The three aunts withdrew from
public life. Aunt Lucy found a book of sermons in the library and
retired to her bedroom with it.
"It's the next best thing, I think," she said with a sad glance at
William.
William was beginning definitely to dislike Aunt Lucy.
"Please'm," said the cook an hour later, "the mincing machine's
disappeared."
"Disappeared?" said William's mother, raising her hand to her head.
"Clean gone'm. 'Ow'm I to get the supper'm? You said as 'ow I could
get it done this afternoon so as to go to church this evening. I can't
do nuffink with the mincing machine gone."
"I'll come and look."
They searched every corner of the kitchen, then William's mother had
an idea. William's mother had not been William's mother for eleven
years without learning many things. She went wearily up to William's
bedroom.
William was sitting on the floor. Open beside him was "Things a Boy
Can Do." Around him lay various parts of the mincing machine. His face
was set and strained in mental and physical effort. He looked up as
she entered.
"It's a funny kind of mincing machine," he said, crushingly. "It's not
got enough parts. It's _made_ wrong----"
"Do you know," she said, slowly, "that we've all been looking for that
mincin' machine for the last half-hour?"
"No," he said without much interest, "I di'n't. I'd have told you I
was mendin' it if you'd told me you was lookin' for it. It's _wrong_,"
he went on aggrievedly.
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