MRS. TREGENNIS sat at the kitchen table. With a short and rather blunt pencil she was making calculations on a half-sheet of note-paper. Never before in the month of April had they stood so well and known so little fear. Mrs. Radford had been so very difficult and had tried Mrs. Tregennis so sorely that early in January she had been asked to leave; still during all the months she had lived there her money had come in safely week after week and had been a great help. Then Tregennis had been at work more or less regularly since the beginning of January, not fishin’, ’tis true, but diggin’ and cartin’, which he found very hard, but to which he stuck doggedly all the same.
The digging and carting had been in connexion with the building of the new Council Schools, which stood rather high up above the West River, just opposite the station. Some weeks Tregennis had earned as much as eighteen shillings, and as a result of this the little sum in the bank, which represented summer visitors and summer fishing, had remained untouched.
So Mrs. Tregennis was adding up. There was over eight pound from that catch on the wreck when the boulter parted, and two weeks afterwards there was nigh on three pound, and then there had been two pound five, an’ fifteen shillin’, an’——
At this point Mrs. Tregennis lost count. Her little sums were all upset by Tommy’s return from school.
Tommy was evidently very angry. He half-kicked the door open, then banged it behind him and stamped into the kitchen. When Mrs. Tregennis looked up she saw that his fingers were tightly clenched and that he was gritting his teeth. Without speaking, she put the lead pencil to her lips and slowly made more figures on the piece of paper.
Tommy took off the coat he was wearing, threw it on the floor and kicked it into the fender.
Then Mammy arose.
“Well, Tommy Tregennis,” she said, “’an’ shall I bring some more of your clothes for ee to kick about the place? Will ee have the brown jersey suit, my son, and the long sailor trousers?”
Tommy stood rigid and defiant. His eyes flashed as he answered his mother. “I shan’t wear ’e never no more.” He pointed dramatically with his right hand in the direction of the fireplace. “Never, no more, I tell ee, no, never!”