There was uproar somewhere among the backyards of Australia Street. It was so alarming that people at their midday meal sat still and stared at one another. A fortnight before murder had been done in the street, in broad daylight with a chopper; people were nervous. An upper window was thrown open and a startled and startling head exposed. “It’s that young devil, Johnny Flynn, again! Killing rats!” shouted Mrs. Knatchbole, shaking her fist towards the Flynns’ backyard. Mrs. Knatchbole was ugly; she had a goitred neck and a sharp skinny nose with an orb shining at its end, constant as grief.
“You wait, my boy, till your mother comes home, you just wait!” invited this apparition, but Johnny was gazing sickly at the body of a big rat slaughtered by the dogs of his friend George. The uproar was caused by the quarrelling of the dogs, possibly for honours, but more probably, as is the custom of victors, for loot.
“Bob down!” warned George, but Johnny bobbed up to catch the full anger of those baleful Knatchbole eyes. The urchin put his fingers promptly to his nose.
“Look at that for eight years old!” screamed the lady.[208] “Eight years old ’e is! As true as God’s my maker I’ll....”
The impending vow was stayed and blasted for ever, Mrs. Knatchbole being taken with a fit of sneezing, whereupon the boys uttered some derisive “Haw haws!”
So Mrs. Knatchbole met Mrs. Flynn that night as she came from work, Mrs. Flynn being a widow who toiled daily and dreadfully at a laundry and perforce left her children, except for their school hours, to their own devices. The encounter was an emphatic one and the tired widow promised to admonish her boy.
“But it’s all right, Mrs. Knatchbole, he’s going from me in a week, to his uncle in London he is going, a person of wealth, and he’ll be no annoyance to ye then. I’m ashamed that he misbehaves but he’s no bad boy really.”
At home his mother’s remonstrances reduced Johnny to repentance and silence; he felt base indeed; he wanted to do something great and worthy at once to offset it all; he wished he had got some money, he’d have gone and bought her a bottle of stout—he knew she liked stout.
“Why do ye vex people so, Johnny?” asked Mrs. Flynn wearily. “I work my fingers to the bone for ye, week in and week out. Why can’t ye behave like Pomony?”
His sister was a year younger than he; her name was Mona, which Johnny’s elegant mind had disliked. One day he re-baptized her; Pomona she became and Pomona she remained. The Flynns sat down to supper.[209] “Never mind, mum,” said the boy, kissing her as he passed, “talk to us about the cherry tree!” The cherry tree, luxuriantly blooming, was the crown of the mother’s memories of her youth and her father’s farm; around the myth of its wonderful blossoms and fruit she could weave garlands of romance, and to her own mind as well as to the minds of her children it became a heavenly symbol of her old lost home, grand with acres and delightful with orchard and full pantry. What wonder that in her humorous narration the joys were multiplied and magnified until even Johnny was obliged to intervene. “Look here, how many horses did your father have, mum ... really, though?” Mrs. Flynn became vague, cast a furtive glance at this son of hers and then gulped with laughter until she recovered her ground with “Ah, but there was a cherry tree!” It was a grand supper—actually a polony and some potatoes. Johnny knew this was because he was going away. Ever since it was known that he was to go to London they had been having something special like this, or sheep’s trotters or a pig’s tail. Mother seemed to grow kinder and kinder to him. He wished he had some money, he would like to buy her a bottle of stout—he knew she liked stout.
Well, Johnny went away to live with his uncle, but alas he was only two months in London before he was returned to his mother and Pomony. Uncle was an engine-driver............