I could not undertake to say for certain, but it may have been because I lost my own dear baby, after a week of happy mother hood—and he was a boy—that Nick was always my favorite of Them Two.
He had silky hair with a curl in it, that was brownish red, like the colour of a new chestnut, and brave blue eyes, and a white skin, when I had taught him to keep it clean. And he had nice ways, and was grateful for any little thing done for him. And to hear that boy whistle!
I believe the blackbird, at the bird shop at the corner, died of envy and not of old age, as they pretended, Nick’s imitation of him being so much better than himself!
But there! I never know when to stop, when I start talking of my boy—as I used to call him—and call him now, for that matter!
“And so it came to Cheevers starting a barrow.”
Cheevers was more soft on the girl: a thin little thing, with great, black eyes and a bush of black, curly hair.
No amount of scrubbing would make Nan’s skin white; it was brown by nature, and brown it is to this day. Foreign blood was in her complexion, as in her ways, and her temper, which was loving as lambs when unprovoked, but fiery when crossed.
She proved a deal of help to me, that child.
If it had been in these days, both of Them Two ’ud ha’ been caught and sent to Board School, to learn to be no use to themselves or us. But this was years and years ago, and my boy’s chestnut hair is a handsome grey, and he an upright, portly gentleman of forty-two.