Captain Webb got over his exhaustion and seemed not to have been affected. But Jenny’s milk was short. Because of her wildness also Mr. Nadin decided to sell her, and he and Clem drove her to auction the following Thursday. Captain Webb bawled disconsolately. He made much more fuss over the loss of his mother than he had done about his great swim. With Flo he became a favourite, and whenever she could get away to his pen she fondled his head or let him suck her fingers.
“You’ll have ’im mardy as a kitten,” said Mr. Nadin in a pleased humour.
Flo didn’t like the name “Captain Webb”. It sounded too old. But all the rest took it up, for Dick had found Bert in the boathouse and had passed the name on to him. Flo, when no one else was about, called the calf “Jerry”, because she thought it suited his inconsequence. Three days after Jenny had gone he seemed to have forgotten that he had ever had a mother, and he accepted everything and everybody with bland, big-eyed innocence. Flo wrote home about his great adventure, describing him fully and telling how greedy he was. Since leaving home she had written to her mother about once a week, and once she had written to Ivy, but she had had no reply from either. As long as she could remember, Flo had only known her mother write two letters, both when relatives had died; and these letters had only been got out with a great deal of worry and labour. So that Flo did not expect much from her mother, but she thought that Ivy might have made an effort to write. It was hard sending letters each week without getting any reply, yet Flo persisted because she got a certain amount of comfort out of steadily thinking of home, as she had to do when she wrote. However, ten days after her letter about Jerry she was thrilled when she got in from washing the churns to see on the mantleshelf, leaning against the tin tea-canister with the picture of Queen Victoria on, a blue envelope marked with her mother’s untidy heavy blotched writing.
“Summat’s goin’ off. It’ll non be a love-letter by looks on it,” said Mrs. Nadin as Flo reached up.
Flo was tempted to tear it open at once; then after a moment’s hesitation, she thrust it in the neck of her blue working frock. It was such an event that she felt she wanted to enjoy it alone.
“Dunna you want ta read it? Happen you’ve had a fortune left,” said Mrs. Nadin; and next with unexpected intuition, “Goo upstairs an’ get it done wi’. You’ll ne’er work till tha’s got the guts out of it.”
“Can I?”
“Can a cat lick its backside? ’Course it can. Off with you, but dunna tek aw day.”
Flo ran up and shut the bedroom door and went to the window and sat on the sill, Her fingers shook and tore the envelope jaggedly. There was a single thick sheet on which the writing wavered at one place under the blue lines, then above, but hardly anywhere exactly on them. It read:
Dear Flo,
Mrs. Howels says why havent you write you promise before You went and are you Beeing good girl. Taking care of them cloathes? I got got a cold but nott to bad Mrs. Baybut got baby. boy Ivy yu know on Twntysix. When you sending sume mony stead Of tellin about JERRY ME you working work an get noathin attall better be Home 8 I, think doant you Hoping this finds as it leeves mee your Mother Millicent Royer. Write Mrs. H. PS an doant frget some cash
XXXXX mother.
When yu comin home.