And going about my jobs in her own fashion;
Turning my household, likely, howthery-towthery,
While I sit mum. But it takes forty years’
Steady east wind to teach some folk; and then
They’re overdried to profit by their learning.
And so, without a complaint, and keeping her secrets,
Your mother died with patient, quizzical eyes,
Half-pitying, fixed on mine; and dying, left
Krindlesyke and its gear to its new mistress.

EZRA:
A woman, she was. You’ve never had her hand
At farls and bannocks; and her singing-hinnies
Fair melted in the mouth--not sad and soggy
As yours are like to be. She’d no habnab
And hitty-missy ways; and she’d turn to,
At shearing-time, and clip with any man.
She never spared herself.

ELIZA:
And died at forty,
As white and worn as an old table-cloth,
Darned, washed, and ironed to a shred of cobweb,
Past mending; while your father was sixty-nine
Before he could finish himself, soak as he might.

EZRA:
Don’t you abuse my father. A man, he was--
No fonder of his glass than a man should be.
Few like him now: I’ve not his guts, and Jim’s