Far From My Father's House Read Online Free PDF

‘Davy, Davy, hurry up.’
    ‘I don’t want any,’ Blake said and turned away.
    Annie went but only a minute or two later Mrs Lowe’s small figure was framed in the byre doorway.
    ‘Ham and eggs is nasty cold,’ she said, ‘and if you don’t eat it now you’ll get it for your dinner.’
    Blake looked at her determined little figure and smiled.
    ‘Huh,’ she said, ‘your face’ll crack next,’ and Blake followed her in to breakfast.
    *  *  *
    That night the other side of Blake’s bed was drenched so that he wouldn’t have been able to sleep on it at all but he didn’t get as far as thinking about sleeping. He went out of his room and down the hall and burst in on Tommy who was half-dressed and turned the other way. By the time Tommy had turned back Blake had launched himself at him and they ended up on the cold linoleum floor, struggling. Blake vaguely heard the girls in the doorway and then Madge who ran to the head of the stairs, crying, ‘Daddy, Daddy, the boys are fighting! Come quick!’
    And then he was being pulled off Tommy and on to his feet. Jack held them apart.
    ‘What is going on?’
    ‘Blake wet the bed and blamed it on me,’ Tommy said, recovering quickly.
    ‘I did not!’
    ‘Whoa, whoa.’ Jack had to hold Blake off Tommy again.
    ‘He did it, two nights running.’
    ‘Liar!’
    Jack dragged Tommy off to Blake’s room and there with Tommy still held he examined the bed. Then he stared at Tommy.
    ‘Why?’ he said.
    Tommy looked down.
    ‘Why behave like a child?’ Jack said.
    Tommy said nothing.
    Jack looked at him for a long time and then he released Tommy.
    ‘Leave him alone. Next time you do anything like that I’ll take you out to the barn and thrash you,’ he said to Tommy before he went.
    Tommy glared at Blake before he went off to his bedroom.
    Mrs Lowe changed the mattress and the bedding, her brow creased into a frown all the while. Annie helped her. Blake stood about. When her mother had gone Annie lingered for a moment or two.
    ‘Can you ride a horse?’
    ‘Of course I can.’
    ‘Of course?’ and Annie whisked herself out of the room.
    Blake wasn’t nearly as miserable the second night. His bed was warm and dry and the feathers in the mattress came up around and hugged him. The sound of their voices down below urged him to believe he was at home. He could go back and live in the past and know only sweet dreams until the morning.

Four

    There wasn’t as much work to do now that Blake was there and Tommy went off most afternoons with his friend Frank Harlington. Frank’s father had the big house in the area and owned most of the farms. He went away to school but he was at home now for the holidays. He was much the same age as Tommy and they had known one another all their lives.
    ‘You’re not supposed to go and leave Blake to do everything,’ Annie protested the second day that this happened.
    ‘He’s a servant. That’s what servants are for,’ Tommy replied, pulling on his coat and walking out into the yard.
    ‘No, it isn’t and you know that.’
    ‘And who are you, his mother?’
    ‘He’s younger than you. He can’t manage all afternoon on his own with Daddy away at the mart.’
    ‘If you like him so much you help him then,’ Tommy said.
    ‘I don’t like him . . .’ She stopped because Tommy was walking away and not listening and Blake was probably within earshot. ‘Tommy!’
    Madge came up behind her.
    ‘We could tell Mam.’
    ‘No, and don’t you. Daddy would belt our Tommy for it,’ and she went off up the yard and left Madge standing in the doorway.
    There was a lot to do. Blake accepted her presence without a word as they worked and when the long afternoon was finally over she was frustrated at his silence and said to his back, ‘Don’t thank me then.’
    ‘What do you want thanking for? It’s your farm.’
    ‘If it hadn’t been for me you’d have had all this to do on your own, or were you going to tell Daddy?’
    He