"No vear!" said Jimmy; and he meant it.
All the while, Tommy (Jimmy's younger brother, about five years old) was sitting up to table, looking at the jam-jar with one eye and at me with the other. He squints most comically, and is a more self-contained young person than Jimmy. Four of the children are at home; Bessie, Mabel, Jimmy and Tommy; George and the eldest girl are away. Bessie and Mabel, too, are out the greater part of the day, either at school, or else helping their aunts, or minding babies (poor little devils!), or running errands for the many relatives who live hereabout. Both of them are more featureless, show less of the family likeness, than the boys. One cannot so easily forecast their grown-up appearance. At times, during the day, they come in house with a rush, but say little, except to blurt out some (usually inaccurate) piece of news, or to tell their step-mother that: "Thic Jimmy's out to baych—I see'd 'en—playin' wi' some boys, an' he's got his boots an' stockings so wet as...."
"Jest let 'en show his face in here! He shan't hae no tea! He shall go straight to bed!" shouts Mrs Widger, confident that hunger will eventually drive Jimmy into her clutches.
The two girls, in fact, do not seem to enter so fully as the boys into the life of the household, though they are always very ready to take up the responsibility of keeping the boys in order.
"Jimmy! Tommy—there! Mother, look at thic Jimmy! Mother, Tommy's fingering they caakes!"
"I'll gie thee such a one in a minute! Let 'lone.... Ther thee a't, Mabel, doin' jest the same, 's if a gert maid like yu didn't ought to know better."
"Did 'ee ever hear the like o'it?" asks Tony. "Such a buzz! Shut up, will 'ee, or I'll gie thee summut to buzz for! Wher's thic stick?"
The children merely laugh at him.
2
TONY'S WEDDING