PseudoPod 675: The New Mother (http://pseudopod.org/2019/11/15/pseudopod-675-the-new-mother/)
Author: Lucy Clifford (http://pseudopod.org/people/lucy-clifford/)
Narrator: Eliza Chan (http://pseudopod.org/people/eliza-chan/)
Host: Alasdair Stuart (http://pseudopod.org/people/alasdair-stuart/)
Audio Producer: Chelsea Davis (http://pseudopod.org/people/chelsea-davis/)
The New Mother was first published in Anyhow Stories, Moral and Otherwise, Macmillan and Co., 1882.
Show Notes
Audio used in this episode:
https://archive.org/details/joel_pulham_0307/03_joel_260307_knitting_skylarks.mp3
https://freesound.org/people/viznoman/sounds/267306/
https://freesound.org/people/ross_sinc/sounds/444793/
1
The children were always called Blue-Eyes and the Turkey. The elder one was like her dear father who was far away at sea; for the father had the bluest of blue eyes, and so gradually his little girl came to be called after them. The younger one had once, while she was still almost a baby, cried bitterly because a turkey that lived near the cottage suddenly vanished in the middle of the winter; and to console her she had been called by its name.
Now the mother and Blue-Eyes and the Turkey and the baby all lived in a lonely cottage on the edge of the forest. It was a long way to the village, nearly a mile and a half, and the mother had to work hard and had not time to go often herself to see if there was a letter at the post-office from the dear father, and so very often in the afternoon she used to send the two children. They were very proud of being able to go alone. When they came back tired with the long walk, there would be the mother waiting and watching for them, and the tea would be ready, and the baby crowing with delight; and if by any chance there was a letter from the sea, then they were happy indeed. The cottage room was so cosy: the walls were as white as snow inside as well as out. The baby’s high chair stood in one corner, and in another there was a cupboard, in which the mother kept all manner of surprises.
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