The children had joined them at the table and were eating slices of homemade bread spread with homemade jam, and now Jimmy smiled at Glenys. ‘You ain’t the only one who’ll be learning, Auntie Glenys,’ he told her. ‘We ain’t going to be supercargo, we’re going to be real good helpers, ain’t we, little sister?’

Mo turned towards Glenys, and spoke through a mouthful of bread and jam. ‘That’s right, Auntie Glenys, we’s going to be workers same as you and our dad,’ she said. ‘Supercargo is what they call someone who pays to travel on a working ship; ain’t that right, our dad?’

‘That’s right, button,’ Sam said, spearing a piece of bacon and winking at Jimmy. ‘But we’ll start working our passage the moment I finish this grand breakfast, by beginning to clear the yard.’

Chapter 13

ALTHOUGH GLENYS HAD assured her host and hostess that she would be quite happy to remain on the farm as a worker until the weather cleared, she was secretly worried that Sam’s first antagonism would rear its ugly head once more now that they were constantly with the children. Jimmy clung to his father, wanting to show him that all had been forgiven and forgotten, but Mo, Glenys thought, was still a little wary of a man she could scarcely remember. She tended to attach herself to Glenys, and though Glenys did her best to encourage the child to get to know her father it was uphill work. Mo chatted away to Nain and Taid and to Glenys herself, but she was still shy with Sam. At first, Glenys had thought that Sam might think she was deliberately encouraging Mo to work with her rather than with him, but Sam showed no signs of the jealousy which had upset her when she had first met him. And then one day, when she and Mo were in the kitchen baking scones whilst the men carried bales of hay out to the cows in the high pasture, she discovered at least one reason for Mo’s attitude to her father. Until now Glenys had avoided the subject, but that morning, after they had been snowed in for the best part of two weeks, Taid had sniffed the air and said there was a thaw coming. ‘Shan’t be shut in much longer,’ he said cheerfully. He turned to Mo. ‘You and Jimmy will be able to start school by the end of the week. See if I’m not right.’

Mo’s obvious pleasure at the prospect of spending large parts of each day away from the farm prompted Glenys to try to find out why the child seemed so ill at ease in her father’s company. When they had finished cutting out a tray of scones and slid them into the oven to bake, Glenys asked the question on her mind. ‘Mo, my love, has your dad said anything to upset you?’

Mo had been making a little figure out of the remains of the scone mixture, but now she looked up and shook her head, then dropped her eyes to her work once more. ‘Don’t know what you mean,’ she said. ‘This here scone boy what I’m making is for Jimmy. If there’s enough pastry over I’ll make one for Taid; I’ll make one for Daddy too if you like, so long as he doesn’t try to kiss me.’ She shuddered expressively. ‘I don’t like beardy kisses; they scratch.’