MOTHER BAUMERT
Oh, badly, lad, badly these last four years. I've had the rheumatics—just look at them hands. An' it's more than likely as I've had a stroke o' some kind too, I'm that helpless. I can hardly move a limb, an' nobody knows the pains I suffers.
OLD BAUMERT
She's in a bad way, she is. She'll not hold out long.
BERTHA
We've to dress her in the mornin' an' undress her at night, an' to feed her like a baby.
MOTHER BAUMERT
[Speaking in a complaining, tearful voice.] Not a thing c'n I do for myself. It's far worse than bein' ill. For it's not only a burden to myself I am, but to every one else. Often and often do I pray to God to take me. For oh! mine's a weary life. I don't know … p'r'aps they think … but I'm one that's been a hard worker all my days. An' I've always been able to do my turn too; but now, all at once, [she vainly attempts to rise] I can't do nothin'.—I've a good husband an' good children, but to have to sit here and see them…! Look at the girls! There's hardly any blood left in them—faces the colour of a sheet. But on they must work at these weary looms whether they earn enough to keep theirselves or not. What sort o' life is it they lead? Their feet never off the treadle from year's end to year's end. An' with it all they can't scrape together as much as'll buy them clothes that they can let theirselves be seen in; never a step can they go to church, to hear a word o' comfort. They're liker scarecrows than young girls of fifteen and twenty.
BERTHA
[At the stove.] It's beginnin' to smoke again!