Tommy clenched his fingers, set his teeth together and breathed hard. “Ef a baby sister do come to my house,” he declared, “I shall upstairs with she, an’ out through the toppest window ’er’ll go.”
“Well, well, well!” Old John was at a loss. When you are close on eighty it is not easy to sustain a conversation with a boy of six.
“Where be my granny?” Tommy asked, unexpectedly.
Old John was confused. It did not come easy to him to talk o’ things as ’ad to do wi’ religion.
“In heaven,” he answered, hesitatingly.
Tommy went to the door and looked earnestly upwards at the clouds,
“.....white as flocks new shorn
And fresh from the clear brook.”
His eyes filled with tears, but he blinked them bravely back. Mammy had said not to cry, and he tried hard to be a man.