“I can’t spare time to read, King,” she said. “Look here”—holding out the work, all rags and tatters. “If I don’t mend this, Toby won’t have a shirt to put on to-morrow.”
“I shan’t mind about that,” said Toby.
“Oh, but, dear, I don’t think you could go without a shirt. Has any one seen my cotton?”
“Then say something over to us that you know, mamma,” returned King, as Toby found the cotton.
“Very well. I can do that and work too. Sit down, all of you.”
We sat down, King and Toby on the floor before her, the rest of on the beam on either side her. Dan, who did not care for poetry, got some Brazil nuts out of his pocket and cracked them while he listened.
Mrs. Sanker might as well have read “Lalla Rookh.” She began to recite “The Friar of Orders Grey.” But what with gazing up at the sky through the rain to give it due emphasis, and shaking her head at pathetic parts, the sewing did not get on. She had finished the verse—
“Weep no more, lady, weep no more,
Thy sorrow is in vain;
For violets plucked, the sweetest showers
Will ne’er make grow again,”
when King surprised us by bursting into tears. But as Mrs. Sanker took no notice, I supposed it was nothing unusual.
“You young donkey!” cried Dan, when the poem was finished. “You’ll never be a man, King.”