it like
yesterday. 'Mother,' she says, 'I'm ill; I'm goin' to die; you won't
let them take my child, will you?' I thought her wanderin', an' she
was so gentle it frightened me; for we was always saucy ladies, I can
tell you--every one of us, an' you can see Dawn is the same now. But
that's only a way; w'en I'm ill she's as tender as anythink. It's
grandma wouldn't this do you good, and that do you good? An' her
little hands is very clever an' nice about my old bones w'en they
ache. Well, her mother was took bad an' me an' her father done our
best, an' her baby came into the world--a poor miserable little
winjin' thing, an' its mother turnin' over said, 'What's that light,
mother, comin' in, is it the Dawn?' an' lookin' up I see it was the
Dawn; an' she never spoke again, but went off simple an' sudden just
then, an' that's how Dawn come to get her name. I never thought she'd
live to be called by it though. Little winjin' thing! I had to feed
her on the bottle an' everythink disagreed with her. We had to keep a
old cow especial. I remember her as clear as yesterday--a big old cow
with a dew-lap an' a crumpled horn; we called her Ladybird because she
was spots all over. As for _them_ getting Dawn! They had the cheek to
write an' say if it was a boy they'd take it. They had the cheek after
what happened--that's swells for you again! I writ them one letter in
return that I reckon ought to last them to their dying day. I told
them it wasn't any matter to them what _my_ child was; that they had
_murdered_ one already, let that be sufficient for them; that they'd
get no more unless over my dead body; an' that all I regretted was
that the child had any of their cowardly blood in it, that it almost
discouraged me about its rarin'. An' Dawn don't know her name, an'
won't unless she's married. Her father married again, an' I'm glad to
say never had another child, an' I believe hankers for Dawn, an' he
will hanker for my part; an' I've got Dawn tootered up agen him too.
Now you can see the blow it would be to me if she took up with a
swell--there's no happiness marryin' out of yer own religion or class.
Mine was what I'd call a love match now. Jim Clay _was_ a lover! I've
seen him come in with a team of five all buckin', an' it snowin' an'
never anythink but a laugh out of him. He'd ride miles an' miles to
see me. The crawlers about these parts nowadays toddle about on bikes
or sit like great-grandfathers in sulkies, an' if it was