A Child's Voice Calling Read Online Free PDF

about this,’ said Mabel grimly.
    ‘But we didn’t pay her to take him, did we?’ Annie reminded her.
    ‘Yer won’t ’alf cop it from Miss Thomas for stayin’ away,’ added Albert with a meaning look at his sister. ‘She didn’t ’alf go on about it, worser ’n last week.’
    Annie put her head between her hands. ‘You’ll have to go to school next Monday, Mabel. It isn’t right for you to fall behind with your lessons. I’ll just have to get through it, that’s all – other women have to manage.’
    But the sight of her mother’s weariness and knowing her worries about money had made a deep impression on Mabel, and she began to form a plan to earn some money and keep the family supplied with whatever cheap food she could find. Her small face hardened as she summoned up the necessary determination to carry it through.
    First she needed a few pence to get started, and an idea came through seeing one of her classmates taking and fetching a neighbour’s two young children to and from school every day. She had to take care of Albert, so why not another one or two? Shebegan to look out for an opportunity to offer her services and a few days later she found one.
    One of Albert’s classmates and his five-year-old sister had been brought to school by a neighbour because their mother was about to give birth to a baby. On the way home Mabel called with Albert at their house in Darnel Street to find the household in chaos. The baby had been born but the mother was very poorly, so the neighbour who was preparing the tea said. Mabel’s offer was accepted and it was arranged that she should call the next morning at half past eight to take the two children to school, returning them in the afternoon, for which she would be paid two pence per day. It meant that she and Albert would have to leave home a quarter of an hour earlier, arriving back that much later in the afternoon, and on this particular Tuesday Mabel was only just in time for her piano lesson; but after earning her first two pence on the Wednesday, she was ready to put the second part of her plan into action.
    She had heard from some of the poorer children at school that their mothers or older brothers or sisters got up early and lined up outside certain shops which sold perishable goods cheaply before the official opening time. So on Thursday morning she quietly got up at six and hurried through the dark streets to the bakehouse on Wandsworth Road. The first batch of loaves was just being taken from the ovens, and one of Mabel’s pennies bought two stale loaves from the previous day. She then crossed the street into Victoria Rise where a shabby queue of women and older children were standing outside the butcher’s, waiting for him to take down the shutters. They were after the ‘trimmings’, the beef and muttonscraps that could be stewed with onions and potatoes to make a meal. Mabel took her place behind them and her other penny bought a bagful.
    Of course this new regime had to be carefully presented to her mother and a few little white lies told; for example, that she had been specially asked by the family in Darnel Street to take the little boy and girl to and from school while their mother was recovering from the birth. As for the bread and meat, Mabel put them down on the table with such a flourish that Annie could not possibly object to the early shopping trip, though she shed a few tears in private at the thought of Mabel feeling so responsible for the whole family. The food was put to good use and if Annie half regretted burdening her little daughter by speaking her fears aloud, she was touched beyond measure by Mabel’s response.
    ‘Oh, Mabel, dear, to have a daughter like you makes up for everything,’ she said as she hugged her close; but when the girl had gone to school, and Alice and Georgie were playing on the rag rug, she whispered to the empty air that Mabel deserved a better life than this. How different life would have been in the