The cottage was a weatherboard one, with the galvanized iron roof that makes life a burden during the summer days. The doctor’s brass plate on the door was dull and smirched, the step was dirty, the children’s toys lay about the verandah—it was easy to see Mrs. Wise was no manager.
Clif went through the passage and out to the back verandah, where late in the day most of the family congregated, that being the place that caught the faint breeze of the evening. The mother was in her [67] ]rocking-chair, and baby was asleep in her arms. Ted, who was three years younger than Clif, sat at her feet deep in The Three Midshipmen. Alf, who was stout, and six, was eating a slice of water-melon—he had bitten deeper and deeper into it till the broad green rind encircled his merry little face from ear to ear. On the ground just below the verandah there was a slight depression that, after rain, sometimes held as much as half a foot of water, and made a pool as big as a hand-basin. Here Richie was fishing, as usual, with a bit of bread fastened to a hair-pin and tied to a string.
Clif tried to be a bit cheerful.
“Hullo,” he said as he passed, “any luck? Get any bites, Richie?”
“Ony free,” said Richie mournfully.
“[Why don’t you put salt] on the bread, old man?” Clif said; “you can’t expect to catch fish without.”
The little boy got up eagerly and trotted off to the kitchen to beg the necessary article. And Clif caught sight of a bit of his boat at the edge of the water, with the sail in the mud. He looked away from it quickly but with a queer feeling in his throat.
“Go and get your tea, Clif,” his mother said. “Lizzie left it at the end of the dining-room table.”
Her voice was very cold.
“Don’t you want me to rock baby?” he said awkwardly.