LITMIR.BIZ

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I’d rather stay here with you.’

      Granny shook her head. ‘Be that as it may, there’ll be nothing but bad memories for you here. You deserve better. Happen it’s time you were changing yer sky!’

      Adeline Yewell was too busy finishing off the Christmas pig to see the letter that George, the postman, delivered to the kitchen table at Cragside Farm. He would be wanting his forenoon drinkings and a bit of gossip with Carrie before he headed across the moor on foot to the next farm.

      The farmer’s wife had trapped Myrtle, the brown pig, against the wall so she squatted on her fat rump. Then Adeline shoved a ball of oatmeal down the pig’s throat and gave her a sup of good buttermilk from the bucket to swallow. ‘That’s a girl, stuff thyself!’ She wanted some fat sweet flesh on this porker before she got seen to with an axe, strung up and bled off. At least her pigs died happy and belly stuffed. No place for oversentiment on a farm, she thought.

      There was so much to see to before the big day and she didn’t want George holding up Carrie Sutcliffe from her chores. They were getting a bit sweet on each other, them two. She hoped that didn’t mean another live-in domestic giving notice. It was hard to get girls and lads to stay overlong up on the tops. They wanted to be in nearer the town.

      Oh, what it was to be love-struck and silly! She could still recall the time when she’d made eyes at Joe Yewell at the Christmas dance, nearly forty years ago. It’s a good job she had collared and bagged him by the New Year stir-up in the village hall as he stomped across the wooden floor in his shirtsleeves, before the fiddle and the stamp of dancing feet became Satan’s snare.

      Once he got ‘saved’ in Brother Handel Morton’s tent he hadn’t time for worldly gatherings, only preaching and chapel meetings. She’d caught him just on the turn, and her being Church not Chapel, it could have made things impossible.

      The two didn’t mix in Windebank village, never had and never would, but love conquers all, so they say. The two of them went their separate ways each Sunday morning.

      If only he could have made Ellen, their daughter, see sense when she fell for that Scotch navvy Gilchrist. They both felt it was a grave mistake, but the lass burned her bridges good and proper, and paid the price. They’d not even gone to her funeral for fear of catching the flu and passing it on up the dale.

      That act of cowardice had never sat easy on her; cost many a sleepless night. To abandon their own daughter was not something either of them was proud of but Ellie’d made her bed and all that. It was her choice to go rushing up to Gretna Green making a fool of them all, having a bairn not six months afterwards. It was not easy to stomach having a thankless child.

      Adeline’d done her bit for the kiddies but had never seen the last one nor wanted to, but her father being a Catholic and fond of drink was a worry. Sometimes she lay in bed and wondered if the girl had Ellie’s fair hair or the blue Yewell eyes renowned in the district for the distinctive dark ring round the iris, making them sparkle like sapphires. It was those blue globes that had drawn her to Joe’s side. When he gazed into her face she was lost.

      ‘Get a grip o’ thyself,’ she sighed at such memories. There were geese to be plucked and sent down to market and the butcher. She hoped the prices held up for Christmas as it had been a tough year for farmers and workers, what with the General Strike and lay-offs.

      She must parcel up a few bits for the Gilchrist lass down in Scarperton. She wasn’t sure whether Miriam was six or seven, but Mildred at the haberdashers always set aside a few items that hadn’t sold for her to parcel up. Time flew past so quickly. Where had the years gone?

      There’d be many cutting corners this Christmas, making do with a cheap joint or scraps down in the market town. Joe would have to temper his chapel sermons; a little less hellfire and a little more goodwill to all men, she hoped. He could get so carried away when he got in that pulpit.

      ‘Remember those good women have scrimped and saved to put a Sunday meal on the table for their kin. Don’t you go spoiling their Yorkshire puddings with your rantings. Have a bit of Christian charity.’

      ‘You’re a hard woman, Adey! Come with me and give me a signal.’

      ‘Never,’ she would laugh. ‘I like my pew comfortable and quiet, with beautiful words and no bone shaking. The vicar gives us ten minutes’ pulpit talk. That’s enough for me.’

      Joe would be out on the moors now, foddering the sheep, reciting the good bits of his sermon to himself, rendering choruses from Messiah and making sure none of his flock strayed too far, for the weather looked set for a blow-in of snow. He was a good shepherd to his flock through and through. He was for sheep and she was for cows so together they made a good team.

      Cragside Farm sat on the slope of the fell, tucked into the hillside with windowpanes looking south and west to get the best of the sun to warm the stone a treat. Once it was thronged with children, dogs and yard boys, but now it was quieter as their son Tom farmed higher out at Scar Head, and his brother, Wesley, was a teacher in Leeds with no interest in farming at all.

      This perch was fine while they were fit and strong, and Yewells were long livers, but come the next few years Joe would have to slow down a bit. Things were tough for farmers now and getting tougher, Adey thought as she sat with Carrie plucking the goose feathers into a sack. Nothing must be wasted.

      ‘There’s a letter come from Keighley,’ Carrie said, shoving the envelope across the table. ‘Who do we know in Keighley? Happen it’s a Christmas card from Paddy and the girl. What’s her name again?’ Carrie was fishing; always curious about the prodigal daughter and her infamous family who never darkened the door.

      ‘I’ve never had a card from him nor the girl, and she’s called Miriam, after Joe’s mam, as well you know. Little good that’ll do her. I’m surprised she didn’t get Theresa or Maria or some fancy saint’s name.’

      Adey stared at the handwriting, curious for a second. The address was written in a neat copperplate hand. It looked official and it was addressed to both of them.

      ‘Aren’t you going to open it?’ Carrie was at it again, rooting for information, but Adey wasn’t going to give her satisfaction so shoved the letter in her pinny pocket and promptly forgot all about it. That was the trouble with girls who lived in: they got a little too nosy about family affairs. It was none of her business who was writing to them.

      ‘Now what’s all this about you and George Thursby?’ It was Adey’s turn to go fishing.

      ‘He’s asked me if I’m going to the Christmas hop in the village hall. What shall I wear?’

      ‘Clothes would be a start if you don’t want to stir them all up,’ Adey laughed. ‘I’m sure you’ll find something to dazzle him with, but I want you back at midnight and no hanky-panky. It’s a long walk up that hill in the dark. Let him wait for his favours.’

      Carrie was blushing, her neck a circle of pink weals. ‘Mrs Yewell, what do you take me for?’ she muttered.

      ‘As silly a lass as any in the dale, as daft as a brush when it comes to a handsome face and clean shirt, but with a canny eye for a good bargain,’ she replied. ‘You could do worse than one of the Thursbys’ lads. They’re reliable, sturdy and don’t squander their brass. His mother is that careful she’d skin a dog for its fleas.’ Carrie laughed at her joke but her eyes were far away.

      ‘Mind, I was young once: only the once and look where I landed up: plucking geese, scouring pigs, mucking out and general farm dogsbody stuck on the moors in all weathers. At least George won’t make you tramp with him. It’s a good job in the Post Office, steady and secure in hard times. You could do worse. Take our Tom. When’s he ever going to get himsen wed? He’s over forty and too set in his ways.’

      Adey had been hoping her son might have taken a shine to this girl himself but he was tongue-tied when he came into female company, preferring to go his own gait and a game of darts in The Fleece, much to Joe’s dismay. If he didn’t get a move on there’d

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