Free The Observations by Jane Harris

the pretty ones missus has but sadly no luck there my cheeks are just the same and now I have one sore finger where I slept on it. Today we ran out of tea . missus loves a nice cup of tea so I went to buy more . it started raining on the way to Snatter , I was not pleased . I was looking about me smiling to see if I could see any of the folk that live there in the village but hardly a soul because of the heavy rain . I was disappointed . The man that runs the shop his name is Henderson, Mr. Henderson to me, he tried to sell the tea
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an oz short but when I pointed it out he pretended it was a mistake and give me a dark look . I asked him if he liked working in a shop but he told me he didn’t work in it he owned it, there is a big difference he says , so I telit him I used to work for Mr. Levy of Glasgow , a very successful businessman who owned several shops selling furs , very wealthy he was with shops coming out his ears and such a nice pleasant man too , his success had not spoiled him one jot but of course he never stood behind the counter he had people done that for him . Henderson just looked at me . Then he said something about a bog . I just looked at him back . I think he is not too keen on an Irish girl . Missus says there was nearly a big fight a few years ago when a bunch of Irish fellows coming back from the harvest were menaced by some villagers, in the end nobody was hurt but hereabouts they don’t like the Irish much. On the way up the road the rain stopped . A big country fellow with curly hair his trousers held up with a bit of rope and a short black pipe in his mouth came louping out a cottage and fell into step beside me . he had a big dusty face and he kept counting things on his fingers . You name it he counted it, hens , chimney pots , window panes , steps , washing on a line , legs on a horse , spokes on a cartwheel , fence posts , the stripes on my apron . always very serious , like his counting was the most important task in the world . I asked him some things like , what are you doing? But he just ignored me and carried on counting , clearly he is a lunatic . when I got home missus tellt me it was probably Sammy Sums that has been wrong in the mind since he was a boy . he scared me at first but missus says there is no harm in him so that put my mind at rest. people call him Sammy Sums because of the counting , he counts everything . Missus tellt me his busiest time is summer on account of the midgies , they are his lifes work. She did make me laugh . I tellt missus I would take up her offer of a patch of garden to grow things after all, I do not know what yet. I think flowers would be nice roses or sweet pea and then I could give a bunch to missus but she said I would be better planting cabbage and beans . I was all set to start throwing things in the ground straight away but she tellt me the soil has to be prepared , nothing is easy in the country . I made a start anyway in my hour off and tore a whole clatter of stones out the earth and then cleaned missus boots and my own and done some other chores nothing strange or startling . I have finished Bleak House and liked it so she give me another to read, it is about a boy called Pip . Tonight I read aloud to her first out the bible then out an old Monthly Visitor a story about two French cottagers called “Darkness and Light‘ . Missus was kind and nice through the evening , I sang a song for her and she liked it and she said I did write very well now in my little book so I was pleased.
    But the truth was, some days you just wouldn’t know what to expect from missus. I got to realise this after a few weeks. One minute she was good as gold, you could not have asked for a more pleasant employer, the next she would fly into a rampage and yell at you. Then just when you got used to her acting the Mogul she would change again and go all distant. She’d talk to you in the flat voice asking you to do things that didn’t seem altogether necessary