“Look at that for eight years old!” screamed the lady. “Eight years old ’e is! As true as God’s my maker I’ll....”
The impending vow was stayed and blasted for ever, Mrs. Knatchbole being taken with a fit of sneezing, whereupon the boys uttered some derisive “Haw haws!”
So Mrs. Knatchbole met Mrs. Flynn that night as she came from work, Mrs. Flynn being a widow who toiled daily and dreadfully at a laundry and perforce left her children, except for their school hours, to their own devices. The encounter was an emphatic one and the tired widow promised to admonish her boy.
“But it’s all right, Mrs. Knatchbole, he’s going from me in a week, to his uncle in London he is going, a person of wealth, and he’ll be no annoyance to ye then. I’m ashamed that he misbehaves but he’s no bad boy really.”
At home his mother’s remonstrances reduced Johnny to repentance and silence; he felt base indeed; he wanted to do something great and worthy at once to offset it all; he wished he had got some money, he’d have gone and bought her a bottle of stout—he knew she liked stout.
“Why do ye vex people so, Johnny?” asked Mrs. Flynn wearily. “I work my fingers to the bone for ye, week in and week out. Why can’t ye behave like Pomony?”
His sister was a year younger than he; her name was Mona, which Johnny’s elegant mind had disliked. One day he re-baptized her; Pomona she became and Pomona she remained. The Flynns sat down to supper. “Never mind, mum,” said the boy, kissing her as he passed, “talk to us about the cherry tree!” The cherry tree, luxuriantly blooming, was the crown of the mother’s memories of her youth and her father’s farm; around the myth of its wonderful blossoms and fruit she could weave garlands of romance, and to her own mind as well as to the minds of her children it became a heavenly symbol of her old lost home, grand with acres and delightful with orchard and full pantry. What wonder that in her humorous narration the joys were multiplied and magnified until even Johnny was obliged to intervene. “Look here, how many horses did your father have, mum ... really, though?” Mrs. Flynn became vague, cast a furtive glance at this son of hers and then gulped with laughter until she recovered her ground with “Ah, but there was a cherry tree!” It was a grand supper—actually a polony and some potatoes. Johnny knew this was because he was going away. Ever since it was known that he was to go to London they had been having something special like this, or sheep’s trotters or a pig’s tail. Mother seemed to grow kinder and kinder to him. He wished he had some money, he would like to buy her a bottle of stout—he knew she liked stout.
Well, Johnny went away to live with his uncle, but alas he was only two months in London before he was returned to his mother and Pomony. Uncle was an engine-driver who disclosed to his astounded nephew a passion for gardening. This was incomprehensible to Johnny Flynn. A great roaring boiling locomotive was the grandest thing in the world. Johnny had rides on it, so he knew. And it was easy for him to imagine that every gardener cherished in the darkness of his disappointed soul an unavailing passion for a steam engine, but how an engine-driver could immerse himself in the mushiness of gardening was a baffling problem. However, before he returned home he discovered one important thing from his uncle’s hobby, and he sent the information to his sister:
Dear Pomona—
Uncle Harry has got a alotment and grow veggutables. He says what makes the mold is worms. You know we pulled all the worms out off our garden and chukked them over Miss Natchbols wall. Well you better get some more quick a lot ask George to help you and I bring som seeds home when I comes next week by the xcursion on Moms birthday