Page:Adams - A Child of the Age.djvu/31

Rh with a glass and brought it back full of warm milk, and came and knelt down by me again and began to coax me. And now there was a big lump in my throat, and I kept swallowing it, but it kept coming back again. And at last, when I wouldn't look at her she put down the bread and butter and sugar and the milk on the piece of carpet, and lifted up my face with her hand under my chin, and laughed into my face with hers, her lips and her eyes, and then called me 'a saucy boy' and gave me a kiss (and how fresh and red and soft her lips were!).—Why, I just threw my arms round her neck and began crying and laughing and laughing and crying and wondering where I'd been to all this time, and in the end gave her a kiss on the lips, and we were great friends. I don't know how it happened, but somehow or other I told her all about Robinson Crusoe, and ever so many other things besides. And, then her husband, John, came in.—And, when I was going away with John, she put two great apples, one into each of my trouser pockets, and said I must be sure and come and see her again and tell her some more about 'all they fine things in the pictur' books.' And so John and I set off together, turning every now and then to wave our hands to Mary at the door in the middle of the light and she waving hers; till the road wound round and we went by it and couldn't see her any more. Then I began to be tired again and, in a little, John lifted me up on to his back, and I fell asleep, I suppose, and didn't wake up till he put me down on Mr. Jones's door-step.

And so we parted. For the term began two days after that, and, as they were both snow-stormy, Mrs. Jones wouldn't let me go out to see Mary and John. And I did not know how to write to them, for they hadn't told me where to. I had quite forgotten about its being so near the end of the holidays.

We had a new monitor in the bedroom this term—Bruce. (Martin, the old one, had left.) Everyone called him a surly devil, but I didn't mind him so much. This was how my liking for him began. One day, early in the term, he was taking Lower Round. Football is compulsory. There are three Rounds, Upper, Lower