Jack's Two Sovereigns

EVENING AT HOME.

“Madge, do leave those horrid old stockings, and let’s all have a game at ‘Beggar my neighbour.’ It would keep Jem and Jack from quarrelling.”

“I can’t, unless you’ll darn them for me. There are eight pairs, and they ought to be done to-night ready for the morning.”

“Well, take your chair and sit between them, to keep them apart.”

“What’s the use of that? If Jack were here and Jem in Australia, they’d quarrel somehow. How industrious you are to-night, Edie!”

“I am tired.”

“Well, as you’re the only person that’s tired, of course it’s quite fair that you should do nothing.”

“Madge, if you’d asked me civilly to help you, I’d have done so in a minute, but sneering won’t make me, you may be quite sure of that. Why don’t you ask Bessie to do some work?”

“Because she’s younger, and it doesn’t matter so much about her.”

“Madge, get me that little oil-can that your mother uses for the sewing-machine.”

“Yes, father.... Here it is.”

“Madge, there’s baby crying. Run up and rock him to sleep again.”

“Yes, mother.”

The little sitting-room at 15 Buxton Street, Denham Green, seemed a great deal too small to hold such a family party as were now squeezed into it, the above being a few of the remarks flying about there at eight o’clock in the evening. Those gathered in this small space were all members of the Kayll family. There was Mr. Kayll, a little, fair, bald, pleasant-looking man, who was seated at the table with a newspaper before him, on which were spread out tiny wheels, screws, nuts, and cogs of yellowish metal. He had taken the clock to pieces, as it would not go, and was cleaning its works, not seeming to take more notice of the hubbub than if he were stone deaf.

Then there was Mrs. Kayll, a thin, worried-looking woman, who was engaged in putting a patch on the knee of a small and shabby pair of tweed trousers. There was Madge, too, a minute before, but she had gone to baby, and the quiet, regular, “thump, thump” of the cradle rockers could be heard in the room overhead.

The others were so mixed up that it was difficult to distinguish one from another.

That boy with the dark curly hair and mischievous eyes was Jack, aged fourteen, who earned five shillings a week by the labour of his own hands. Beyond him, with his elbows on the table, and his eyes intent on the works of the clock over which his father was busy, was Bob, his elder brother--but no one is likely to remember all these children without a list to look at now and then. Here are their names, ages, and occupations.

Madge, aged sixteen, “mother’s help.”

Bob, aged fifteen, father’s help.

Jack, aged fourteen, a printer’s boy.

Jem, aged thirteen, errand-boy to a chemist.

Edie, aged twelve, school-girl.

Bessie, aged ten, school-girl.

Baby, aged five months. No occupation.

Now, having arrived at a clear understanding, we can get on with the story, and there will be no excuse for anyone mixing up Jack with Jem, Edie with Bessie, or Madge with the baby.

This was the conversation going on between Jack and Jem.

“I do more work for four shillings than you do for five.”

“That you don’t. I work twice as hard as you do any day.”

“Oh, I say! I like that! And you told me yesterday that you’d found time to read Robinson Crusoe all through.”

“I didn’t.”

“Yes, you did.”

“No, I didn’t.”

“Well, perhaps you’ll be good enough to tell me what you did say, then.”

“I said I’d skimmed it.”

“I don’t think you did; but any way, whether you skimmed it, or whether you read it properly, you wouldn’t have done so when anyone was looking, I know.”

“Now, look here, Jem, if you’re going to lecture me, I shall just sew up your coat-sleeves after you’re gone to sleep to-night, and get ready some more little surprises for you. I won’t be lectured by my youngers.”

“Do be quiet and not quarrel, you two boys,” interrupted their mother in a plaintive tone, as she held up her needle between herself and the lamp, the better to see its eye. “It does worry me so. You’ve given me quite a headache.”

Jack was silent at once. Not so Jem.

“Have we, mother?” he said quickly. “I’m so sorry. But I can’t help quarrelling with Jack. He doesn’t give me any peace. Now this morning I went all the way to the shop with a ticket pinned on the back of my jacket, with ‘This side up, with care’ on it, and Jack says that’s to teach me to brush it before I put it on. And yesterday all my pockets were sewn up, to teach me to keep my hands out of them. It doesn’t. It makes me put them in all the more.”

“Jack,” said Mrs. Kayll severely, “don’t do that sort of thing any more. I forbid it. Jokes of that kind may be very funny to you, but they often lead to serious consequences. And it’s not for you to teach Jem what he ought to do, except by setting him a good example.”