(2/20) Village Diary Read Online Free PDF Page B

that Mrs Annett was expecting a child? Or did he mean, simply, that at this time of year one must take reasonable precautions? I forbore, as a respectable maiden lady, to cross-question the poor fellow, contenting myself with sending my love to the patient and a message to the effect that we should manage very well.
    The distance from my house to the school is about fifty yards, but it seemed like half a mile to my shaky legs.
    Mrs Pringle was nowhere to be seen and the stoves were unlit. Lucidly they were laid and soon burnt up well, but the school was terribly cold.
    Jim Bryant brought a note from her which read:
I am laid by with gastrick, and a flare-up of my leg. The doctor is comeing today and will let you know what he say.
Matches is hid behind bar soap on top shelf. Mr Willet makes free otherwise. Hope you can manige.
Mrs Pringle.
    Only ten of Mrs Annett's children arrived, so that with my own I had a class of twenty-nine—not too bad. Evidendy this germ is fairly widespread in the village.
    I felt too wobbly to do much active teaching, and the children worked cheerfully enough, from books, and the infants brought in their own number apparatus and reading books and got on very well.
    Dinner turned out to be neck of mutton stew and mashed potatoes, which I served out with much nausea and as little lingering as possible. Figs and custard completed this—to me—revolting meal, but the children returned again and again for helpings, with true Fairacre appetites.
    Mr Willet brought a message from Mrs Pringle during the afternoon, to the effect that Doctor Martin recommended a week off, maybe more, and that her niece over to Springbourne' would oblige while she was 'laid by." Mr Willet, after looking sadly at me for a long time, said that I looked a bit peaky to him, and suggested that I had a 'glass of stout and something substantial, like a good thick wedge of pork pie' for my supper. It was only the comforting support of the school fire-guard at my back that kept me from collapsing at the dear soul's feet.
    Nevertheless, did manage to imbibe a glass of hot milk and two digestive biscuits, before going to bed, and felt very much better.

    There appears to be no hope of getting a supply teacher while Mrs Annett is away. Mrs Finch-Edwards is fully occupied with her young baby and Miss Clare is nursing her sister, who is really very ill with this same wretched complaint.
    Luckily, in a day or two, I felt perfectly fit again, and as there are so many absentees my class is not overwhelmingly large. The age range makes it rather difficult to choose a story that will interest them all, but the 'Ameliaranne' books are proving a great standby.
    The Caxley Chronicle today carried an account of John Parr's engagement. As his fiancee is second cousin to a duke, the Caxley Chronicle has thrown poor John Parr to the lions with a casual 'who has always given generous support to the local branch of the League of Pity,' and concentrated on his bride-to-be's more glamorous connections. I foresee that Fairacre and particularly Mrs Pringle, will feel slighted.
    Mrs Pringle's niece is doing her scatter-brained best to fill her aunt's place, but she is a sore trial. She has bright, rusty-red locks, very erratically cut, with no parting, and the back view of her head resembles a particularly tousled floor mop. Her eyes are of that very light blue, peculiar either to fanatics or feather-brained individuals, and her large mouth is curved in a constant mad grin. I don't mind admitting that I find her unnerving.
    She wears a long, mauve hand-knitted woollen frock, which has been sketchily washed and pegged by the hem, so that it undulates in a remarkable fashion round her calves.
    While I was looking out our morning hymn, before school, she dusted round me, and kept up a febrile chatter which I allowed to go in one ear and out of the other. However, she caught my attention suddenly by saying proudly: 'I've just had my third!' I had heard