(3/20) Storm in the Village Read Online Free PDF Page B

happen to see them, that all's well here, and there's nothing to worry about.'
    Full of importance, and heavy with the dramatic tales which they would be able to unfold, they hastened away, chattering among themselves, and I returned to Mr Willet.
    He was standing on my desk, surveying the ugly splinters of glass which protruded from the edges of the skylight's frame.
    'I'll have to pull they out,' he said slowly. At every shuddering blast of wind, the skylight rattled dangerously, and it was obvious that we should have another shower of glass before long.
    'Best do it from the roof,' advised Joseph Coggs, who had taken a workmanlike interest in these happenings. 'If us doos it underneath us'll get glass cutting us!'
    Mr Willet surveyed the small boy with respect.
    'You're dead right, son.' He turned to me. 'I'll get down to Rogers at the forge and we'll bring his long ladder and get up on the roof.'
    'I'll take the children out of your way,' I said, opening the dividing door in the partition, and shooing my children into their younger brothers and sisters.
    ''Twould be best to nail up a bit of sack, I reckons,' continued Mr Willet, still gazing aloft. 'Catch the bits, like, and keep some of the weather out. Cor! What a caper, eh? What actually done it?'
    I told him about the lump of tiling and he stumped out into the playground to inspect it. His face was full of concern when he returned.
    'You shouldn't 'ave lifted that, miss! Might've raptured yourself. Easy enough to get a rapture, heaving rocks like that!'
    I said meekly that I was only trying to clear the place up.
    'Ah! I daresay!' said Mr Willet gravely, 'but you wants to give a thought to your organs now and again.'
    I promised that I would give my organs every consideration in the future and Mr Willet seemed mollified.
    'I'll get this straightened up, and old Rogers and I'll fix something up on the roof this afternoon, till them Caxley chaps can do their bit of glazing.'
    He bustled away, and I thought as I watched him go how fully he was enjoying our small upheaval. To Mr Willet, with all the time in the world, this was no annoying interruption to his potato sorting. It was an exciting happening, a bizarre quirk in the gentle pattern of his day, and a challenge to be met with courage, common sense and joyful zest.

    It was Mrs Pringle who reminded me about the committee meeting in the evening.
    'Can't have it here, in this glory-hole,' she said, looking at the débris with distaste. 'All catch your deaths! The vicar's bronical enough as it is!'
    'That's all right,' I said, 'we'll have it at my house. I'll put a notice on the door here, and we'll send messages after school by the children. There's only about six of us on the committee.'
    'At your place?' exclaimed Mrs Pringle. If I had suggested the school coke-pile for our rendezvous she could not have sounded more taken aback.
    'Yes,' I said, 'in the dining-room. The fire's going, and there's plenty of room, and I've even got a drop of sherry somewhere.'
    Mrs Pringle surveyed me morosely.
    'I'd best come over and put your place to rights, when I've done this lot,' she said, as one who knows where her duty lies, no matter how unpleasant. 'Can't have the gentry in that dining-room, with that brass of yours in the state it's in. Noticed it through the windows—and they could do with a wipe over!'
    I rallied as best I could under this blow, and thanked her humbly.
    'That's all right,' she answered graciously. 'Flared-up leg, or no flared-up leg, I'll do you!'
    'And it isn't as dirty as all that,' I felt compeUed to point out, still smarting slightly from this surprise attack. 'Anyone would think I lived like a pig!'

    'Hm! There's pigs and pigs!' boomed Mrs Pringle enigmatically. And limping heavily, she made a triumphant exit, before I could retaliate.

4. Reviving the Flower Show
    B Y seven-twenty the committee members of the Fairacre Flower Show were assembled in my freshly furbished dining-room, enjoying, I hoped,