A Mother's Gift Read Online Free PDF

finding that Winton wasn’t going to open any road and they faced another long wait.
    ‘Aw, howay, lass, I thought you’d be pleased,’ said Noah. Awkwardly he put an arm around her shoulders.
    ‘Eeh, I am, I am really. I thought the day would never come, I did. The pit’s starting up then?’
    ‘Nay lass, it isn’t. I’ll be working with the safety men. Until it does open, that is.’
    Kitty looked up at him through swimming eyes. She opened her mouth to question it but closed it: again. It was enough that there was a wage coming in for the first time in so many long months. Katie came in the door and her mouth dropped open as her gaze was drawn to the note still lying on the table. She put the heavy bag of jam jars she had been collecting on the flagged floor.
    ‘Katie! Katie! Hadaway down the store and buy half a pound of brawn and a couple of pig’s trotters, pet. Oh, an’ half a stone of taties an’ a turnip. And a—’
    ‘Kitty, Kitty man, what do you think the lass is a pit pony? She cannot carry so much, can she?’
    Kitty nodded. ‘No I wasn’t thinking, was I. Just a quarter of taties then, Katie.’
    ‘But what, what’s happened?’ Katie asked. She had been out for three hours collecting jam jars from all over Winton and beyond because the store gave a ha’penny each for them if they were washed and clean. She reckoned she had enough to buy a quarter of brawn and five Woodbines for her grandda. And here on the table was a whole ten-shilling note!
    ‘Your grandda’s been taken on, Katie! He’s been taken on!’ Once again Kitty Benfield dissolved into tears.
    ‘Here at Winton? Do you mean here?’ As her grandfather nodded, Katie was lit up with such an intense joy she felt she must be glowing like a gas mantle. ‘Does it mean I can have—’ Katie stopped abruptly as she realised she had been going to ask for new shoes already. By, her granma would think she was so selfish, thinking only of herself.
    But Kitty wasn’t even listening, she was building the fire up with pitch balls so as to have a good blaze to cook the taties and turnip and heat the oven for the pig’s trotters when she got them. She was bustling about in the old way, the way Katie vaguely remembered her doing so long ago.
    Later, as her grandmother belched softly as she sat dozing in the heat from the fire, and her grandfather sat smoking a whole Woodbine, his legs stretched out on the fender as he inhaled deeply, Katie brought in the tin bath and filled it with water from the boiler at the side of the range and began to wash the jamjars. Maybe she could take two of them and go to the pictures on Friday night. The manager let them sit in the front four rows for a penny or two jam jars and Charlie Chaplin was on.
    ‘We ’ave to pay the Guardians back for the out relief money we’ve ’ad,’ Noah remarked suddenly. ‘We’re not going to be rich you know.’
    ‘How much?’ asked Kitty, waking up at the mention of money.
    ‘A shilling a week, I’ve heard.’
    ‘Flaming heck,’ said Kitty. ‘We’ll be paying till Judgement Day.’ But she wasn’t going to let the thought of anyone or anything spoil the evening. After all, she wasn’t going to have to sell the sofa now, that was worth a fair bit. More than 2/6 any road.
    ‘Go and get yourself a pint, Noah,’ she said and his eyes widened in shock. He jumped up with alacrity.
    ‘Aye I think I will, Kitty,’ he said. ‘I was just thinking, a pint would go down nicely, like.’
    ‘Aye, I bet you were,’ Kitty said drily. ‘Only the one mind.’
    Katie reached for the tea-towel hanging on the brass rail above the range and began drying the jam jars. She couldn’t stop herself from smiling as she caught her grandmother’s eye.
    ‘By,’ Kitty said, shaking her head, ‘when things are going all right there’s not a nicer man than my Noah.’
    Katie stopped smiling, remembering the times when he was not nice, how he could be harsh and even violent