on. 'The child's papa would strip him if he
saw him in a country tailor's funeral suit,' she said, and seemed to blow
a wind of changes on me that made me sure my father had begun to stir up
his part of the world. He sent me a prayer in his own handwriting to say
for my mother in heaven. I saw it flying up between black edges whenever
I shut my eyes. Martha Thresher dosed me for liver. Mrs. Waddy found me
pale by the fireside, and prescribed iron. Both agreed upon high-feeding,
and the apothecary agreed with both in everything, which reconciled them,
for both good women loved me so heartily they were near upon disputing
over the medicines I was to consume.

Under such affectionate treatment I betrayed the alarming symptom that my
imagination was set more on my mother than on my father: I could not help
thinking that for any one to go to heaven was stranger than to drive to
Dipwell, and I had this idea when my father was clasping me in his arms;
but he melted it like snow off the fields. He came with postillions in
advance of him wearing crape rosettes, as did the horses. We were in the
cricket-field, where Dipwell was playing its first match of the season,
and a Dipwell lad, furious to see the elevens commit such a breach of the
rules and decency as to troop away while the game was hot, and surround
my father, flung the cricket-ball into the midst and hit two or three of
the men hard. My father had to shield him from the consequences. He said
he liked that boy; and he pleaded for him so winningly and funnily that
the man who was hurt most laughed loudest.

Standing up in the carriage, and holding me by the hand, he addressed
them by their names: 'Sweetwinter, I thank you for your attention to my
son; and you, Thribble; and you, my man; and you, Baker; Rippengale, and
you; and you, Jupp'; as if he knew them personally. It was true he nodded
at random. Then he delivered a short speech, and named himself a regular
subscriber to their innocent pleasures. He gave them money, and scattered
silver coin among the boys and girls, and praised John Thresher, and
Martha, his wife, for their care of me, and pointing to the chimneys of
the farm, said that the house there was holy to him from henceforth, and
he should visit it annually if possible, but always in the month of May,
and in the shape of his subscription, as certain as the cowslip. The men,
after their fit of cheering, appeared unwilling to recommence their play,
so he ali