Thomas. Well, I don’t say but ’twouldn’t come amiss. ’Tis hungry work in th’ hayfield. And us be to go without our dinners this day, isn’t that so, Emily?
Emily. [Slamming down her iron on the stand.] If I’ve told you once, I’ve told you twenty times, ’twas but the one pair of hands as I was gived at birth. Now, what have you got to say against that, Thomas?
Thomas. [Sheepishly.] I’m sure I don’t know.
Emily. And if so be as I’m to clean and wash and cook, and run, and wait, and scour, and mend, for them lazy London minxes, other folk must go without hot cooking at mid-day.
Thomas. [Faintly.] ’Twasn’t nothing cooked, like. ’Twas a bit of bread as I did ask for.
Jessie. [Getting up.] I’ll get it for you, Dad. I know where the loaf bides and the knife too. I’ll cut you, O such a large piece.
Emily. [Seizing her roughly by the hand.] You’ll do nothing of the sort. You’ll take this here cold iron into Maggie and you’ll bring back one that is hot. How am I to get these curtains finished and hung and all, by the time the dressed up parrots come sailing in, I’d like to know.
[Jessie runs away with the iron.
Thomas. [Setting down his mug and coming to the table.] I’d leave the windows bare if it was me, Emily. The creeping rose do form the suitablest shade for they, to my thinking.
Emily. That shews how much you know about it, Thomas. No, take your hands from off my table. Do you think as I wants dirty thumbs shewing all over the clean net what I’ve washed and dried and ironed, and been a-messing about with since ’twas light?