for a meal, fetching me for a walk or, detestable absurdity!

fetching me for a wash and brush up, and she never seemed to

understand anything whatever of the political Systems across which

she came to me. Also she forbade all toys on Sundays except the

bricks for church-building and the soldiers for church parade, or a

Scriptural use of the remains of the Noah's Ark mixed up with a

wooden Swiss dairy farm. But shereally did notknow whether a

thing was a church or not unless it positively bristled with cannon,

and many a Sunday afternoon have I played Chicago (with thefear of

God in my heart) under an infidel pretence that it was a new sort of

ark rather elaborately done.

Chicago, I must explain, was based upon my father's description of

the pig slaughterings in that city and certain pictures I hadseen.

You made your beasts-which were all the ark lotreally,

provisionally conceived as pigs-go up elaborate approaches to a

central pen, from which they went down a cardboard slide four at a

time, and dropped mostsatisfyingly down a brick shaft, and pitter-

litter over some steep steps to where a head slaughterman (ne Noah)

strung a cotton loop round their legs and sent them by pin hooks

along a wire to a second slaughterman with a chipped foot (formerly

Mrs. Noah) who, if Iremember rightly, converted them into Army

sausage by means of a portion of the inside of an old alarum clock.

My mother did notunderstand my games, but my father did. He wore

bright-coloured socks and carpet slippers when he was indoors-my

mother disliked boots in the house-and he would sit down on my

little chair and survey the microcosm on the floor with admirable

<<BackPagesTo menuForward>>