The evening light grew dimmer and dimmer. Grotesque shadows lengthened in the room and Tommy was still wide awake. At last he could bear it no longer.
“Mammy, Mammy!” he cried; but there was no response.
A second call, however, brought her to the foot of the stairs, for he distinctly heard her toe hit the stair-rod at the bottom that held the linoleum in place. So he knew that she was really listening and called once more. “Mammy, Mammy, don’t let anyone have me!”
“But who should want you, Tommy Tregennis?”
“I don’t know, Mammy,” he shouted back in his lusty, young voice. “I don’t know, but I thought if you was in the kitchen some one might come up the stairs and get I.”
“But who should want to take you away, Tommy Tregennis? Who should want a little boy as tears his trousers when his Daddy’s away at sea?”
There it was again! Even a fly, unpardonably late in going to bed, was buzzing on the window-pane, “Tommy’s tore his trousers; Tommy’s tore his trousers!” Finally the moon looked in at the window laughing at his grief, and Tommy fell into a troubled sleep.
Many hours later he was wakened by the striking of a match and a flare of light. Mammy was putting the kettle on the spirit-lamp at her bedside, and by this Tommy knew that Daddy was home again. Rubbing his eyes he sat up and looked anxiously at the foot of his cot. He saw that the torn trousers were no longer there. He gave a deep sigh of relief; it was true then; he had feared that it was perhaps only a dream. But they were not there, so now he knew that the odd little red-haired man who danced in the moonlight had really taken away those dreadful trousers to make them into tiny coats for the ten little boys and girls whom he invariably left at home on his nights out.
Sleepily Tommy watched his mother’s movements. When she had poured water into the tea-pot he crept into the big bed, and as soon as Daddy came the feast began. Some potato and gravy from the cold pasty oozed out of Tommy’s share and fell upon his nightshirt. It was too good to be left, so Tommy licked vigorously making very sure that none was wasted. Quickly the midnight meal ended.