Читать книгу Susan Spray онлайн

59 страница из 108

That winter was no better than the last. Old folk would talk of green winters—green winters in years o£ plenty. But now when the times were hard the earth also was hard, the air was sharp, and the fields were white under snow. On all the ponds and brooks a greenish ice thickened through the months.

This was the winter in which Susan Spray, at the age of twelve, took over her father's housekeeping. They could ill afford to lose her shilling-a-week wages, but it was necessary that someone should keep house and look after the little ones. Besides, there was one mouth less to feed—a wide and hungry mouth. Susan did not care for housekeeping—she preferred being out of doors, even in the cold weather, for she was not used to being much in the house. But she did not manage badly. The neighbours took pity on her, and helped her with their experience.

Bread was two shillings a loaf, tea eight shillings a pound and sugar sevenpence an ounce. A side of pork cost fourteen shillings, with another five shillings far salting; and Susan had to feed eight people on less than ten shillings a week. Mrs. Cudd taught her to make bread out of sharps, and how to cook a dish called Taters and Shakeover, which involved one or two potatoes and a pennyworth of suet. She could no longer steal roots out of the fields, but now and then Tamar or Ruth would take one from the barn at Pickdick where they worked, or sometimes they would manage to pick up a few potatoes. Anyway, none of them starved, though the death of little Aaron which happened in January, may have had something to do with his diet.