Friarswood Post Office

CHAPTER XI—BETTER DAYS FOR PAUL

Paul’s reading was a great prize to Alfred, for he soon grew tired himself; his sister could not spare time to read to him, and if she did, she went mumbling on like a bee in a bottle.  Her mother did much the same, and Harold used to stumble and gabble, so that it was horrible to hear him.  Such reading as Paul’s was a new light to them all, and was a treat to Ellen as she worked as much as to Alfred; and Paul, with hands as clean as Alfred’s, was only too happy to get hold of a book, and infinitely enjoyed the constant supply kept up by Miss Selby, to make up for her not coming herself.

Then came the making out the accounts, a matter dreaded by all the family.  Ellen and Alfred both used to do the sums; but as they never made them the same, Mrs. King always went by some reckoning of her own by pencil dots on her thumb-nail, which took an enormous time, but never went wrong.  So the slate and the books came up after tea, one night, and Ellen set to work with her mother to pick out every one’s bill.  There might be about eight customers who had Christmas bills; but many an accountant in a London shop would think eight hundred a less tough business than did the King family these eight; especially as there was a debtor and creditor account with four, and coals, butcher’s meat, and shoes for man and horse, had to be set against bread, tea, candles, and the like.

One pound of tea, 3s. 6d., that was all very well; but an ounce and a half of the same made Ellen groan, and look wildly at the corner over Alfred’s bed, as if in hopes she should there see how to set it down, so as to work it.

‘Fourpence, all but—’ said a voice from the arm-chair by the fire.

Ellen did not take any particular heed, but announced the fact that three shillings were thirty-six pence, and six was forty-two.  Also that sixteen ounces were one pound, and sixteen drams one ounce; but there she got stuck, and began making figures and rubbing them out, as if in hopes that would clear up her mind.  Mrs. King pecked on for ten minutes on her nail.

‘Well,’ she said, ‘Paul’s right; it is fourpence.’

‘However did you do it?’ asked Ellen.

‘As 16 to 1.5, so 42,’ quoth Paul quickly.  ‘Three halves into 42; 21 and 42 is 63; 63 by 16, gives 3 and fifteen-sixteenths.  You can’t deduct a sixteenth of a penny, so call it fourpence.’

Ellen and Alfred were as wise as to the working as they were before.

Next question—Paul’s answer came like the next line in the book—Mrs. King proved him right, and so on till she was quite tired of the proofs, and began to trust him.  Alfred asked how he could possibly do such things, which seemed to him a perfect riddle.

‘I should have had my ears pretty nigh pulled off if I took five minutes to work that in my head,’ said Paul.  ‘But I’ve forgotten things now; I could do it faster once.’

‘I’m sure you hadn’t need,’ said Mrs. King; ‘it’s enough to distract one’s senses to count so fast.  All in your poor head too!’

‘And I’ve got to write them all out to-morrow,’ said Ellen dismally; ‘I must wait till dark, or I shan’t set a stitch of work.  I wish people would pay ready money, and then one wouldn’t have to set down their bills.  Here’s Mr. Cope, bread—bread—bread, as long as my arm!’

‘If you didn’t mind, maybe I could save you the trouble, Miss Ellen,’ said Paul.

‘Did you ever make out a bill?’ asked Mrs. King.

‘Never a real one; but every Thursday I used to do sham ones.  Once I did a jeweller’s bill for twelve thousand pounds and odd!  It is so long since I touched a pen, that may be I can’t write; but I should like to try.’

Ellen brought a pen, and the cover of a letter; and hobbling up to the table, he took the pen, cleared it of a hair that was sticking in it, made a scratch or two weakly and ineffectually, then wrote in a neat clear hand, without running up or down, ‘Friarswood, Christmas.’

‘A pretty hand as ever I saw!’ said Mrs. King.  ‘Well, if you can write like that, and can be trusted to make no mistakes, you might write out our bills; and we’d be obliged to you most kindly.’

And so Paul did, so neatly, that when the next evening Mr. Cope walked in with the money, he said, looking at Harold, ‘Ah! my ancient Saxon, I must make my compliments to you: I did not think you could write letters as well as you can carry them.’

‘’Twas Paul did it, Sir,’ said Harold.

‘Yes, Sir; ’twas Paul,’ said Mrs. King.  ‘The lad is a wonderful scholar: he told off all the sums as if they was in print; and to hear him read—’tis like nothing I ever heard since poor Mrs. Selby, Miss Jane’s mother.’

‘I saw he had been very well instructed—in acquaintance with the Bible, and the like.’

‘And, Sir, before I got to know him for a boy that would not give a false account of himself, I used to wonder whether he could have run away from some school, and have friends above the common.  If you observe, Sir, he speaks so remarkably well.’

Mr. Cope had observed it.  Paul spoke much better English than did even the Kings; though Ellen was by way of being very particular, and sometimes a little mincing.

‘You are quite sure it is not so?’ he said, a little startled at Mrs. King’s surmise.

‘Quite sure now, Sir.  I don’t believe he would tell a falsehood on no account; and besides, poor lad!’ and she smiled as the tears came into her eyes, ‘he’s so taken to me, he wouldn’t keep nothing back from me, no more than my own boys.’

‘I’m sure he ought not, Mrs. King,’ said the Curate, ‘such a mother to him as you have been.  I should like to examine him a little.  With so much education, he might do something better for himself than field-labour.’

‘A very good thing it would be, Sir,’ said Mrs. King, looking much cheered; ‘for I misdoubt me sometimes if he’ll ever be strong enough to gain his bread that way—at least, not to be a good workman.  There! he’s not nigh so tall as Harold; and so slight and skinny as he is, going about all bent and slouching, even before his illness!  Why, he says what made him stay so long in the Union was that he looked so small and young, that none of the farmers at Upperscote would take him from it; and so at last he had to go on the tramp.’

Mr. Cope went up-stairs, and found Ellen, as usual, at her needle, and Paul in the arm-chair close by Alfred, both busied in choosing and cutting out pictures from Matilda’s ‘Illustrated News,’ with which Harold ornamented the wall of the stair-case and landing.  Mr. Cope sat down, and made them laugh with something droll about the figures that were lying spread on Alfred.

‘So, Paul,’ he said, ‘I find Mrs. King has engaged you for her accountant.’

‘I wish I could do anything to be of any use,’ said Paul.

‘I’ve half a mind to ask you some questions in arithmetic,’ said Mr. Cope, with his merry eyes upon the boy, and his mouth looking grave; ‘only I’m afraid you might puzzle me.’

‘I can’t do as I used, Sir,’ said Paul, rather nervously; ‘I’ve forgotten ever so much; and my head swims.’

The slate was lying near; Mr. Cope pushed it towards him, and said, ‘Well, will you mind letting me see how you can write from dictation?’

And taking up one of the papers, he read slowly several sentences from a description of a great fire, with some tolerably long-winded newspaper words in them.  When he paused, and asked for the slate, there it all stood, perfectly spelt, well written, and with all the stops and capitals in the right places.

‘Famously done, Paul!  Well, and do you know where this place was?’ naming the town.

Paul turned his eyes about for a moment, and then gave the name of a county.

‘That’ll do, Paul.  Which part of England?’

‘Midland.’

And so on, Mr. Cope got him out of his depth by asking about the rivers, and made him frown and look teased by a question about a battle fought in that county.  If he had ever known, he had forgotten, and he was weak and easily confused; but Mr. Cope saw that he had read some history and learnt some geography, and was not like some of the village boys, who used to think Harold had been called after Herod—a nice namesake, truly!

‘Who taught you all this, Paul?’ he said.  ‘You must have had a cleverer master than is common in Unions.  Who was he?’

‘He was a Mr. Alcock, Sir.  He was a clever man.  They said in the House that he had been a bit of a gentleman, a lawyer, or a clerk, or something, but that he could never keep from the bottle.’

‘What! and so they keep him for a school-master?’

‘He was brought in, Sir; he’d got that mad fit that comes of drink, Sir, and was fresh out of gaol for debt.  And when he came to, he said he’d keep the school for less than our master that was gone.  He couldn’t do anything else, you see.’

‘And how did he teach you?’

‘He knocked us about,’ said Paul, drawing his shoulders together with an unpleasant recollection; ‘he wasn’t so bad to me, because I liked getting my tasks, and when he was in a good humour, he’d say I was a credit to him, and order me in to read to him in the evening.’

‘And when he was not?’

‘That was when he’d been out.  They said he’d been at the gin-shop; but he used to be downright savage,’ said Paul.  ‘At last he never thought it worth while to teach any lessons but mine, and I used to hear the other classes; but the inspector came all on a sudden, and found it out one day when he’d hit a little lad so that his nose was bleeding, and so he was sent off.’

‘How long ago was this?’