless chair in the two-foot recess between the kitchen door and the

cupboard. Her grandma had given her hot water with which to wash, and she would have liked to play about, but she knew that she mustn't.

Standing before the fire that held the big black frying-pan with her bacon and fried bread sizzling in it, she put on her vest and bloomers, her one calico-topped petticoat, her flannel one, her blue woollen dress and her white, frilled pinafore. Then she sat down at the table and said her grace.

When she had finished her bacon and had wiped up her dip with a piece of oven-bottom cake, keeping one eye on her grandmother while she did it, knowing that this was one of the things that Kate said she was not to do, and which her grandmother reluctantly enforced, she again said her grace and left the table. The fire looked inviting, and she would have liked to have sat before it on the fender and read one of her story books until it was time to go and meet Kate. But, again remembering last night, she hurriedly got into her thick reefer coat, pulled on to her head a red woollen hat with a pompom on the top, picked up her gloves, and kissed her grandmother.

"Keep on the dry parts, hinny," said Sarah; 'and don't play with the snow, it's too dirty now. You must keep yourself dean for Kate coming, you know. "

Annie nodded and hurried out, down the yard and into the lavatory, just as the back-yard door opened and her gran da clumped up the yard.

She gave a little sigh, shot the bolt and got on to the seat. And then the safe feeling crept over her, the feeling she always had when she was in here. No one could get at you here; it was quiet, like a little square house, all red and white, and you were tight locked in.

The red bricks of the floor, the whitewashed walls, the white wooden seat extending right across the breadth of the lavatory and filling half its depth, was a place of sanctuary for Annie. There were rarely any bad smells here, for her grandmother kept it fresh with ashes down the hole, and daily scrubbing. The only time Annie got a violent distaste for it was when the men unexpectedly lifted the back hatch to clean it out with their long shovels. Then a revulsion for it would overcome her. She

didn't like thri scavengers, nor would she follow the cart, with her companions, shouting:

"Cloggy Betty, on the netty On a Sunday morning ..."

She never looked at the men, they were so filthy; but she felt pity for the bushy-footed horse, and had wild visions of herself unharnessing it and letting it away.

She heard a scramble of feet in the Mullen's yard, next door. Their back-door banged and her own opened, and a plaintive voice chanted up the yard, "An-niel ... are-yacomin' out? ... Annie ... Are-ya-comin'

out?"

Quickly scrambling out of the lavatory, she joined her friend, and marshalled her with un seeming haste out of the yard into the back lane.

"I didn't know yer gran da was in, Annie," said Rosie Mullen, apologetically; she hadn't asked for an explanation of the hustle; she knew all about Annie's gran da in some ways much more than Annie did, as her parents were outspoken in their comments on their neighbour.

Rosie was two years older than Annie, but much shorter. She was a replica of her mother, being dumpy and fat, with small, bright eyes and a round face. Her dark hair stuck out in two-inch plaited points from behind her ears. She looked ugly and quaint and likeable, and Annie had a deep affection for her, for which Rosie was grateful, although she didn't know it; she only knew that Annie Hannigan was her best friend, and if the girls said things about her gran da that made Annie cry she punched them in the chest or slapped their faces.

"I've got to take our Nancy out in the pram," said Rosie, in disgust.

"That'll mean I can't go with you to meet your Kate." Which would also mean she would miss either some sweets or a ha' penny

"Oh, well, I haven't got to go till half-past ten, so we can take Nancy round to the shop and have a look in," said Annie; and, with great intuition, added, 'and I'll keep you half of whatever our Kate gives me. "

Rosie grinned broadly, and, taking hold of Annie's