LIKE most colliers, Bower had his dinner before he washed himself. It did not surprise his wife that he said little. He seemed quite amiable, but evidently did not feel confidential. Gertie was busy with the three children, the youngest of whom lay kicking on the sofa, preparing to squeal; therefore she did not concern herself overmuch with her husband, once having ascertained by a few shrewd glances at his heavy brows and his blue eyes, which moved conspicuously in his black face, that he was only pondering.
He smoked a solemn pipe until six o’clock. Although he was really a good husband, he did not notice that Gertie was tired. She was irritable at the end of the long day.
‘Don’t you want to wash yourself?’ she asked, grudgingly, at six o’clock. It was sickening to have a man sitting there in his pit-dirt, never saying a word, smoking like a Red Indian.
‘I’m ready, when you are,’ he replied.
She lay the baby on the sofa, barricaded it with pillows, and brought from the scullery a great panchion, a bowl of heavy earthenware like brick, glazed inside to a dark mahogany colour. Tall and thin and very pale, she stood before the fire holding the great bowl, her grey eyes flashing.
‘Get up, our Jack, this minute, or I’ll squash thee under the blessed panchion.’
The fat boy of six, who was rolling on the rug in the firelight, said broadly:
‘Squash me, then.’
‘Get up,’ she cried, giving him a push with her foot.
‘Gi’e ower,’ he said, rolling jollily.
‘I’ll smack you,’ she said grimly, preparing to put down the panchion.
‘Get up, theer,’ shouted the father.
Gertie ladled water from the boiler with a tin ladling can. Drops fell from her ladle hissing into the red fire, splashing on to the white hearth, blazing like drops of flame on the flat-topped fender. The father gazed at it all, unmoved.
‘I’ve told you,’ he said, ‘to put cold water in the panchion first. If one o’ th’ children goes an’ falls in...’
‘You can see as ’e doesn’t then,’ snapped she. She tempered the bowl with cold water, dropped in a flannel and a lump of soap, and spread the towel over the fender to warm.
Then, and only then, Bower rose. He wore no coat, and his arms were freckled black. He stripped to the waist, hitched his trousers into the strap, and kneeled on the rug to wash himself. There was a great splashing and sputtering. The red firelight shone on his cap of white soap, and on the muscles of his back, on the strange working of his red and white muscular arms, that flashed up and down like individual creatures.
Gertie sat with the baby clawing at her ears and hair and nose. Continually she drew back her face and head from the cruel little baby-clasp. Jack was hanging on to the kitchen door.
‘Come away from that door,’ cried the mother.
Jack did not come away, but neither did he open the door and run the risk of incurring his father’s wrath. The room was very hot, but the thought of a draught is abhorrent to a miner.
With the baby on one arm, Gertie washed her husband’s back. She sponged it carefully with the flannel, and then, still with one hand, began to dry it on the rough towel.
‘Canna ter put th’ childt down an’ use both hands?’ said her husband.
‘Yes; an’ then if th’ childt screets, there’s a bigger to-do than iver. There’s no suitin’ some folk.’
‘The childt ’ud non screet.’
Gertie plumped it down. The baby began to cry. The wife rubbed her husband’s back till it grew pink, while Bower quivered with pleasure. As soon as she threw the towel down:
Shut that childt up,’ he said.
He wrestled his way into his shirt. His head emerged, with black hair standing roughly on end. He was rather an ugly man, just above medium height, and stiffly built. He had a thin black moustache over a full mouth, and a very full chin that was marred by a blue seam, where a horse had kicked him when he was a lad in the pit.
With both hands on the mantelpiece above his head, he stood looking in the fire, his whitish shirt hanging like a smock over his pit trousers.
Presently, still looking absently in the fire, he said: ‘Bill Andrews was standin’ at th’ pit top, an’ give ivery man as ’e come up one o’ these.’
He handed to his wife a small whity-blue paper, on which was printed simply:
February 14, 1912.
To the Manager —
I hereby give notice to leave your employment fourteen days from above date.
Signed —
Gertie read the paper, blindly dodging her head from the baby’s grasp.
‘An’ what d’you reckon that’s for?’ she asked.
‘I suppose it means as we come out.’
‘I’m sure!’ she cried in indignation. ‘Well, tha’rt not goin’ to sign it.’
‘It’ll ma’e no diff’rence whether I do or dunna — t’others will.’
‘Then let ’em!’ She made a small clicking sound in her mouth. ‘This ’ll ma’e th’ third strike as we’ve had sin’ we’ve been married; an’ a fat lot th’ better for it you are, arena you?’
He squirmed uneasily.
‘No, but we mean to be,’ he said.
‘I’ll tell you what, colliers is a discontented lot, as doesn’t know what they do want. That’s what they are.’
‘Tha’d better not let some o’ th’ colliers as there is hear thee say so.’
‘I don’t care who hears me. An’ there isn’t a man in Eastwood but what’ll say as th’ last two strikes has ruined the place. There’s that much bad blood now atween th’ mesters an’ th’ men as there isn’t a thing but what’s askew. An’ what will it be, I should like to know!’
‘It’s not on’y here; it’s all ower th’ country alike,’ he gloated.
‘Yes; it’s them blessed Yorkshire an’ Welsh colliers as does it. They’re that bug nowadays, what wi’ talkin’ an’ spoutin’, they hardly know which side their back-side hangs. Here, take this childt!’
She thrust the baby into his arms, carried out the heavy bowlful of black suds, mended the fire, cleared round, and returned for the child.
‘Ben Haseldine said, an’ he’s a union man — he told me when he come for th’ union money yesterday, as th’ men doesn’t want to come out — not our men. It’s th’ union.’
‘Tha knows nowt about it, woman. It’s a’ woman’s jabber, from beginnin’ to end.’
‘You don’t intend us to know. Who wants th’ Minimum Wage? Butties doesn’t. There th’ butties’ll be, havin’ to pay seven shillin’ a day to men as ’appen isn’t worth a penny more than five.’
‘But the butties is goin’ to have eight shillin’ accordin’ to scale.’
‘An’ then th’ men as can’t work tip-top, an’ is worth, ’appen, five shillin’ a day, they get th’ sack: an th’ old men, an’ so on.’
‘Nowt o’ th’ sort, woman, nowt o’ th’ sort. Tha’s got it off ’am-pat. There’s goin’ to be inspectors for all that, an’ th’ men’ll get what they’re worth, accordin’ to age, an’ so on.’
‘An’ accordin’ to idleness an’ — what somebody says about ’em. I’ll back! There’ll be a lot o’ fairness!’
‘Tha talks like a woman as knows nowt. What does thee know about it?’
‘I know what you did at th’ last strike. And I know this much, when Shipley men had their strike tickets, not one in three signed ’em — so there. An’ tha’rt not goin’ to!’
‘We want a livin’ wage,’ he declared.
‘Hanna you got one?’ she cried.
‘Han we?’ he shouted. ‘Han we? Who does more chaunterin’ than thee when it’s a short wik, an’ tha gets ’appen a scroddy twenty-two shillin’? Tha goes at me ’ard enough.’
‘Yi; but what better shall you be? What better are you for th’ last two strikes — tell me that?’
‘I’ll tell thee this much, th’ mesters doesna’ mean us to ha’e owt. They promise, but they dunna keep it, not they. Up comes Friday night, an’ nowt to draw, an’ a woman fit to ha’e yer guts out for it.’
‘It’s nowt but th’ day-men as wants the blessed Minimum Wage — it’s not butties.’
‘It’s time as th’ butties did ha’e ter let their men make a fair day’s wage. Four an’ sixpence a day is about as ’e’s allowed to addle, whoiver he may be.’
‘I wonder what you’ll say next. You say owt as is put in your mouth, that’s a fac’. What are thee, dost reckon? — are ter a butty, or day-man, or ostler, or are ter a mester? — for tha might be, ter hear thee talk.’
‘I nedna neither. It ought to be fair a’ round.’
‘It ought, hang my rags, it ought! Tha’rt very fair to me, for instance.’
‘An’ arena I?’
‘Tha thinks ’cause tha gi’es me a lousy thirty shillin’ reg’lar th’art th’ best man i’ th’ Almighty world. Tha mun be waited on han’ an’ foot, an’ sided wi’ whativer tha says. But I’m not! No, an’ I’m not, not when it comes to strikes. I’ve seen enough on ’em.’
‘Then niver open thy mouth again if it’s a short wik, an’ we’re pinched.’
‘We’re niver pinched that much. An’ a short wik isn’t no shorter than a strike wik; put that i’ thy pipe an’ smoke it. It’s th’ idle men as wants th’ strikes.’
‘Shut thy mouth, woman. If every man worked as hard as I do...’
‘He wouldn’t ha’e as much to do as me; an’ ’e wouldna. But I’ve nowt to do, as tha’rt flig ter tell me. No, it’s th’ idle men as wants th’ strike. It’s a union strike, this is, not a men’s strike. You’re sharpenin’ th’ knife for your own throats.’
‘Am I not sick of a woman as listens to every tale as is poured into her ears? No, I’m not takin’ th’ kid. I’m goin’ out.’
He put on his boots determinedly.
She rocked herself with vexation and weariness.