The same with the boys: they were Benjamins, Jacobs,
Noahs, Enochs. I suppose the custom has come down from Puritan times.
There it is, at any rate, very strong still in the Vale.
Well, from early morning till dewy eve, when she had it out of him in
the cold tub before putting him to bed, Charity and Tom were pitted
against one another. Physical power was as yet on the side of Charity,
but she hadn't a chance with him wherever headwork was wanted. This
war of independence began every morning before breakfast, when Charity
escorted her charge to a neighbouring farmhouse, which supplied the
Browns, and where, by his mother's wish, Master Tom went to drink whey
before breakfast. Tom had no sort of objection to whey, but he had a
decided liking for curds, which were forbidden as unwholesome; and there
was seldom a morning that he did not manage to secure a handful of hard
curds, in defiance of Charity and of the farmer's wife. The latter good
soul was a gaunt, angular woman, who, with an old black bonnet on the
top of her head, the strings dangling about her shoulders, and her
gown tucked through her pocket-holes, went clattering about the dairy,
cheese-room, and yard, in high pattens. Charity was some sort of niece
of the old lady's, and was consequently free of the farmhouse and
garden, into which she could not resist going for the purposes of gossip
and flirtation with the heir-apparent, who was a dawdling fellow, never
out at work as he ought to have been.
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