What she lived on it was not easy to
understand. She seemed rather like a cheerful old bird, getting up each
unprovided-for morning, and picking up her sustenance where she found
it.
"There's more in the sayin' 'the Lord pervides' than a good many
thinks," she said with a small chuckle, marked more by a genial and
comfortable sense of humour than by an air of meritoriously quoting the
vicar. "He DO."
She paid one and threepence a week in rent for her cottage, and this
was the most serious drain upon her resources. She apparently could live
without food or fire, but the rent must be paid. "An' I do get a bit
be'ind sometimes," she confessed apologetically, "an' then it's a
trouble to get straight."
Her cottage was one of a short row, and she did odd jobs for the women
who were her neighbours. There were always babies to be looked after,
and "bits of 'elp" needed, sometimes there were "movings" from one
cottage to another, and "confinements" were plainly at once exhilarating
and enriching. Her temperamental good cheer, combined with her
experience, made her a desirable companion and assistant. She was
engagingly frank.
"When they're new to it, an' a bit frightened, I just give 'em a cup
of 'ot tea, an' joke with 'em to cheer 'em up," she said.
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