"All by meself I useter go, there and back, and one night"--she lifts
her claws and gurgles at the memory, with a slow smile creepin'
gradually through all the wrinkles on her face--"Oh, didn't I give my
poor mother a fright, and no mistake about it! It was one of them nasty,
stinkin' cold, freezin' nights; the streets like ice, they was, and the
'bus horses couldn't get along nohow, for all they was roughed; and it
was past eleven o'clock, it was--yes, past eleven o'clock, it
was--before ever I got home; and there was my poor mother standing at
the door of the alms-house where we was livin' in Blackfriars--my poor
mother and me--and cryin' and wringin' her hands and makin' a to-do, she
was, thinking as how she had lost me altogether.
* * * * *
"Then my poor mother died," says Miss Stipp sadly, drawing her hand
across the end of her nose. "I forgit the year, but it was the fust year
that ever there come a August Bank Holiday. And she died on that day, my
poor mother did. Yuss, she died on that day. She didn't seem like dyin'
at all that there mornin,' she didn't. She eat a beautiful dinner, a bit
of boiled meat--I forgit whether it was beef or mutton--mutton, I think
it was, but anyway boiled meat; and she eat a beautiful dinner, my poor
mother did--boiled meat, greens, and pertaters; and she eat a nice
tea--well, nothin' partickler in the way of a tea, but a _comfortable_
tea; and when I came home, 'Oh Emma Jane,' she says, 'I wish I hadn't
never let you go to church this day; for this here,' she says, 'is my
very last day on earth,' she says, 'and I'm goin',' she says, 'to your
father in heaven, to take care of _him_, and I shall have to leave _you_
all alone,' she says, 'to look after yourself; and I'm most afeard,' my
poor mother said, 'what'll become of you,' she says; 'and don't forgit,'
she says, 'to say your prayers, and go reggeler to the Communion, and
always be good and obedient, and don't git doin' no vile sin, and please
God we'll all meet in heaven,' she says, 'and be more happy,' she says,
'nor what we have ever been here in Blackfriars.
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