The Book of Ebenezer le Page by G.B. Edwards

was decided it couldn’t go on any longer, something must be done about it; and the Reverend Dumond, who had managed to get himself dragged into it somehow, said it would be a good idea if the family was to call on my uncle in a body and ‘appeal to his better feelings’. The husbands didn’t have time, or couldn’t be bothered; but the brigade of Le Page women and children, under the command of the Reverend Dumond, advanced in line of attack on the enemy camp. The children brought up the rear to appeal to my uncle’s better feelings. Raymond was three or four, and holding on to his mother’s hand; and Horace was seven or eight, and rough already and throwing stones; and his young brother, Cyril, was in the bassinette. Tabby, my sister, who’d just left school, had her hair up because she was going out to service. I was in long trousers. The good minister forced a way through the jungle and got to the front door. My uncle had a crowd of fellows in the house singing drunk; and he must have had his spies out, for they had piled the furniture against the front door and barricaded themselves in. The Reverend knocked and knocked, and tried the handle, and begged them to open in the Name of the Lord. He then commanded them to let him in if they feared damnation. They didn’t. He had to beat a retreat. He said even the Grace of God was unavailing against the unrepentant sinner.
    The drinking and singing went on for a week. The neighbours gathered outside and stood by the hedge and listened, while the big sunflowers looked down smiling. Then one morning all was quiet. The front door was open and my Uncle Nat’s friends had vanished in the night. The good neighbours got worried and, to cut a long story short, he was found lying dead with not a stitch of clothing on him, or a rag on the bed. All the money had been spent and the friends had taken everything they could lay their hands on, except the pictures and ornaments, which they didn’t want, and the heavy furniture they couldn’t carry.
    He was put away privily, as it say in the Bible. A hearse and two carriages : the three sisters in one and the three husbands in the other. He was buried with his mother, and was the last to be put in that grave because it was full. There was a share-out of the few things left; but there was no trouble. Nobody wanted the pictures; but nobody had the heart to burn them because he had made them with his own hands, stitch by stitch. La Hetty got the china fowl she wanted; and was happy. My Aunt Prissy said I could choose anything I liked, because I had grown to be such a fine strong boy. I chose the two china dogs on the mantelpiece. They are on my mantelpiece at this moment, listening with their long ears to every word I am writing down. I like my two china dogs. When I write down anything wicked, one of them look very serious; but the other one, he wink.
    The only article of furniture that came to my mother was the grandfather clock. It was made by Naftel, his name is on the front; and it have only five or six wheels and a weight on a chain and a long pendulum with a big brass bob, yet it is never a minute wrong. I don’t think I could live now, if I didn’t hear the slow tick-tock, tick-tock of my grandfather clock. One night, only a few weeks ago, I forgot to wind it before I went to bed. I’m getting into the way of forgetting to do things, I don’t know why. When it stopped in the night, I woke up. The place was dead.
    Les Sablons was sold and the money divided among the sisters. I know there was a lot of fuss and bother about getting the money, because La Prissy and La Hetty wasn’t speaking at the time and wouldn’t meet together in the lawyer’s office to sign the papers. When La Prissy and La Hetty was speaking, they went around together like a pair of Siamese twins and wore twin mushroom hats. When they wasn’t speaking, they didn’t know each other if they