Chapter 15

‘Ah! There’s a sheet or two left from the box Mrs. Fanteague sent me Christmas was a year.’ She fetched it. ‘A pen, mother?’ But no pen could be found. They were not a writing family. Isaiah kept the farm accounts, Robert’s songs were in his mind only, and when Abigail wrote on the jam-covers she borrowed a pen from Gillian. ‘There’s a drop of ink, but the pen’s lost,’ she said. Robert lit the lantern and went out, returning soon with a quill from the poultry-house, which he cut into shape. His mother’s mouth did n…