The Elderbrook Brothers Read Online Free PDF

woke next morning, the first morning away from home in all his ten years, Felix found no such thought in his mind. For one astonished instant he wondered where he was, and before the details of yesterday came back to him, while he was still recalling his mother in the trap waiting to drive him to the station, his brothers and sisters watching with forced smiles from the gate, his father’s noisy farewell and abrupt disappearance, his tin trunk being lifted into the trap and made room for, the sparkle of the morning, the warm comfortable smell of harness and pony, the white cloud of the pony’s breath going before them, the clattering into the yard of Lutterthorpe station, the getting down, the saying goodbye, his mother’s last kisses, waving from the carriage window, the friendliness of the guard who was to ‘keep an eye on him’, the landscape flowing past (like time made visible)—while he was still piecing together these small treasures from his memory, the lordly languid voice of a young gentleman at the other end of the dormitory cut into his consciousness.
    â€˜Bell’s gone. Get out, you little scuts!’
    Felix swung his legs over the side of the bed. It was a comparatively low bed and after dangling for half a second his groping feet found the cold shiny hardness of the oilcloth floor. The boy in the next bed sat bolt upright, rubbing his eyes. Having by this exercise restored his sight he gave his red head a brisk rubbing, and while so employed he caught Felix’s timid glance resting on him.
    â€˜Hullo, worm! Who are you looking at?’
    Felix looked away in confusion, answering nothing. This was a bigger boy than he, and his look was ferocious. It was not, however, fear of any physical violence that made Felixmute: it was rather the absence of something, or someone. He wondered where he must go to wash, and seeing that a general exodus from the dormitory was beginning he voiced the question.
    â€˜Where do we go to wash?’
    â€˜We don’t wash,’ said Clifford, leaping from his bed. ‘We roll in the sandpit and then scrape ourselves with broken bottles. It’s a curious old custom, but you’ll soon get used to it,’ he added, in a kindlier tone. ‘And now—march!’
    He seized Felix by the nape of the neck and propelled him towards the door.
    â€˜Where are we going?’ Felix asked.
    He had the gravest misgivings. A faceless future threatened him.
    â€˜So you come of a washing family, do you?’ Clifford asked. ‘Does your father wash? Does your mother wash?’
    â€˜Yes, of course,’ said Felix.
    â€˜And your brothers and your sisters, do they wash too, my little man?’ the sarcastic voice went on.
    Felix admitted that they did.
    â€˜What a dirty lot they must be!’ said Clifford, in a tone of great disgust.
    â€˜They’re
not!’
Felix, near to tears, wriggled out of his grasp.
    â€˜Then what do they wash for,’ said Clifford, ‘if they’re not dirty? Sucks to you, old boy.’
    Felix saw he had been scored off. He was glad it was no worse. He was specially glad that no insult against his home had been intended, being conscious of a new fierce loyalty to what he had always till now taken for granted. He was now lined up in a corridor with other nightshirted boys, each waiting his turn to use one of the five wash-basins round the corner; and the enigmatical Clifford was demanding to know his name.
    â€˜F. Elderbrook. What’s yours?’
    â€˜They call me Clifford,’ said Clifford. ‘You can’t blame them. It’s my name. And my father’s before me,’ he added, intoning.
    â€˜Everybody’s is, isn’t it?’ said Felix.
    He had never come across anybody quite like this boy Clifford. Though no longer inclined to be afraid of him, he was puzzled. Clifford seemed to make a habit of saying entirely pointless things, yet Felix could not think