but looking back on it now, I’m not so sure.
By the evening, missus seemed to have recovered her composure. After I had cleared the table she tellt me to make Fridays entry in my book and then asked to see it straight away. I stood there very anxious while she read it over but she smiled when she finished and said it was a
great
improvement. Most of all she seemed to like the part about my mother and her good works which for dear sake was the bit I had invented! on account of I had forgot to remember what I was thinking about whilst I was working so I just made up the first thing that came into my head.
“This part about your mother,” says missus. “Write more like this.”
“I’ll do that marm,” I says, thinking well for dear sake if she can’t tell the difference that’s easy enough, I’ll just make things up all the time.
Then she went and fetched a piece of paper she had wrote on herself. She laid it on the table beside my open book and said, “Now Bessy, you spell very well but let’s just have a look at these.” So the two of us stood there looking down at her writing and mine. I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to be looking for, but I looked all the same. Her piece of paper was the first page of a letter she’d wrote to her father in the village of Wimbledon England. Hoo-rah! I thought to myself, secretly delighted to have the opportunity to read something private of hers but the first paragraph was only about the weather and then she started in about some book she had been reading dear gob it looked a very dull letter indeed with nothing very revealing at all but perhaps that was why she had chose it.
After a minute she turned to me and smiled.
“You see?” she says.
I thought about lying but I had a feeling that it wouldn’t have done me much good. So I said no, I didn’t see. Missus kept smiling.
She says, “What is the difference between this piece of writing and that one?”
I says, “This one is a letter to your father and that one is my book you give me.” A stupid answer I know but I was flustered and perhaps a bit cross for I hated to be put on the spot and made to look daft.
Any other difference?“ says the missus, still smiling.
I looked again. She leaned in and says quietly, “Look at the spaces between the words.”
It was a clue. Well I looked hard at her “Dear Father‘. There was a space between the two words right enough. Then I looked at my ”got up . There was a space there too. But the two spaces seemed much the same to me and one space plus another space is just a bigger space no matter how long you look at it.
The missus sighed and pointed at her page putting her finger next all the full stops. Then she pointed at mine. Not a full stop in sight. Then she showed me all the commas in her letter. And then she put her finger in my book. Not even a sniff of a comma there.
“I am very pleased that you are writing at greater length, Bessy,” she says. “But do you see how what you have written is all one sentence from the top of the page to the bottom. You write as you speak without pausing for breath. Have you never heard of punctuation?”
Well I tellt her I knew all about punctuation it was just I was never sure where the flip I was supposed to put it.
That was when the missus decided she would be responsible for my education. She got quite excited about the notion, she sat me down and tellt me that when she was young she had it in mind to tread the streets of London town to gather up all the little ragamuffins who couldn’t read and write and take them home to Wimbledon to teach them their ABC. I don’t suppose her father would have been pleased about that, dirty wee beggars sitting on his chairs and mucking up his Turkey carpets but as it happened the furnishings was saved.
“In the end, Bessy,” she tells me. “I didn’t do it.”
She was smiling still but she wore a little frown and there was no mistaking the sadness that had crept in behind
By the evening, missus seemed to have recovered her composure. After I had cleared the table she tellt me to make Fridays entry in my book and then asked to see it straight away. I stood there very anxious while she read it over but she smiled when she finished and said it was a
great
improvement. Most of all she seemed to like the part about my mother and her good works which for dear sake was the bit I had invented! on account of I had forgot to remember what I was thinking about whilst I was working so I just made up the first thing that came into my head.
“This part about your mother,” says missus. “Write more like this.”
“I’ll do that marm,” I says, thinking well for dear sake if she can’t tell the difference that’s easy enough, I’ll just make things up all the time.
Then she went and fetched a piece of paper she had wrote on herself. She laid it on the table beside my open book and said, “Now Bessy, you spell very well but let’s just have a look at these.” So the two of us stood there looking down at her writing and mine. I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to be looking for, but I looked all the same. Her piece of paper was the first page of a letter she’d wrote to her father in the village of Wimbledon England. Hoo-rah! I thought to myself, secretly delighted to have the opportunity to read something private of hers but the first paragraph was only about the weather and then she started in about some book she had been reading dear gob it looked a very dull letter indeed with nothing very revealing at all but perhaps that was why she had chose it.
After a minute she turned to me and smiled.
“You see?” she says.
I thought about lying but I had a feeling that it wouldn’t have done me much good. So I said no, I didn’t see. Missus kept smiling.
She says, “What is the difference between this piece of writing and that one?”
I says, “This one is a letter to your father and that one is my book you give me.” A stupid answer I know but I was flustered and perhaps a bit cross for I hated to be put on the spot and made to look daft.
Any other difference?“ says the missus, still smiling.
I looked again. She leaned in and says quietly, “Look at the spaces between the words.”
It was a clue. Well I looked hard at her “Dear Father‘. There was a space between the two words right enough. Then I looked at my ”got up . There was a space there too. But the two spaces seemed much the same to me and one space plus another space is just a bigger space no matter how long you look at it.
The missus sighed and pointed at her page putting her finger next all the full stops. Then she pointed at mine. Not a full stop in sight. Then she showed me all the commas in her letter. And then she put her finger in my book. Not even a sniff of a comma there.
“I am very pleased that you are writing at greater length, Bessy,” she says. “But do you see how what you have written is all one sentence from the top of the page to the bottom. You write as you speak without pausing for breath. Have you never heard of punctuation?”
Well I tellt her I knew all about punctuation it was just I was never sure where the flip I was supposed to put it.
That was when the missus decided she would be responsible for my education. She got quite excited about the notion, she sat me down and tellt me that when she was young she had it in mind to tread the streets of London town to gather up all the little ragamuffins who couldn’t read and write and take them home to Wimbledon to teach them their ABC. I don’t suppose her father would have been pleased about that, dirty wee beggars sitting on his chairs and mucking up his Turkey carpets but as it happened the furnishings was saved.
“In the end, Bessy,” she tells me. “I didn’t do it.”
She was smiling still but she wore a little frown and there was no mistaking the sadness that had crept in behind
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