CHAPTER VI: CHEESE, LUMPS, CREWJOE, THE SCARLET WOMAN AND THE GREAT GOD BENAMUCKEE
That rope-end beating was a bad one, but I can remember worse. The worst one of all came a year or so later, when I was about seven years old, and formed part of a series of events that stands out with peculiar clearness in my memory.
It all began with porridge lumps.
One morning Aunt Jael went into the kitchen before breakfast, and began stirring at the porridge pan and looking for something to grumble at.
"Lumps!" she cried angrily. "Lumps! What's this mean? 'Tis a pity if a woman of sixty don't know how to cook a panful of porridge. Or too idle to stir it, most likely. Lumps! Lumps!"
Mrs. Cheese lost her temper: the end desired.
"What d'ye expect? Do 'ee think I cude see to the stuff while I'm trapsing up and downstairs to yer bedrume all the time waiting on 'ee 'and an' foot, an' you thumpin' and bangin' away wi' yer stick ivry blissid minute? I can't be in two places at once, and I ain't agwain ter try. Lumps indade! I've 'ad enuff o'n. You do'n yersell, ol' lady."
Whereupon did Aunt Jael aim the lid of the pan at Mrs. Cheese's head, which it just managed to miss. A frying-pan full of half-cooked potatoes lay to the wronged one's hand for retort perfect. She mastered the dear temptation when she saw my Grandmother quietly edging up toward Aunt Jael; found vent instead in bitter irony. Sarcasm hits surer than sauce-pan-lids, and harder.