Читать книгу Susan Spray онлайн

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"Thank God," said a woman at her elbow, "those tur'ble times are over."

"Aye, we shall soon be eating white bread now, even in the work'us."

"My husband and I used to be thankful if we could sit down to a penny bloater wud our liddle uns on a Sunday."

"Surelye, and a'dunnamany times when I wur at Towncreep I've täaken the pigs' food out of their trough because of the empty pain I had inside."

Another woman wept:

"My old man came in to me just before the end, and he said, 'Have you a bit of victual? I think I shall die.' I says, 'Thur's the bit of crust we left last night,' for my liddle maid and me hadn't touched a bit all day. So we got the crust out of the cupboard and crumpled it into a basin and poured hot water over it, and we sat down opposite one another. My old man and I had a gurt spoon each, and we gave the child a liddle spoon and set her betwixt us. But I reckon she wur too small to git hold of the spoon, so she threw it down and dashed her liddle hand into the hot water again and again and crammed the bread into her mouth as it wur a wild beast. Then my old man and I threw down our spoons and sat and cried at each other lik babies, and that's all we had that day. The child eat the bread and my old man and I drank the water."