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Seven Xmas Eves , Being the romance of a social evolution by Richard Dehan et al.

123 pages

NEVER having had much book-learning in my time, having entered into that state of life into
which it pleased them above to call me, more than fifty years before the piano began to be
taught in Board-schools, with part singing on the cistern of the tonic sofas, as to hear
Cheevers’s sister Eliza’s daughter Grace’s eldest Emmeline sing “Come buy my Coloured
’Errin’,” and recite “Not a Drum was ’Eard” and the “Fall of Smackerib,” makes you feel
oysters creepin’ up and down the small of your back.
Being a plain person, accustomed to call a spade a spade, and so hope do not give
offence—I, the undersigned Mary Cheevers, washer-woman, being called on by some as I
have reason, the dear Lord knows, to love and reverence, write my plain story in my own
plain way, and with the best of intentions, though a difficulty with the spelling—Eliza’s
Grace’s Emmeline not being always handy—and a cramped hand from soaking in the tub
for many, many labouring years.
Me and Cheevers was newly married at the time I am asked to go back to, and in poor
circumstances, but hopeful, Cheevers doing a small trade in coke an’ cheap vegetables, and
me taking in what washing I could get, which was mostly that of poor folks; but poverty will
sometimes ’ide a empty cravin’ under a clean shirt, and all the more credit I says, as my
motto have been throughout my whole life— and I have seen some ups and downs in my
time—Keep Yourself Respectable.