“I’m a poor widdy,” whined Cricket, holding out her hand. “I’ve got seven small children, and my back is so lame that I can’t talk.”
“He means he can’t work,” struck in Eunice. “He doesn’t understand English very well, and he’s so deaf anyway, he can’t hear what he’s saying,” she explained to cook, who sat staring.
“Please, mum, if you’ve any very nice chocolate pudding, I feel as if I could eat a little,” said Cricket, with a remembrance of dessert. “I had a very light breakfast,” folding her hands over the pit of her stomach.
“I’ll light-breakfast yer, yer young imperence,” growled cook, quite awake now. “Git off these premises in the shake o’ a dyin’ lamb’s tail, or I’ll know the raison whoy.” Cook was a large woman, and as she slowly rose out of her chair, she towered like a mountain above the children, who instinctively dodged her threatening hand.
“Git out of this, immijit! Shure I’ll have no tramps here.”
“We’re not tramps,” said Eunice, changing base. “We’re selling things.”
“It’s selling things ye are, are ye? and shure, where’s the things ye’re afther sellin’?”
“We’re selling post-holes,” said Cricket, promptly, as her eye fell on a particularly large hole near by, that had been freshly dug for a clothes-post. “We’ve brought some with us.”
“Post-holes, is it?” cried cook, enraged, and suspecting a joke; “we’ll see how yer like post-holes, drat yer imperence,” and before Cricket could dodge, she had swung her by the shoulders off the steps, and jammed her very forcibly into the hole.
“Sell post-holes again, will yer? I’ll sell yer post-holes for yer!” cried cook, angrily.