I suppose there are rectories up and down the country now where the milk
comes in frozen sometimes in winter, and the children go down to wonder
at it, but I never see any frozen milk in London, so I suppose the
winters are warmer than they used to be.
About one year after his wife's death Mr Pontifex also was gathered to
his fathers. My father saw him the day before he died. The old man had
a theory about sunsets, and had had two steps built up against a wall in
the kitchen garden on which he used to stand and watch the sun go down
whenever it was clear. My father came on him in the afternoon, just as
the sun was setting, and saw him with his arms resting on the top of the
wall looking towards the sun over a field through which there was a path
on which my father was. My father heard him say "Good-bye, sun; good-
bye, sun," as the sun sank, and saw by his tone and manner that he was
feeling very feeble. Before the next sunset he was gone.
There was no dole. Some of his grandchildren were brought to the funeral
and we remonstrated with them, but did not take much by doing so. John
Pontifex, who was a year older than I was, sneered at penny loaves, and
intimated that if I wanted one it must be because my papa and mamma could
not afford to buy me one, whereon I believe we did something like
fighting, and I rather think John Pontifex got the worst of it, but it
may have been the other way.
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