Glen Aldyn Plays/The Christmas Pudding
The Christmas Pudding
SCENE.–A poor, bare room in a lonely cottage. A round table; a shelf or dresser, with basins and platters; a couple of crocks and two or three stools or benches. Grandmother by fire knitting. Mother comes in, wiping her arms, taking off coarse apron, letting down skirt, etc.
Gr.: Them childher should be home, surely.
M.: They’re home this while, but I sent them to the cow-house to see could they find an egg. The lil brown hen is doin’ well this coul weather, and an egg at her nearly every day.
Gr.: You’ll be making some surt of Christmas Pudding for Jim and Maggie?
M.: Well, I don’t know, indeed, what am I goin’ to make it of! The flour is near done [looks into crook], an’ there’s barely a scrape of sugar for your tea. Scandalous the price they’re askin’ for it these days–an’ scarce adhrop of milk from the cow this fortnight. Still an’ for all we mus’ do what we can for them.
Sets a panmug on the table and looks into odd jars and screws of paper. Children come running in.
Ch.: There's not an egg in, Mammie, an’ no sign of the lil brown hen, either.
M. [with spoon uplifted]: Go along with your capers. She’ll be in among the others.
Jim: She’s not, though, for Maggie got in the hen-house to see.
M.: An’ jus’ look at the state Maggie is in! [Pulling off dirty pinafore and rubbing her down.] Fit to frighten the rooks, she is. Go your ways now an’ get washed or you’ll not get no pudding to-morrow.
Children rummage in corner, whispering, and produce a couple of stockings.
Jim: What’s goin’ in them this time, Mammie? I would like a hatchet. Maggie here wants a doll.
M.: If you want a hatchet you’ll have to go to Laxa Broogh an’ got tho wan the Duinney-oie is leavin’ in the moonlight. An’ as for a doll, Maggie here is too busy learning to knit for the soldiers to care for a doll. Arn’t you chile veen?
Maggie [wistfully]: I would like a dollie though. See, Mainline, this stocking would hold a good big wan, an’ the legs could be comin’ out of the holes to make room.
Gr. [feeling in her pocket]: The sowles! See then, here’s something from Granny [gives them each a halfpenny]. Don’t go wasting it on trash now. Think of them poor lil wans over in Belgium that havn’t got no stockings to hang up.
M.: An’ not no chimleys at them either for Father Christmas to come down.
Jim: If you’ll put a nice lil hatchet in my stocking, Mammie, I’ll give the lil Belgiums my halfpenny.
M.: Are you goin’ to do as I toul you? Go on now an’ get washed or I’ll warm you. [Exit children to back-kitchen, pumping and splashing.] Deed if this war goes on there’ll not be dhry bread in for poor people, let alone puddings an’ hatchets.
Gr.: The chile an’ his hatchet! Well there’s them over beyond that’s worse off nor us. We’ve got a roof over our heads an’ plenty bons in. Think of them wans thramp, thrampin’ through the mud an’ dark from their burning houses, an’ the childher cryin’, it’s like–why ain’t we goin’ home, Mammie?–an’–We want to go to bed now, Mammie–an’ never a home or a bed lef’ them.
[Children return clean and shiny]: What will the pudding be like, Mammie?
M.: The proof of the pudding is in the eating, as the man said, so I’ll tell you to-morrow what will it be like. Fetch me a jug of wather, Jim.
Jim goes to crock and fills jug.
Jim: There’s plenty of wather, anyway–if it wont be froze.
M.: I can’t make a pudding of wather either, an’ the flour near done at us an’ all.
Jim: Shove a tas’ of Indian meal in, Mammie. That’s what they call Johnny Cake to in the States; we were readin’ about it in school.
M.: I’m thinkin’ it's a tas’ of the Doctor you’ll be wantin’ next day; but maybe it will help too. [Goes to crock.] See can you find some raisins in the drawer, Maggie. There were a few in a lil bag if they havn’t been took at you an’ Jim.
Maggie [rummaging, finds bag and counts out]: Wan–two–three–four–five!
M.: That’ll do fine. One for each of us an’ wan over. My word, I hope we’ll not be proud!
Maggie [still rummaging]: An’ what’s this at all? Curran’s too. There’s near a teacup-full. An’ there’s some dhry crusses in too.
M.: Give them here an’ I’ll spill a dhrop of wather from the kettle on them to soften them.
Mixes all in panmug.
Gr.: We mus’ all put a stir to it so we’ll get luck if we don’t get pudding.
All stir in turn.
M.: Easy, easy Jim; she’ll be all stirred away. [Exit Jim, whistling.] Well she’s comin’ to, but she’ll be wantin’ sugar bad. Praps there’s a tas’ of thraycle lef’. Find a cloth, Maggie. [Maggie brings tablecloth.] Tut, tut, that’s too big. There’s only a lil tas’ all roun’, an’ you mus’ be takin’ a good sup of porridge in the morning that you wont be too hungry for your dinners.
Jim [coming in with can]: I can’t hardly get no milk from the cow, Mammie–an’ there’s some quare thing in the haggart, too. I don’t like goin’ out.
M.: What quare thing is there on you? It’s jus’ the snow an’ the light of the stars is makin’ things through others.
Jim: It’s makin’ a quare surt of noise, too.
M.: What like is the noise?
Jim: I don’t know is it cryin’ or sobbin’ or weenin’ some way it is.
Gr.: Praps some wan’s dog has got hurted.
M.: I’d bes’ go an’ see anyway. Here, Maggie, you come with me and houl the lanthern–you’re not afeard like Jim.
Jim [angrily]: I’m not feared, an’ I’m th’oul’es’. Maggie can mind the pudding.
M.: Of all quare things. Jus’ look at this?
Sets down little girl-child, dressed like a foreigner. Child puts finger in mouth and stares at them.
Gr.: Aw, the bogh milesh! Where in the world have she come from at all. Come to the fire, poor lamb. See how coul the lil hannies is. [All press round, taking off shoes, chatfing hands, caressing child’s hair, etc.] See the fine doll you’ve got now, Maggie veen. Reach the milk here, Jim.
Child drinks from basin.
Jim: Oh, Mammie, she’s drunk all our milk.
M.: Don’t you be passin’ such rude remarks, Jim. I think you childher is growin’ more imperent an’ more ignoranter every day.
Jim [sulkily]: I wasn't sayin’ nawthin’.
M.: Don’t you go for to give me no sauce now. I’m goin’ to fetch a rope’s end to you to teach you manners.
Makes as if to go to back-kitchen.
Jim [crying]: Get a sof’ wan, Mammie.
M.: Well you mind now an’ be good. [Smooths his hair. Jim sniffs and recovers.] I heard there were some of them Belgiums had took a house up the glen. The chile mus’ have strayed down here and lost herself. She was lyin’ by the big fir logs out theer sobbin’ mos’ pirriful, an’ the snow fallin’ on her too. It’s snowin’ bad now.
Gr.: An’ they’ll be in a worl’ of throuble up theer when they miss her. How can we let them know at all?
M.: They’ll surely be searching everywhere, but with the snow they’ll be hindered shocking. We mus’ keep her to-night anyway, an’ we’ll have the pudding for her supper that she’ll get warmth in her–
Maggie: Oh, Mammie, that’s the for the five raisins was in.
M.: Aye, sure! There’s plenty in, an’ plenty welcome too.
CURTAIN.–Tableau. The three children on bench with plates of pudding. Grandmother and mother standing with basin and spoon.
Gr.: The scraerpins is good though!
