Bone Street/Chapter 4
CHAPTER FOUR
A HALF-TIMER
ON Tuesday morning Bradley finished the kitchen papering and almost immediately after he had gone to bed Marthalice came in. She was dressed in a mob-cap, blue spotted overall and clogs; over her arm she carried a coarse harden apron and wore beneath her overall a dark grey flannel petticoat, which showed about an inch of coarse black knitted stocking above her clogs.
Marthalice stood at the door and surveyed the devastated area; and Jack suddenly discovered that the room looked very bad indeed. Paper and ceiling shamed floor and paint.
“Well, I declare,” said Marthalice. “Did ivver anybody see t’like?” she questioned the ceiling. “Muck and whitewash! mucky floors, mucky paint, and did ta ivver see such a fire-place? Does ta nivver wash t’pots up, lad? Aye, well,” she added, all censoriousness melting out of her heart, “men are daft folks when they’re left by thersens. Let’s see what we can do. Let’s get the side-pan on, lad.”
“That’s on,” said Jack, “and hot.”
“Tha’s learning,” approved Marthalice, and set to work.With a solution of soda in hot water, she wet all the kitchen floor with a brush, and then left it to soak in while she and Jack washed the paint. After half an hour she left Jack alone with this job while she proceeded to scrub the floor. Jack enjoyed washing paint. He noted the increasing dirtiness of the water. He enjoyed comparing the clean patches with the dirt-encrusted remainder. He discovered that in parts the paint had been worn right off and the wood laid bare, and that in other parts the top coat had been worn off, leaving a bright yellow first coat. He admired this colour, and laboured to produce it all over. His work was slow but intensely thorough. He breathed hard through his nose and concentrated his attention on the particular part he happened to be scrubbing.
On Wednesday morning Marthalice surprised him in his shirt sitting on a buffet in front of the fire, bending over some absorbing task.
“What’s ta doing theer?” she asked, and then: “Why, bless the bairn! If he isn’t trying to sew! Give me them trousis, lad. Nay, that’s noan lad’s work. What a sight! Did ivver anybody see such sewing?”
“Ah always mend me own clothes,” mumbled Jack, standing ashamed in his ragged shirt-tails, and gazing ruefully at the trousers with the huge patch cut from a coat discarded by his father, and sewn on with great big tacking stitches.
“Has ta owt else to put on?” said Marthalice. “No? Ah thowt as much.” She stitched rapidly, the thread clicking taut with an emphasis after every stitch. No action is as suitable as sewing for expressing disapproval. Jack’s position was weak. Marthalice was occupied; he was not. Marthalice had despised his work; had ripped out his patch and was replacing it much more skilfully. It is bad enough to be stood in one’s shirt, but it is much worse even for a boy to have his trousers mended before his eyes. Marthalice’s mouth was tight and her mind intent; she had no idea how severe she looked, and the assured purposefulness of her stitch, stitch, hurt like a lash. Yet so innocent of severity was she that it was with positive bewilderment that she looked up at the end of her task and saw two large tears stealing down the little face opposite her.
“Whativver——” she began, and then: “Nay, lad, tha mun tak’ no notice of me. Nay, nah then, it’s noan thy fault if tha trousis wants mending! Poor motherless bairn! Come on then, lad!” And Jack was gathered to her motherly bosom, to be cuddled and comforted; but in Bone Street boys must be men at ten years old, so after a moment’s luxury of emotion, almost immediately in fact, Marthalice was her usual bustling self, and Jack gaily responded to the changed mood. He had discovered Marthalice; nothing she might say could hurt him now.
On Thursday they finished the cleaning, and on Saturday Marthalice came to see them, and set a time-table of sweeping, dusting and washing up to be observed every day, while she herself promised to come in on Friday afternoons to wash the floors and windows. “Nah just get in t’way o’ fending for yoursens a bit,” were her parting words.
Bradley had seen his boss, and succeeded in getting a promise of a job on the day turn to commence on the following Monday. That would reduce his income by a shilling a week, but the boy would soon be earning money, which would more than make up the deficiency, and so, when they had washed up, and Bradley’s pipe burned incense to the now brilliant kitchen range, he turned to Jack and said:
“Can ta find a paper and pencil, Jack?”
Jack could and did.
“Then we’ll see how far t’brass ’ll goa,” and after a laboured calculation, they worked on the following arithmetical problem:
| s. | d. | |
| Rent and gas | 3 | 10 |
| Pound and a half of dripping | 0 | 9 |
| 1 loaf a day at 2+1/2d. | 1 | 5+1/2 |
| Bag of coal | 1 | 0 |
| 1 lb. of bacon | 0 | 8 |
| 1/2 lb. of tea | 0 | 8 |
| 2+1/2 lb. of sugar | 0 | 6+1/2 |
| 2 lb. of frozen meat | 0 | 8 |
| Gill of milk a day | 0 | 5 |
| 10 | 0 | |
| Wage | 19 | 0 |
The nine shillings appeared to be a handsome surplus, until they discovered they had forgotten potatoes, entered nothing for clothes, tobacco, Sundays on the moors, kippers for tea, or any of the strong meats which the appetite of a woolcomber craves—for the smell and heat of the combing-sheds is such that the stomach turns frequently against food altogether, and on other occasions something is needed with sufficient flavour to combat the smell of hot, foul grease with which the whole body feels to be saturated.
“Anyhow,” said his father, “we can manage if there’s not much short time, and nowt for ale,” and rising, with a grin at Jack, he seized the pots on the table in a complicated grip, and carried them to the cellar-head to be washed up.
At this happy moment Marthalice entered.
“Ah see you’re taking a bit o’ notice,” she said, “nay, goa on wi’ t’work, doan’t mind me; Ah like ta see a body framing. Ah nobbut called to say Jack can start work as soon as he’s ten. One of our lassies mentioned it to t’overlooker t’other day, and he says there’ll be a lad wanted in t’cellar at Bramfitt’s soon. What ses tha, young man? It’ll nobbut be one and ninepence a week to start, but tha’ll get a rise when tha gets used to the work. Well, lad?”
Jack executed a joyous and effective clog dance.
“Tha’ll want some new clothes, lad,” said Bradley, when Marthalice had gone. “We’ll get ’em before owt else is bought.”
And so it came to pass that one morning Jack was awakened at half-past five, and after a meagre breakfast the two went off together, each with his food in a red handkerchief, and a can of cold tea.
They turned and left the house, and immediately entered a new world, cold and eerie in the dawn, with a ceaseless stream of beings hurrying in different directions. Now and again voices would be raised in talk and laughter, but in the main the clatter of countless clogs sounded unaccompanied. Boys and girls copied the gait of their elders, halting not at all, breaking into a run only in fear of being late. But to Jack it was wonderful. The purposefulness of it, and the strangeness of the streets in the misty bluishness of the morning, the lamplighter turning out the lamps, making the colour change, these things entranced him, and above all he felt himself a man going to do a man’s work.
Shortly their ways divided and they paused a moment.
“Nah, then,” said Bradley, “they’ll be trying all sorts o’ tricks on thee, lad, but tak’ it good-tempered. Nobbut doan’t stand overmuch.”
And Jack went on alone.
The iron gates at Bramfitt’s Mill yawned to receive their share of the clog-race. Jack found a man whom he guessed to be a “walking-boss” by his collar and tie, and asked to see the cellar gaffer. A stone-stepped area was pointed out to him, and down he went into a great, long, stone-flagged cellar, at least thirty yards long, piled to the ceiling with wicker “skeps,” between which were narrow alleys. Jack wandered forlornly to a little office, outside which stood a desk, and waited there until a tall man, followed by two boys a year or two older than Jack, came up the alley.
“Hello!” said the man, in a melancholy voice.
The only answer to that would be “Hello,” but Jack felt this to be unfitting, and held his peace.
“Tha’ll be the new lad,” said the man.
“Ah was told to ask for t’cellar boss,” said Jack.
“That’s me,” said the man, “hah old are ta?”
“Ten yesterday,” said Jack, and then he stopped, for one of the man’s eyes was fixed on him with a piercing glance, while the other wandered free. But the gaffer put down his confusion to other causes.
“Are ta sure tha’rt ten?” he asked, for it was a common thing in those days for well-grown lads to pass themselves off as a year or two older in order to earlier supplement the family income, while factory managers frequently winked at the practice.
“Aye, Ah’m ten,” said Jack with a quaver.
“Tha’s not over big,” said the foreman, doubtfully, but he read candour in the boy’s face and added, “Let’s see if tha can pile bobbins. Dick”—addressing one of the older lads—“get a skep up, and tak’ this lad to yon bin of 60’s weft and show him how to pile.”
Off went Jack with a dutiful start, but was quickly called back again.
“What’s thi name?” asked the melancholy man.
“Jack Bradley.”
“Well sithee, Jack Bradley, Ah’m boss over this ’ere cellar, think on, if tha does reight, Ah’ll do reight, and if tha does wrong, tha gets sack, think on.”
But this little lecture was too obviously ritual so Jack was not intimidated.
“All reight,” he said, and smiled. The melancholy man smiled, too, in spite of himself, and Jack went off to join his teacher.
The bin was a packing-case structure, little more than half full of bobbins, each about five inches long with a flange at one end, and bobbin and wool came to a diameter of about one inch.
Jack’s mate pulled down an empty skep, and cleared it of the bits of straw and paper. The skep was a large wicker trough, strengthened at the corners with iron bands. Dick took a round tub made of rawhide, filled it with bobbins from the bin and emptied it into the skep.
“Nah then,” he said, “them’s to pile flat on the bottom,” and he showed Jack how to bend over the side of the skep, in order to reach the bottom, take three or four bobbins in each hand, flange downwards, knock them against the side to make them straight, and lay them flat on the bottom.
Jack was three feet six and a half, and the skep was three feet high. If he managed to touch the bobbins with his hands, his feet left the floor. Still he could balance, and got on well, his fingers being pliable and deft, but after a couple of minutes, his ears began to throb and he stood upright with a violent cramp in his stomach, his head swimming.
Dick had left him, so he stood for awhile to rest, and then returned to his work. He counted up the number of handfuls it would take to complete a layer, for with every layer the task would become easier.
Boys came clattering down the steps, emptying rawhide tubs full of bobbins into his bin, but Jack heeded them not, lest he should lose count of his progress.
At seven-thirty, as he was about to go for another tubful of bobbins, he found the foreman standing behind him.
“Hah’s ta getting on?” asked he.
“All reight,” said Jack, and indeed the skep was three-quarters full, and the work facilitated accordingly, “but it made me belly ache at first.”
“Bit o’ belly-ache’s nowt,” replied the foreman, encouragingly, “tha’ll soin get over that, it’time to get t’tea warmed.” The foreman told him to take his own and the other boys’ cans to warm them for breakfast. In the yard was a shallow iron trough, full of water, and kept hot by means of a steam-pipe. Jack put the cans in, and returning for them at seven-fifty, was soon one amongst the scores of girls and boys on the same errand. He had been careful to place his cans in a corner, and, waiting his chance, claimed them and returned to the cellar.
Breakfast at eight, and, perched on the top of a skep with two other boys, he tackled his bread and dripping with a relish.
Returning to his work at eight-thirty Jack continued his task, becoming more tired with the passing of every hour, but he managed to stick it till stopping time. And at twelve-thirty he departed for home with the other two boys.
“I’ll tell thee what,” said one of them, “I wouldn’t look at the foreman’s glass-eye so much, he doesn’t like it.” This made Jack aware that the foreman had only one eye, and later on he found out he had met with an accident in the spinning, which necessitated the removal of an eye, and Bramfitt’s had given him the job as warehouseman in compensation.
Arriving home Jack prepared himself some dinner, as his father stayed at the mill for his.
At two o’clock he was back in his class at school, but within two hours, what with being up early, and the hard, unusual work he had been doing, he was almost falling to sleep over his sums.
Poor little chap! he had just started the great adventure, that hell of drudgery, for which his little frame was so ill fitted. Six hours’ work in a morning, two hours at school in the afternoon. Next week vice versa, four hours’ work in the afternoon, and three hours’ school. Saturday morning six hours at work, and all for one and ninepence a week.
Thousands of little frames were stunted in order that fortunes may be piled up. The school teacher swore softly to himself at the commercial system which used these poor wee mites so mercilessly. Look at them! nodding over their desks, their tired little eyes vainly struggling with sums.
They didn’t all go to the mill, but those who were at school all day were kept back by waiting for the slowest.
No wonder the teacher damned the system.