(6/13) Gossip from Thrush Green Read Online Free PDF Page B

My dear Gertie always put the spuds in. I miss her, that I do.'
    Albert was embarrassed to see tears in the eyes of the widower. Mind you, he could sympathise. By and large, wives were kittle-kattle, more trouble than they were worth, but when it came to cooking or gardening they had their uses.
    'I suppose I could give you a hand,' said Albert grudgingly. 'But I don't reckon I'm up to digging trenches for a hundredweight of spuds.'
    'Oh, I'd be with you,' said Percy, blowing his nose, 'and of course there'd be a few for your garden, Albert. Or don't you bother to cook spuds, now your Nelly's gone?'
    Molly does some for me, now and again,' replied Albert, secretly nettled by this reference to his truant wife. 'I don't go hungry, and that's a fact.'
    'Your Nelly was a good cook, that I did know. Same as my dear Gertie. A lovely hand she had with puff pastry. I miss her sorely, you know.'
    Albert grunted. Who would have thought old Perce would have been so sorry for himself? Other men had to make do without a wife to look after them. He began to move slowly away from the wall. With Perce at a loose end like this he'd have him there gossiping all day.
    'When d'you want me to come up?' he asked, slashing at a dock.
    'Tomorrow night suit you? About six, say? Or earlier.'
    'Say five,' said Albert. 'Gets dark early still.'
    A welcome sound fell upon his ears. It was the landlord of The Two Pheasants opening his doors.
    Percy Hodge turned to see what was happening. Albert put down his hook on a handy tombstone and looked more alert than he had since he awoke.
    'Come and have a pint, Albert,' invited Percy.
    And Albert needed no second bidding.

    Hard by, at the village school, little Miss Fogerty was enjoying the exhilarating morning.
    The view from the large window of her terrapin classroom in the playground never failed to give her exquisite pleasure. For years she had taught in the north-east-facing infants' room in the old building, and had pined for sunlight.
    Now, transposed to this modern addition, she looked across the valley towards Lulling Woods and relished the warmth of the morning sun through her sensible fawn cardigan.
    How lucky she was to have such an understanding headmistress, she thought. Headmistress and good friend, she amended. Life had never been so rich as it was now, living at the school house, and teaching in this delightful room.
    She glanced at the large wall clock, and returned to her duties. Time for the class lesson on money, she told herself. There was a great deal to be said for the old-fashioned method of teaching the class as a whole, now and again, and some of these young children seemed to find great difficulty in recognising coins of the realm.
    She bent to extract a pile of small boxes from the low cupboard. Each contained what Miss Fogerty still thought of as the new decimal money in cardboard. Time was, when she taught for so many years in the old building, that those same tough little boxes held cardboard farthings, halfpennies, pennies, sixpences and shillings. There was still the ancient wall chart, rolled up at the back of the cupboard, which showed:
4 farthings make 1 penny
12 pennies make 1 shilling
20 shillings make 1 pound
    Miss Fogerty remembered very clearly how difficult it had been to trace the real coins and cut them out of coloured paper to fix on to the chart. But it had lasted for years, and these children's parents had chanted the table hundreds of times. She felt a pang of nostalgia for times past.
    There had been Something so solidly English about farthings and shillings! And feet and inches, come to that. She hoped that she was progressive enough to face the fact that with the world shrinking so rapidly with all this air travel, and instant communication methods, a common monetary unit was bound to come some day. Bur really, thought Miss Fogerty, putting a box briskly on each low table, it seemed so alien to be dealing in tens when twelve pence to the shilling still haunted