In Salisbury, Mr. Thresher had of course paid the usual retail prices for his goods, and in Wilton he sold them for twice those amounts, or more. It was odd that he found customers. Probably it was sometimes convenient for Wilton people to buy a reel of cotton or a piece of tape near home; and by the sale of trifles like these, Thresher slowly built up quite a little fortune. He invested his savings in derelict house property which he let to very poor people who could not complain of the condition of their cottages, as they could not afford to move out of them. He went from house to house collecting his rents on the days when he did not walk to Salisbury.
Mrs. and Miss Thresher sold in the shop, and we were often their customers. Our favourite purchases were halfpenny balls of wool. In Salisbury Mr. Thresher bought skeins of very cheap wool in bright colours, and then he and his wife and daughter wound this off into balls containing each about a yard. These were just what we wanted for making our Christmas presents. We made woollen balls for babies by twisting our wool round two cardboard circles, and then clipping the edges; or else we made wool mats in French knitting. This horrible craft is, I hope, now forgotten, for nothing could be more ugly than it is. Its one charm was that it was extremely easy to do. Four tintacks were hammered into an empty cotton reel, and a succession of loops twisted over these. Then a long wormlike thing began to ooze out from the opposite end of the reel. We French knitted short lengths of wool of every colour, and finally twisted the variegated worm into a round wool mat to be presented to a mother or some other grown-up female relation.
For children, the most attractive corner in Thresher’s shop was the penny window—a narrow slit of glass in which were displayed the delapidated toys which the old man bought up for next to nothing, so that even at a penny each they brought him in a handsome profit. Children’s noses were always pressed against this window; and never in my life have I wanted anything more than a most clumsily made Toby jug of some sort of stoneware which once lay there. On it was the face of a bearded nigger, quite hideous, and moulded very roughly. I was bent on possessing it, and though my mother was not in favour of it, she allowed me to buy it at last. For a week I was supremely happy. It really was as delightful as I expected. Then one day, I used it to hold painting water, and I washed it afterwards. When it came out of the wash-tub, the nigger was a nigger no more. His face was a dead white, upon which the lumps and excrescences which had been so fascinating in the negroid type had become only deformities. My one wish was that Mamma should never see this metamorphosis. It would have too cruelly proved that she had been right. I felt this very much.
The townspeople said of Mr. Thresher that he attended either Church or Chapel without prejudice in favour of either, as long as he was always present for the collection. This was not from generosity. He wanted to hand the bag. As he had customers of all denominations, he was determined to be seen by all in whatever place of worship he was present.
He added to his income in all sorts of ways—by waiting at the Mayor’s banquet, or at my father’s annual choir supper. After one of these he won a nickname which stuck to him for life—Old Apple-Pie. It somehow became known that he had carried home as perquisites an uneaten apple tart and a rice pudding, and a few evenings later, an anonymous rhymed alphabet was pushed under the door of every house in the town. It began:
A was an Apple-Pie made for the choir.
B was the Baker who baked it with fire.
C was the Cook who made it look nice.
D was the Draper who liked it with rice.
I believe the waggish poet was never identified.
Deaf old Mrs. Staples lived a few doors away from Thresher. She was the wife of the chemist. Beside her cheeks were unchangingly set some bunches of very hard, neat, grey curls, and she wore a large frilled cap trimmed with bows of magenta ribbon. Cairngorms were her favourite stones, and the high tucker of starched lace at her throat was always fastened by a very large one. When a customer rang the bell, Mr. Staples would shuffle rather furtively into the shop from the sitting-room, taking care to shut the glass door behind him. In spite of this, it was always possible to hear the loud unmodulated deaf voice of Mrs. Staples, talking angrily about Predestination with her friends.
‘We know that the Childurn of Israel were chosen from all Eternity to be the Elect of Jehovah,’ she chanted triumphantly, though I know not why this gave her such immense personal delight; but how I should now have enjoyed these tremendous conversations!
In
