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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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our own tongue , but too one erst hears her say a word of it to the boy , though she is always talking to biro , or trying to talk to him ; for sometimes she falls a thinking , and they always seem very sad thoughts , and to make her forget the boy for a little ; but this is not often . * She always likes to get work near a church ; and then she brings the boy to take his day-sleep in the basket she carries at her back , as you have
seen her do now , sir . As soon as ever that boy wakes , he blows the whistle fastened round his neck ; how she taught such a young thing to do it is wonderful ! There she will stay in this hot sun , picking stones from off the field till the time is up . The farmers all know her hereabouts , and she is sure of work , for she always earns her money . Hay-making , hop-picking , harvesting , all ' s one to her . In the winter she knits , or does any kind of work the season will let her , always living in the barns , and about . She never likes to sit down to meals with any body , and
never stays long in one place ; and though they try ever so much to make her comfortable she is always on the move : just now is her restless time : last July she was worse than we had ever seen her : and now she keeps up a continued talk to the child , or works as if her li ( e were bound up in what she was about . When away from him , and not at her work , she looks as if she was ready to die . She seems to like my church better than any other ; at least she is oftener heTe than any where : she seems to make it more of a home like . I often see her
looking on the graves , as if she were longing to be lying down there . Once , while she was standing and looking , her eyes fell upon a little grave , just about for such another child as her own : she burst out in a great cry ; I thought her heart would break with it , but she stopped in a minute—gave one look to the place where the boy was sleeping—and then leapt right over the fence , and I heard two suck sobs ! the one was fainter than the other , for she must have gone at a gfeat rate , no doubt , in fear that the child might be disturbed . He ^ leeps soundly , and does
not wake at a cry , as his mother would , poor dear ! She was always such a tender-hearted creature they say . I do all I can for her , and I think she knows it ; for she looks at me sometimes in such a way , that I , old man as I am , can ' t for the life of me help crying . When it rains , I put some fresh hay in the porch , ready for her , and leave that board that you see yonder , sir , outside , for her to make e sort of a screen of . At first I used to keep watch while she was away , but
soon gave it up , as there was no need . People seldom find out her bird ' s-neet , and when they do , no one ever has had the wish to disturb it . I wish I could do more : what can I V Nothing ! nothing was to be done . The traveller shook hands with the old man , and turned hastily away . He looked towards the covert , and felt an impulse to take one glimpse of the sleeping child , but instantly checked it with the thought that the watchful mother might be at hand , and that his doing
so might cause her a momentary pain . He would not stay , for he had seen something like a calm come to that pale face , after its strong agony ; and , in the hope that peace might yet remain for such a being , he departed . It was his lot to roam over many countries ; but often , when sojourning in fairer climes , and gazing * on happier faces and lovelier forms , would his thoughts travel back to that hot July day when he rested in Malvern churchyard ; and he would wonder , with eager anxiety , what had become of * The Welsh Wanderer / S . Y .
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52 & The JHTetih tPariekrer *
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), July 2, 1834, page 520, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2635/page/60/
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