Five thousand pounds — Key Ideas to Explore

UP to the age of fourteen I think I spent as happy a life as any child in any cottage home in England. There is many a cottage which is no "home" at all, in the true sense of the word, notwithstanding those pretty words of poetry about—

"The cottage homes of England, By thousands in her plains;"

It stood on a bit of country road, with three or four other cottages, close outside a biggish town. We had a large pond in front, and lots of trees beyond and on both sides of the pond; and the shadows of the trees used to look very pretty on a summer evening, when the light from the sun came creeping through them with a red glow like firelight. The water would catch the glow, till it was all one sheet of brightness, and the trees seemed bending down to look at their own likenesses below, for every branch and twig and leaf might be seen there, pictured.

Sometimes a breeze would ruffle the surface, and then there were little wavelets, with red on one side and grey on the other, and the pictured branches and leaves had a snaky sort of movement in and out of one another. And if a duck swam across, leaving its little track, that made another break in the smooth picture.

I used to stand and watch these things, and wonder at the ripples and the brightness. Sometimes I asked father the "why" of this or that, for I was an inquisitive child, but he always said, "Don't know, my girl," and went off to his pipe; so it was not of much use to ask him. If I put the same questions to mother, she commonly said, "How can I tell? Don't bother!" and that shut me up.

And if I went to grannie, she would say, "Because God made it so, Phœbe." This was all right and true, but I would have liked to understand a little more about the beautiful things which God has made. I used to wonder then, and I often wonder now, how it is that people care so little to look into such matters.

Well, but I must go on about my home, the only home I ever knew in childish years.

It was a pretty cottage. Clematis grew over one side, and in front there was a rose-tree, which used to flower all the summer through and on almost into the winter. The roses were small and white, but how they did cluster! People often stopped to remark on them. We had a nice piece of flower-garden in front, stuffed full of sweet-williams and pinks, and such plain old-fashioned plants: none the less pretty for being old-fashioned, however. At the back there was a tiny strip of kitchen-garden too. The front door had a porch, and honeysuckle grew thickly all over it, with long trailing pieces, which had to be lifted and put aside when we went out or in.

Grannie had lived in this cottage all through her married life, and when her husband died she lived on there still, with her only boy,—my father,—working for him, and making him work for her.

Father's work was in the building firm of Johnstone & Co. We thought Mr. Johnstone a very grand person in our little town, because he was so rich, and wore such a thick gold watch-chain, and had such a big red stone in the ring on his little finger. But I dare say he would not have been thought so much of elsewhere. He was not a gentleman, and he very seldom spoke a kind word to any of his men, as I am sure he would have done if he had been a true gentleman.

Father was not a skilled workman, but he had good wages nevertheless, for he was steady and trustworthy.

He was always kind to us children. I never knew him anything else in those days. Sometimes he would speak up sharp in a passing way, but he never knocked us about or stormed at us, as I have seen men do with their children.

He was not a religious sort of man. He went to Church most Sundays, in the afternoon, to please grannie, and sat and nodded through the sermon. He would have done a good deal to please her, though he wouldn't do one thing which she wanted, and that was to leave his bed early enough for the morning Service—no, not even for her sake.