CONTENTS
Cider with Rosie
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Author: Lee Laurie (1914-1947)
Year: 1959
Uncle Tom was well-mannered, something of a dandy, and he did peculiar things with his eyebrows. He could slide them independently up and down his forehead, and the habit was strangely suggestive. In moments of silence he did it constantly, and to this trick was ascribed much of his success with women. As a bachelor he had suffered almost continuous pursuit: but though slow in manner, he was fleet of foot and had given the girls a long run. Our Mother was proud of his successes. "He was a cut above the usual," she'd say. "A proper gentleman. Just like King Edward. He thought nothing of spending a pound."...
For years Uncle Tom played a wily game and avoided entanglements. Then he met his match in Effie Mansell, a girl as ruthless as she was plain. According to Mother, Effie M. was a monster, six foot high and as strong as a farm horse. No sooner had she decided that she wanted Uncle Tom than she knocked him off his bicycle and told him. The very next morning he ran away to Worcester and took a job as a tram-conductor. He would have done far better to have gone down the mines, for the girl followed hot on his heels. She began to ride up and down all day long on his tram, where she had him at her mercy; and what made it worse, he had to pay her fares: he had never been so humiliated. In the end his nerve broke, he muddled the change, got the sack, and went to hide in a brick quarry. But the danger passed, Effie married an inspector, and Uncle Tom returned to his horses.
By now he was chastened, and the stables reassured him – you could escape on a horse, not on a tram. But what he wished for more than anything was a good woman's protection; he had found the pace too hot.
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