“You may bet there won’t be no turning Back this time I hope you are saving the Papers for me and I hope when Ladysmith is Relieved you will hang out a Flag and give us Three cheers we deserve it I can Tell you dear Mother when the bullets are whistling round you it is not exactly Pleasant but they don’t like the cold Steel and I hope we shall get near enough to give them that I should like a Dig at the man what shot me give my best Love to Maria and Jane I Fancy you was all thinking of me on Christmas day I hope you had Roast beef and enjoyed yourselves we had only a Dirty old stew in hospital it will be a Good day when I come home you must have a Ox ready and as many spuds as would grow in the garden for two or three years dear Mother I think there is no more this time give my love to all friends and don’t Forget the Flag.
“From your loving son,
“Joseph Stuckhey.”
“Ah!” commented the mother, wiping her eyes, “I d’ ’low we did think o’ him on Christmas Day. Maria—that’s my maid what’s in service at Bourne—she were here for her holiday; and Jane, my married daughter, you know, she come over wi’ her husband and childern. We’d ha’ been a merry party if Joe’d been here; but we did talk of him a’most wi’ every mouthful.”
The postman finished tying the last knot, and slung his bag round under his empty sleeve.
“I must be getting on,” he said. He would repeat items from Joe Stuckhey’s letter in the various villages through which he passed in making his round.
“Well, to be sure, ’tis nice to hear direct,” observed Mrs. Blanchard, slowly backing into her house, and almost tumbling over two of three of her offspring as she did so.
Mrs. Woolridge sniffed, scratched her elbows with an absent air, cast another frowning glance up the road, and finding her son was not in sight betook herself indoors.
The soldier’s mother went in too, sat down to her dinner—a cold one, for, being a washerwoman by profession, Monday was a busy day with her, and she would not waste time even in boiling herself a “spud” or two. She spread out Joe’s letter on the table and meditated over it while she ate.
“I’ll get a flag,” she said to herself. “E-es, I must get a little flag. And when my Joe do come back he shall have as good a bit of roast beef as I can buy, bless him!”
As she went about her work that day her gaze wandered, even more frequently than usual, to Joe’s portrait, which hung in a prominent position over the mantelpiece. This work of art had been presented by the young soldier to his mother soon after he had enlisted. He had not spared expense, and the result, though somewhat wooden in attitude and uneasy in expression, was eminently satisfactory to her.
While she wrung out her clothes or hung them on the line she crooned to herself the refrain of the popular ditty, “Tommy Atkins,” altering the name of the hero to suit her own taste:—