‘What’s that?’ asked Peterkin.

‘Sun,’ said Alice, adding more radiating lines.

‘Looks like a dandelion,’ objected Peterkin, wishing he had thought of doing one.

‘Dandelion like sun,’ said Alice and was enchanted by her own thought and flopped over in her laughter, thereby spoiling Peterkin’s drawing. He objected and there was a squabble and while Marion was separating them, Peter returned.

‘Done the shelf?’ Marion asked him, returning to her spinning.

‘Yes – a good long one. That cottage’s very strongly built. We put up a shelf along some six uprights. Lisa’s got a lot of jars and pots. Your sister must have set her up well. What’s there to eat? I’m as hungry as a horse.’

Marion put down her spindle again and busied herself getting him bread and cheese, from both of which he cut thick slices. She watched her stores anxiously.

A little appeased he looked up at his children and said, ‘What’s happened to that child’s hair? Come here, Alice.’

‘Alice hair burnt in fire,’ she told him.

‘What do you mean?’ he asked, running his hand over her head. ‘That’s cut, not burnt.’

‘Alice hair burnt in fire,’ she repeated, pointing to the fire. Marion explained about the little shears and the toenail and hair cutting.

‘But she’s a little girl,’ Peter objected. ‘You don’t cut a girl’s hair – it looks silly. It ought to hang down her back under a cap. Well, it should when she’s older.’

‘It was all over her eyes,’ Marion said, ‘but too short to tie back. Besides, it was all messed up with bits of food. It’ll grow again.’

‘I don’t like my little girl to have short hair,’ he grumbled. ‘It’s not proper for a girl. Pull your hood up, child, and wait till it grows again – and don’t put porridge in it, see?’ He patted her bottom and sent her off and started to cut himself more thick slices of bread and cheese.

‘That bread’s supposed to be for tomorrow as well,’ Marion said.

He looked up, a bit ashamed. ‘I’m famished with hunger,’ he said, but he only took one of the slices he had cut. She knew that he was eating so much because he was annoyed with her for having Alice’s hair cut. Peterkin came up, eyeing the cut slices, and said, ‘Can I have these?’

‘Well, I suppose so,’ said Marion, giving a slice to each child with a thin bit of cheese, but she herself had nothing. She took up her spindle again.

Peter suddenly clapped his hand to his ear, and said, ‘Where’s my measuring stick?’

‘On the shelf?’ said Marion, ‘It’s Sunday.’

‘No, I had it when I went to Martin’s, today, to do his shelf.’ They all searched in the gloom, but it was not on their shelf, nor was it behind Peter’s ear. The stick was something so familiar to Marion that she could hardly ‘see’ it now. It was almost part of Peter’s anatomy, for it was always behind his right ear, supported in his stiff beard and curly hair. It was a piece of white holly wood some six inches long, straight and smooth, squarish in section, but not quite square because of long use, and not quite round, so that it should not roll. On each of the four sides were short scratches at regular, but different, intervals, each scratch ingrained with soot and dirt showing clearly on the white wood which was satin-smooth, having been pushed through his greasy hair a dozen times a day for years. He, and perhaps he alone, understood the measurements marked on it. They were all small, fine measurements. For longer ones he always had a cord round his tunic with knots along it at various intervals.