Poetry and Lemon Cakes
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Soul Cakes free porn video
In the little village in which I grew up, the whole idea of making soul cakes to give out to the poor on All Saints Eve was a bit … well … strange. Apart from the Mays (who owned both Manor Farm and the stone quarry) we residents of Lower Steadlea were all as poor as each other. Nevertheless, sometime during the last few days of each October our cottage was always filled with the heady aroma of allspice, nutmeg, cinnamon, and ginger as my mother demonstrated her skill as the village’s ‘champion’ soul cake baker.
The first Halloween of which I have a reasonably clear recollection must have been when I was seven. That was long before I’d ever heard of Linus van Pelt or the Great Pumpkin. It was even before I knew anything about ‘trick or treat’ — although, of course, trick or treat probably developed out of the practice of giving out the soul cakes to the poor in exchange for prayers for the dead and the not-so-dead.
On that first Halloween — the first Halloween that I remember with any clarity — my mother gave my friend Charlie and me a small parcel of soul cakes to take to Shadrach Smith.
‘Is Shadrach poor?’ I asked my mother.
She thought about it for a moment or two. ‘No, not especially poor,’ she said. ‘Well, no more so than the rest of us. But he’s on his own. He doesn’t have anyone to look after him. So I think he’ll appreciate a soul cake or two. Oh, and don’t forget to sing him a hymn.’
‘A hymn?’
‘Well, a song anyway. I know … perhaps you could sing him Baa Baa Black Sheep.’ And she laughed. I wasn’t sure why at the time.
Shadrach Smith’s wife had been killed in an accident while he was away fighting in France — which, presumably, was why Mother had said that he had no one to look after him. Shadrach worked for the Mays. He was their shepherd. And when he wasn’t shepherding, he also tended Tollerton Wood, the Ancient Wood that adjoined Manor Farm.
I can’t remember how we knew where to find Shadrach that afternoon. Perhaps Mother had told us. But he was working up in the stone shelter on the edge of the wood. The stone shelter was where the new born lambs spent their first few days if they had the misfortune to be born during a cold spell. On that particular afternoon, Shadrach, wearing his distinctive army greatcoat, still showing evidence of where his corporal’s stripes had once been, was repairing hurdles with freshly coppiced lengths of hazel.
‘What mischief you two up to then?’ he asked.
‘No mischief,’ I said. ‘Honest. Mother has made some soul cakes for you. She said that you would … umm … app … appri … appricate them?’ (Appreciate? Appricate? It’s not easy when you are only seven.)
Shadrach threw back his head and sniffed the air. ‘Oh, yes. I can smell the spices. Very nice. Very nice indeed. You tell your mother thank you most kindly.’
‘And she said that we had to sing you a song.’
‘Oh, yes?’ he said. ‘A song? And what song would that be?’
‘Three bags full?’ I said. ‘The one about the sheep?’
He laughed — rather in the way that my mother had laughed. Perhaps it was a grown-ups’ joke. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘Sing away.’
Charlie and I bellowed out our song — more or less in tune, more or less in unison. And when we had finished, Shadrach clapped his hands and nodded. ‘Very good,’ he said. ‘Very nice. And now I suppose you two will want to eat my cakes.’
‘Oh, no. They’re for you,’ I said, conscious of what Mother had said about Shadrach having no one to look after him.
‘Hmm.’ He set the parcel down on the rustic wooden stool on which he had been sitting, and slowly unwrapped it. ‘Well, there’s more than enough here for all three of us,’ he said. ‘Your mother has been very generous.’ And he handed a cake to Charlie and another to me. Then he took one of the two remaining cakes, broke it in half, and wafted one half under his nose. ‘Oh, yes,’ he said. ‘Oh, yes. That brings back the memories. Here’s to Halloween … and to all the poor lost souls.’
The poor lost souls. I had heard my Uncle Fred say something like that. ‘Who lost the souls?’ I asked Shadrach.
‘A good question. And out of the mouths of babes,’ he said — which didn’t really answer my question. And then Shadrach seemed to look at something a long way away. For perhaps half a minute, maybe more, he said nothing, he just kept staring into the distance. And then, when he finally looked at us again, he seemed surprised to see that Charlie and I were there. ‘What?’ he said. ‘What?’
I thought that he meant what was my question. ‘Who lost the souls?’ I said.
Shadrach frowned and shook his head. ‘I just seen Old Tucker,’ he said. ‘Or … I dunno … perhaps it was just a dream.’
But he still didn’t answer my question. He still didn’t say who had lost the souls. I thought that perhaps he didn’t know who had lost the souls.
‘We should go home now,’ I said.
Shadrach nodded. ‘Yes. Yes, I think it must have been a dream. I think I must have dozed off. It happens sometimes. Don’t know why.’ And then he looked at the two halves of the soul cake he was holding. ‘And please tell your mother: Thank you very kindly. For the soul cakes. Yes. Thank you.’
When we got home, I passed on Shadrach’s thanks. I also told Mother about him going to sleep in the middle of talking to us. ‘He didn’t even close his eyes,’ I said.
My mother frowned but nodded. ‘He might have been over-doing things a bit,’ she said. ‘Trying to do too much. I might say something to Mrs May when I go up to the big house.’
The following summer — or maybe it was the summer after that — Charlie and I spent quite a bit of time following Shadrach around. He let us help him round up the sheep when it was time for shearing. And he let us help with various odd jobs in the woods. And several times he just went to sleep in the middle of talking to us. When he woke up again, he always seemed just a little bit surprised that we were there. ‘What?’ he would say in a startled way. It became a sort of a joke between the three of us. What?
And then one day, towards the end of summer, Shadrach didn’t just stop in mid-sentence, he fell over. He was right in the middle of telling us how to do something — I can’t remember exactly what — and he suddenly collapsed onto the ground. At first I thought that he had died. He just collapsed the way a rabbit collapsed when Uncle Fred shot one. But then I noticed that Shadrach’s hands and feet were moving. I thought that this was probably a good sign. Perhaps he wasn’t dead after all. I certainly hoped that he wasn’t dead.
Charlie and I didn’t know what to do. ‘I think we should go and tell someone,’ I said. But then Shadrach sort of ‘woke up’ — and he seemed really confused. ‘What?’ he said.
After a minute or so, Shadrach got himself up into a sort of sitting position with his hands on his knees. ‘Oh, bugger,’ he muttered.
‘Are you all right, Shadrach?’ I asked.
‘I will be,’ he said. ‘It just happens. Don’t know why.’ And then he said: ‘Did the hunt just come through? The Master? The fox? The hounds?’
‘No,’ I said.
‘No fox?’
‘No.’
‘No,’ Shadrach echoed. ‘No. It must have just been a dream. It’s hard to tell … sometimes.’
After that, Shadrach just sat there in silence for another couple of minutes, and then he said: ‘I think that might be enough for today. You lads run along. I think I need to go and have a sleep.’
The following year, I won a scholarship to Eastwoods. The school year began at the beginning of September, and the first mid-term break — my very first Exeat Weekend — coincided with Halloween. When the bus dropped me off at the top of the lane, I almost thought that I could smell the spicy aromas of freshly-baked soul cakes wafting up from my mother’s kitchen. And, who knows, perhaps I could.
‘Have you made soul cakes for Shadrach?’ I asked my mother once we had finished all
the family reunion stuff.
‘I have,’ she said. ‘You can take them up to his cottage. You can take him some soup, too. He’s had a bit of an accident.’
‘Oh? What?’ I said, suddenly sounding like Shadrach himself.
‘Nobody’s quite sure. The doctor thinks that he must have fallen from the roof of the lambing shed. Shadrach just remembers that he was going to repair a roof slate, and then he can’t remember anything else until Mr May found him on the ground. It was just lucky that Mr May was taking the shortcut over to the quarry.’
When I reached Shadrach’s cottage, the doctor’s car was outside. I knocked on the door (which was partly open) and a voice called out: ‘Come.’
I let myself in and Shadrach was lying on the floor, twitching, while the doctor was just sitting on a chair beside him.
‘Is Shadrach dying?’ I asked.
The doctor shook his head. ‘No, no. He’s just having an epileptic seizure. He’ll be all right in a moment or two.’
I put the soul cakes and the soup on the table, and just stood there, not knowing what else to do.
And then Shadrach ‘woke up’ — as he had when he had collapsed when we were up in the woods a couple of years earlier. ‘What?’ he said.
‘Nothing to worry about. You’ve just had an epileptic seizure,’ the doctor said.
Shadrach tried to sit up.
‘No, just wait a moment or two,’ the doctor said.
And then Shadrach noticed me. ‘Sam! No school today? Or am I dreaming again?’
‘It’s Halloween,’ I said. ‘And Exeat Weekend. Mother has made you soul cakes.’
Shadrach sniffed the air. ‘Oh, yes. Very nice.’ For a moment or two he just lay there. And then he said to the doctor: ‘What happened, Doc?’
‘I was just going by — on my way back to Hilcote — and I thought I’d look in and see how that ankle was. You answered the door, and then you had a seizure. I suspect that this is not the first one, is it? Something that happened in the war?’
‘Could be. Hard to say,’ Shadrach said.
‘I’ll get you some tablets,’ the doctor said.
‘I take it that we didn’t go to the village green then?’
The doctor shook his head.
‘Oh, well.’
‘Right. Now let me just have a look at that ankle.’ The doctor pulled up Shadrach’s trouser leg and pulled down the top of his sock. (Shadrach wasn’t wearing any boots.) ‘Oh, yes. That’s mending nicely. Just try to stay off it for another day or so.’
‘I’ll be needing to get back to the sheep,’ Shadrach said.
‘Let me have a word with Mr May,’ the doctor said. ‘And you, young Sam, can you just stay here with Shadrach for half an hour or so? Perhaps get him one of those, umm, soul cakes.’
After the doctor had gone off to call at the manor house, Shadrach and I had a soul cake each.
‘Here’s to Halloween, and to all the lost souls,’ Shadrach said. And then, just as he was about to take a bite out of his soul cake, he said: ‘You know, I saw the lost souls, Sam. They were all lined up on the village green. Lined up as if for inspection. On parade. And they didn’t seem unhappy. They didn’t even seem to be any older. In fact, I think Old Tucker looked younger if anything. That’s the thing about Halloween, isn’t it? The lost souls are just there — almost within touching distance.’
Elle
- 12.02.2022
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