Each Man's Son Read Free

of the doors were single windows behind which lurked small parlors. The houses were divided in two by a common wall between the doors, behind each parlor at the back of the buildings was a kitchen, and upstairs under sharply sloping roofs were the bedrooms. The houses had all been painted the same fierce shade of iron-oxide red when they were built by the coal company; two families shared each sloping roof; all of them used a rickety board sidewalk which ran between the low doorsteps and the road. Between the sidewalk and the road was a deep ditch overgrown with thistle, burdock and coarse grass, and down the center of the road, making a right-angled turn at the corner by the colliery, ran the tracks of the tramline which bound the collieries to their heart in Broughton.
    Tonight as Mollie and Alan passed the tram stop and went their way down the board sidewalk there was activity along thewhole row. Before each house, beside each low doorstep, a washtub had been set on a stool. In front of each tub a miner just back from the pit crouched, stripped to the waist, while his wife, working hard with both arms, scrubbed the coal dust off his face, neck, back, shoulders and arms. Mollie and Alan passed them one by one and Mollie exchanged greetings with some of the wives. There was a loud splashing of water and a grunting and spitting from the men as the two figures went by, but the boy saw no adventure in the scene. It had been this same way every night of his life when the weather was warm.
    In the kitchen that evening, after they had finished their supper, Alan took the sea shell from his pocket and held it against his ear.
    â€œMummy, listen!”
    He handed her the shell and she also held it against her ear. “All shells sound like that,” she said. “They remember the sea.”
    â€œHow can they remember? They’re not alive.”
    Her face lightened as she thought of an answer. “It was in the book we read with the birds and snakes and fish. It said that the first things that ever lived were in the sea. Are you listening, Alan? That means the shell is so old the noise in it is the oldest sound in the world.”
    She was pleased because he seemed to be satisfied and for a moment she watched him as he listened to the shell. Then she looked at the alarm clock on the shelf over the table and told him it was late and past his bedtime. He got up and went upstairs slowly, knowing that because it was Saturday night his mother would be going out. Under the sharp slant of the roof he took off his shirt and hung it on a nail. Then he took off his pants and finally his shoes and stockings. He laid his shoes side by side on the floor by the head of his cot and carefully pressed down the creases in his pants before he laid them on a wooden chair. He turned the socks inside out and laid them on the back of the chair and finally took a flannelette nightgown from under his pillow and put it on. The shellwent under the pillow where the nightgown had been, he scrambled into bed and pulled the covers up to his chin and lay on his back.
    â€œMummy,” he called. “I’m here.”
    A moment later he heard the stairs creak and then she came in and looked quickly to see how well he had disposed of his clothes.
    â€œNow,” she said, and smiled at him as she sat on the edge of his cot. “You’re all ready for sleep.”
    â€œNo. I’m not sleepy.”
    â€œBut that is the time you grow, and think how strong you must grow if your father is going to be pleased when he comes home.”
    Alan’s voice was muffled. “Does Father remember me?”
    â€œOf course he does.”
    â€œDonald’s father doesn’t have to remember him. He comes home every night.”
    She slipped off the edge of the cot and sat down on the floor beside him, to make her serious face on a level with his. “Look at me, Alan.”
    He turned on his side to face her.
    â€œNow, don’t