I suppose there are rectories up and down
the country now where the milk comes in frozen sometimes in winter,
and the children go down to wonder at it, but I never see any frozen
milk in London, so I suppose the winters are warmer than they used
to be.
About one year after his wife's death Mr. Pontifex also was gathered
to his fathers. My father saw him the day before he died. The old
man had a theory about sunsets, and had had two steps built up against
a wall in the kitchen garden on which he used to stand and watch the
sun go down whenever it was clear. My father came on him in the
afternoon, just as the sun was setting, and saw him with his arms
resting on the top of the wall looking towards the sun over a field
through which there was a path on which my father was. My father heard
him say "Good-bye, sun; good-bye, sun," as the sun sank, and saw by
his tone and manner that he was feeling very feeble. Before the next
sunset he was gone.
There was no dole. Some of his grandchildren were brought to the
funeral and we remonstrated with them, but did not take much by
doing so. John Pontifex, who was a year older than I was, sneered at
penny loaves, and intimated that if I wanted one it must be because my
papa and mamma could not afford to buy me one, whereon I believe we
did something like fighting, and I rather think John Pontifex got
the worst of it, but it may have been the other way.
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