"There'll be no need to have a clock," said Will Brangwen,
peeping out at the white clock-face on the tower, his
neighbour.
At the back of the house was a garden adjoining the paddock,
a cowshed with standing for two cows, pig-cotes and fowl-houses.
Will Brangwen was very happy. Anna was glad to think of being
mistress of her own place.
Tom Brangwen was now the fairy godfather. He was never happy
unless he was buying something. Will Brangwen, with his interest
in all wood-work, was getting the furniture. He was left to buy
tables and round-staved chairs and the dressers, quite ordinary
stuff, but such as was identified with his cottage.
Tom Brangwen, with more particular thought, spied out what he
called handy little things for her. He appeared with a set of
new-fangled cooking-pans, with a special sort of hanging lamp,
though the rooms were so low, with canny little machines for
grinding meat or mashing potatoes or whisking eggs.
Anna took a sharp interest in what he bought, though she was
not always pleased. Some of the little contrivances, which he
thought so canny, left her doubtful. Nevertheless she was always
expectant, on market days there was always a long thrill of
anticipation. He arrived with the first darkness, the copper
lamps of his cart glowing. And she ran to the gate, as he, a
dark, burly figure up in the cart, was bending over his
parcels.
"It's cupboard love as brings you out so sharp," he said, his
voice resounding in the cold darkness. Nevertheless he was
excited. And she, taking one of the cart lamps, poked and peered
among the jumble of things he had brought, pushing aside the oil
or implements he had got for himself.
She dragged out a pair of small, strong bellows, registered
them in her mind, and then pulled uncertainly at something else.
It had a long handle, and a piece of brown paper round the
middle of it, like a waistcoat.
"What's this?" she said, poking.
He stopped to look at her. She went to the lamp-light by the
horse, and stood there bent over the new thing, while her hair
was like bronze, her apron white and cheerful. Her fingers
plucked busily at the paper. She dragged forth a little wringer,
with clean indiarubber rollers. She examined it critically, not
knowing quite how it worked.
She looked up at him. He stood a shadowy presence beyond the
light.
"How does it go?" she asked.
"Why, it's for pulpin' turnips," he replied.
She looked at him. His voice disturbed her.
"Don't be silly. It's a little mangle," she said. "How do you
stand it, though?"
"You screw it on th' side o' your wash-tub." He came and held
it out to her.
"Oh, yes!" she cried, with one of her little skipping
movements, which still came when she was suddenly glad.