3
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.
