Lantana Lane Read Online Free PDF

with Herbie. The truth was that he had recently acquired a farm of his own, and he found Herbie particularly acceptable as a companion simply because he appeared to be the only person who fully understood that the reality of imaginary things is not the same as the reality of real things. Even Dave and Keithie were a little shaky on this point. Dave was apt to do his pretending in a slightly shamefaced manner which quite spoiled Tommy’s concentration, while Keithie became utterly confused, and reduced the whole art of make-believe to an absurdity. As for grown-ups, they were hopeless; all but Herbie.
    Tommy knew perfectly well that his farm was not
real
real, and he sometimes became weary of the fiction—kindly upheld by all the neighbours—that it was. However, Amy Hawkins has taken great pains to teach her children manners, so when some well-meaning adult paused to pat him on the head, and enquire how things were going on his place, he always replied that they were going good, thank you. He knew the language of farmers, and had lately added to it the word “damn,” which rather disturbed his mother, “. . . though really,” she would sigh, “the way he says it, so sort of natural, it doesn’t sound like a swearword at all.”
    â€œPut any beans in down at your place, Tommy?” some great goat would ask, and Tommy would reply, humouring him:
    â€œI put ’em in long ago.”
    â€œThey doing all right?”
    â€œThey was getting the damn bean-fly, but I sprayed ’em.”
    â€œTanks getting low, I suppose?”
    â€œNo, they’re full up. . . or they might be just two rungs down.”
    â€œHalf your luck! Mine are pretty near empty.”
    â€œMine were too, but the damn rain last night filled ’em up again.”
    â€œGo on! We didn’t get any rain here.”
    â€œDown on
my
place,” Tommy would reply firmly, “there was twelve . . . no, twenty inches, and me damn tanks are full, and me damn dam’s full too.”
    And he would smile a little sideways smile, indulging this great goat who knew nothing at all about imaginary reality. Did he not betray it by his questions? For what would be the use of such a farm as Tommy’s if things went wrong on it? It would be no better than a
real
real one. He had taken suitable steps to guard against this. He had an assistant known as Me Man on to whose shoulders he could push such jobs as he did not care to be bothered with himself; those which he did attend to were never waiting to be done, but always already accomplished, with complete success; and he made good use of “to-morrow.” He had also taken the precaution of supplying himself with a road of such surpassing badness that no wheeled vehicle save his own could negotiate it, thus checkmating the embarrassing suggestions of his acquaintances that they might come along and have a look at this place of his one day. Herbie, of course, was never guilty of such a solecism.
    A farm of this kind was no trouble at all. Tommy could possess and enjoy it without feeling—as he knew all the other farmers, except Herbie, did—that the cultivation of the soil was a tyranny from which there was no respite. He needed, like Herbie, a tremendous amount of leisure for enjoyment—every waking moment, in fact—and he refused to tarnish the pleasures of farm ownership with anxious cares. So when he wandered over to Herbie’s place, he felt at home. Herbie’s farm was, of course, a
real
real one, but that did not seem to worry Herbie much. And when they spoke of Tommy’s, it was clear that Herbie not only understood the advantages of imaginary reality, but wished his own farm might share them.
    â€œYou not putting in any more suckers, Herbie?”
    â€œI reckon I got enough in now. How much’ve you put in?”
    â€œTwo acres. No, three.” Tommy pondered, and felt that it was perhaps a