The Rainbow

"Wasn't it a dainty dish to set before a king?" cried Anna,

her eyes flashing with joy as she uttered the cryptic words,

looking at Brangwen for confirmation. He sat down with the baby,

saying loudly: "Sing up, my lad, sing up."

And the baby cried loudly, and Anna shouted lustily, dancing

in wild bliss: "Sing a song of sixpence

Pocketful of posies,

Ascha! Ascha!----"

Then she stopped suddenly in silence and looked at Brangwen

again, her eyes flashing, as she shouted loudly and

delightedly: "I've got it wrong, I've got it wrong."

"Oh, my sirs," said Tilly entering, "what a racket!"

Brangwen hushed the child and Anna flipped and danced on. She

loved her wild bursts of rowdiness with her father. Tilly hated

it, Mrs. Brangwen did not mind.

Anna did not care much for other children. She domineered

them, she treated them as if they were extremely young and

incapable, to her they were little people, they were not her

equals. So she was mostly alone, flying round the farm,

entertaining the farm-hands and Tilly and the servant-girl,

whirring on and never ceasing.

She loved driving with Brangwen in the trap. Then, sitting

high up and bowling along, her passion for eminence and

dominance was satisfied. She was like a little savage in her

arrogance. She thought her father important, she was installed

beside him on high. And they spanked along, beside the high,

flourishing hedge-tops, surveying the activity of the

countryside. When people shouted a greeting to him from the road

below, and Brangwen shouted jovially back, her little voice was

soon heard shrilling along with his, followed by her chuckling

laugh, when she looked up at her father with bright eyes, and

they laughed at each other. And soon it was the custom for the

passerby to sing out: "How are ter, Tom? Well, my lady!" or

else, "Mornin', Tom, mornin', my Lass!" or else, "You're off

together then?" or else, "You're lookin' rarely, you two."

Anna would respond, with her father: "How are you, John!

Good mornin', William! Ay, makin' for Derby," shrilling

as loudly as she could. Though often, in response to "You're off

out a bit then," she would reply, "Yes, we are," to the great

joy of all. She did not like the people who saluted him and did

not salute her.

She went into the public-house with him, if he had to call,

and often sat beside him in the bar-parlour as he drank his beer

or brandy. The landladies paid court to her, in the obsequious

way landladies have.

"Well, little lady, an' what's your name?"

"Anna Brangwen," came the immediate, haughty answer.

"Indeed it is! An' do you like driving in a trap with your

father?"

"Yes," said Anna, shy, but bored by these inanities. She had

a touch-me-not way of blighting the inane inquiries of grown-up

people.