“Yes, tha’ ’as,” said the mother, giving a blind prod under the table with her foot.
“’A ’e na then!” persisted Sam.
The mother suggested various possible places of discovery, and at last the knitting was found at the back of the table drawer, among forks and old wooden skewers.
“I ’an ter tell yer wheer ivrythink is,” said the mother in mild reproach. S’r Ann, however, gave no heed to her parent. Her heart was torn for her knitting, the fruit of her labours; it was a red woollen cuff for the winter; a corkscrew was bored through the web, and the ball of red wool was bristling with skewers.
“It’s a’ thee, our Sam,” she wailed. “I know it’s a’ thee an’ thy A. B. C.”
Samuel, under the table, croaked out in a voice of fierce monotony:
“P. is for Porkypine, whose bristles so strong
Kill the bold lion by pricking ’is tongue.”
The mother began to shake with quiet laughter.
“His father learnt him that—made it all up,” she whispered proudly to us—and to him.
“Tell us what ‘B’ is Sam.”