tairs. His house is a sort of hotel to him, where he expects to
find a bed and food, and it is apparently not his business to inquire
how the food is obtained. If there is none, he makes a fuss, and will
not take for an answer that he has failed to bring the money. Bobby
Yarty, thin, pale, big-eyed, the eldest son but one--a nice intelligent
boy though he swears badly at his mother--is ill of a disease which
only plenty of good food can cure. If, however, food is scarce, it is
first Mrs Yarty who goes short, then the children. Whether they do, or
don't, have as much as a couple of chunks each of bread and dripping,
Yarty must have his stew or fry. The wage-earner has first claim on the
food, and even when the wage-earner does not earn, the custom is still
kept up. It is possible also that Mrs Yarty has still an underlying
affection for her man, a real desire, become instinctive, to feed him.

She does not say so. Far from it. She says that she is sorry she ever
left a good place to marry Yarty. She would, she declares, go back into
service but for her children. Washing-day, she swears, is her jolliest
time, and she boasts, with what pride is left her, of there being
places at twelve or fourteen shillings a week still open to her. She
did take a place once--was allowed to take her baby with her--but at
the end of a fortnight she arrived home to find that her husband,
impatient for his tea, had thrown all the crockery on the floor. She
saw then that she must be content with things as they are.

Her present worry is, what will become of the children while she is up
over, and who will feed them? Mam Widger will do her share, I don't
doubt. Very often now she puts aside something for them. There is a
sort of pleasantness in watching them take it: they run off with the
dish or baking tin like very polite and very hungry dogs, and bring it
back faithfully with exceeding great respectfulness towards a household
where there is food to spare.

Mrs Yarty is one of those people who work better for others than for
themselves. She is no manager. "They says," she remarked the other day,
"as He do take care of the sparrows." She is a sparrow herself; she
grubs up sustenance, rubs along without getting any forwarder, where
others would go under altogether. Years ago she must have been
good-looking. Her patchily grey hair is crisp; she still has a few
pretty gestures. But trouble and too much child-bearing have done next
to their worst