Free Donkey Boy by Henry Williamson Page B

face was, between the Nottingham lace curtains of her front room, beside an aspidistra, ready to smile at last farewell to Minnie.
    Mrs. Bigge was much affected at the departure. For Hetty, too, the occasion held a sense of desolation; and for a terrifying instant it seemed that every time you said goodbye it was bringing death a little nearer. Every parting was a kind of oblivion; every tick of the clock said goodbye. How very sad was change! You met people, and places, and then—goodbye! Very shortly the dear, dear house in Cross Aulton would be in other hands, for Mamma had said that Pappa was thinking of giving it up, it was far too large, now that only one child was left at home,—Joey already grown up, and in the Firm!
    Her face smiled, her lips quivered, her eyes were bright with unbroken tears. Oh sonny, come to Mother, hug Mother, hold me close dear little son, she thought to him. You, little son, who have such large serious eyes, Little Mouse, you understand, don’t you, Sonny? We’ll be together when Minnie and Daddy have gone, won’t we, Sonny?
    Phillip was sitting on the stairs, looking at the scene through the bars of the banisters, his mouth down at the corners, very quiet in the immensity of so much movement.
    “Ach, how can I go, how can I leave you all, whom I love so dearly?” cried Minnie, laughing and smiling, when the last moment was come, and the door wide open. Ach, mein lieb’ ganschen, will you not miss your Minnie? How may I go now? And the lieb’ dark-eyed Mavis, so called because the Dinkelweizen heard a drossel, a thrush, singing on the top of the little elm-tree at the bottom of the garden! That was just as it should be, naturlich! For all true things come only from Nature. It was his German blood. Ach, the Englanders were at heart like the Deutsche! Had not the good Queen married a German hochgeboren Prince, noble Albert? Then why was it that she was leaving all her dear freunde und verwandte—her kith and kin—for what after thirty-three years must now be entirely new and strange? Duty, duty called. Auf wiedersehen! Auf wiedersehen! Auf wiedersehen! Grüsse Gott! Hetty, Mrs. Bigge, and Phillip watched the two turn the corner—a last wave of the hand——
    Hetty walked up the porch crying. Phillip was crying too. They sat down in the kitchen and cried together, mother claspingson. The house would never be the same again. Ah well, she must try and be worthy of all that Minnie had taught her, keeping the larder and scullery neat and fresh and clean as Dickie liked all things to be. And then as she was wiping away tears from two faces, both smiling again, there came a ring at the bell in the corner of the kitchen ceiling, and Phillip was excitedly pointing out the red signal behind the glass of the box and saying, “Front door, Murnmie, front door!”
    “Open it, will you please, Sonny? I think it must be Aunty Bigge.”
    He ran to open the door, and there stood Mrs. Bigge, with a steaming pot of tea in one hand.
    “New Auntie come, Mummie, New Auntie come!”
    “Yes dear, it’s your new Auntie who loves you! I thought a little company just now would be the very thing for us both,” cried Mrs. Bigge, cheerfully. And at once life seemed to be flowing again.
    “Ah well, we must make the best of it, mustn’t we, Mrs. Bigge?”
    “Yes dear, and what you need now is a nice sensible young girl from ‘Old Loos’am’ down in the High Street. That’s what they call Miss Thoroughgood, of the Agency. I would not wish to interfere in your affairs, of course, were it not that your own mother lives so far away.”
    “Thank you, Mrs. Bigge. Mamma did think of moving nearer, now that all her children are flown, except the youngest, she says.”
    “Yes dear, she was telling me the very selfsame thing on the day little Mavis was born. And I said to her, ‘Mrs. Turney, why not move into Hillside Road, there is a house vacant right next door, where you can keep an eye on your