Free Shoes Were For Sunday by Molly Weir Page B

need parsley for broth,’ I would say stubbornly. ‘And Grannie said I was to get it with my sixpence-worth.’ I usually did.
    An ‘outside’ loaf was a farthing cheaper than one baked in the middle of the row, for it had a hard shiny outside slice which was tough and indigestible. ‘Will I get an outside one?’ I’d ask Grannie eagerly when coppers were scarce and pay-day a long way off. ‘They’re a whole farthing cheaper.’ ‘Nae, naw lassie,’ she would say, ‘it’s nae savin’ at a’, for naebody could eat it wi’ pleasure, and that slice would be wasted,’ and so I learned that a bargain wasn’t always a bargain, even if the price-tag was lower.
    I used to trot into the town with the daughter of a neighbour, even poorer than we were, for there was aspecial shop which sold ham-bones for tuppence-ha’penny for two pairs, and that gave them two good pots of lentil soup, and a good picking at the bones with their boiled potatoes. It was a mile and a half each way, but we thought nothing of it, especially if it was the gird season, and we were there and back before we knew it.
    I discovered gradually that a highly priced roast wasn’t necessarily better than the delicious potted meats Grannie could make with the cheaper shin of beef. And I found too that boiling beef on the bone had a flavour all its own, and it didn’t matter that it was a wee bit on the fat side, for that gave it added sweetness. ‘Aye,’ Grannie would nod approvingly, as she saw me waiting till there was just an inch of meat clinging all round before I’d hold out my plate, ‘oor Molly kens what’s guid for her. The sweeter the meat the nearer the bone.’ And she showed me how to blow out the marrow to mix with my plain boiled potatoes, and we both remembered the words of the hymn, ‘Even as with marrow and with fat my soul shall filled be’. I thoroughly agreed with hymns as practical as this.
    By the time I was ten years old, Grannie could trust me to choose a piece of beef, knowing I’d bring back the very best value in the shop for the money I had to spend. I could shoulder this responsibility quite confidently when only one or two shillings were involved, but I remember one Christmas I was sent to get a piece of roast beef for our Christmas dinner, and when thebutcher said ‘Seven-and-six’ I nearly choked in panic. I didn’t know so much about roasts. What if I chose wrongly and wasted my mother’s precious money? So, oblivious of the other customers, and shaking with the weight of decision, I asked the butcher to keep it aside while I ran home and described it to my grannie. ‘It’s like a great big chop, Grannie,’ I told her breathlessly, ‘with a wee bit of different colour in the middle, and a wee division of fat right here,’ and I pointed to the place on the table where I was drawing it with my finger. ‘And it’s seven-and-six. Will I get it?’
    She sat still, considering what I had said. ‘Aye,’ she said at last, ‘get it. If it’s like that, then it’s sirloin, and it’s a grand bit o’ meat.’ I flew back to the shop. ‘I’ll take it,’ I said importantly, laying down my three half-crowns with a lordly air. It
was
sirloin. It was delicious, and Grannie gave me a special slice of the wee bit in the middle which was a different colour, and told me it was the fillet. That was a new word for me – I’d only heard of fillet fish – but I remembered it, and agreed with Grannie that it was the finest delicacy of all.
    All the jam in our house was home-made. My mother’s comment, ‘She’s the kind that aye has bought jam on the table’, was enough to let us know the shiftlessness of the person she was describing. We’d watch the shop windows until the jam fruit was at its lowest price, then rush home with the news, ‘Grannie, the man says the black currants’ll no’ get ony cheaper’, or ‘The strawberries are goin’ up again next week.’ Out wouldcome the big purse, and off