“Could never whip ee,” mutters the parent, “ee be so little.”
“Of course,” I agree, having decided notions about the relation of the big parent to the tiny child.
Every day it is the same. Ernie in the water, Ernie covered with mud and jam. Ernie holding out pails, bottles, cans, kettles, and food for me to see.
“You ain’t got this one, ’ave ee? I got this one. Ah’ll tell plicemun of ee, Mis’r Wisson, swearin’! I got my wills. You ain’t got no wills. I got the wills.”
“Go away, boy!” I shout, as once a schoolmaster used to bellow at me.
He departs, but returns with a cup of muddy water.
“I got a glass o’ beer. ’Tis mine, it is. Yaas.”
Dirty face, wet boots, disturbing voice, everlasting questions, and possessive boastings—how can I complete the various volumes of The Flax of Dream, with Ernie always pestering. I have told him again and again that I wish he would go away to another cottage. But if he were to, I should be miserable, and miss my long motor-rides with Ernie among the cabbages, while the driver wears an enormous pair of his father’s boots. I should miss, too, the accounts of how Ernie has killed rats and rabbits with a stone and how he cut off the policeman’s head with a knife because the policeman used a swear word to Ernie.
A SEED IN WASTE PLACES
(To M. G. S.)