“But all they plants be just flooded with water, my sweetheart,” objected Mrs. Tregennis. “They’ll be drownded quite if you water ’em any more.”
“That,” Tommy explained patiently, “was accident; that wasn’t waterin’, that wasn’t.”
This was an unanswerable argument and without further ado Mammy refilled the cup.
After this, in sun or rain, Tommy watered his garden twice a day. It was to him an unfailing source of joy.
He told the Blue Lady all about it as they walked up from the sands together. “’N before I go to bed I must water my garden. There’s seven grasses in the one closest up to the drain; ’spect it gets splashed ’n likes it. There be on’y five in the one in front, but there be somethin’ thick an’ tight in the miggle of he. ’N there’s ... I don’t ’xactly remember how many grasses there do be under the wall. ’N what be the thick an’ tight thing in the miggle, Miss?”
“I can guess, Tommy, but I won’t tell you. You watch and watch, and just see for yourself what happens.”
“I’m allus watchin’ an’ watchin’,” replied Tommy, gloomily. “It be they cats! Goin’ round the corner they run right over my garden, they do. I be allus watchin’ an’ shooin’, ’n Mammy she be allus a-shooin’ of they too.”
By this time they were half-way up the alley and very near the house. To his horror Tommy saw his Daddy, his own Daddy, walk ruthlessly over the three small patches of green.
“Oh, oh, oh ...,” he screamed, darting forward in a very passion of anger. “You be a-killing of my garden, ’n I hates ee, I do, I just hates ee!”
His eyes were tightly closed in his rage and with clenched fists he hit out wildly at his Daddy, only to find his outstretched arms firmly imprisoned in his mother’s grasp.