The Farmer's Daughter Read Online Free PDF Page A

from thin though. ‘But Karl will do.’
    â€˜That’s better.’ She lifted the pan off the stove and handed it to him. ‘You can take this out to the pigs for a start. Jean will show you where.’
    â€˜Where’s Pa?’ Jean asked her.
    â€˜He’s having a lie-down in the sitting room. I think he’s asleep, better not disturb him.’
    Jean led Karl back across the yard to an outbuilding. ‘Put it on the bench to cool,’ she said. ‘Then I’ll show you round.’
    He did as she asked, then followed her outside and was given a tour of the farm buildings. The cowshed was clean and all milking utensils shone. ‘We have six dairy cows and twenty sheep,’ she said. ‘My father was a shepherd in his early days and he still likes to keep a few for wool and meat but most of this area is arable, known for its strawberries. They aren’t growing many of those now; wheat, potatoes and sugar beet are more important. We have a couple of pigs.’ She opened the top half of the pigsty door as she spoke. Two fat porkers started to grunt, expecting their swill. ‘You’ll have to wait,’ she told them, opening the door and ushering them out into the orchard where they could feed on fallen apples. It wasn’t a proper orchard with evenly spaced rows of fruit trees, but a meadow in which different fruit trees were scattered. It housed the pigsty and the hen coops. Beyond it he could see a large pit.
    â€˜Do you and your father work the farm on your own?’ he asked as they continued the tour.
    â€˜My brother used to work with Pa but, like you, he’s a prisoner of war, has been since 1940. Pa has had a stroke and can’t do anything very much.’
    â€˜Do you mean you manage alone?’ he asked in surprise.
    â€˜The villagers give a hand at busy times. We all help each otheras much as we can, but there is an acute shortage of labour. I expect it is the same where you come from.’
    â€˜Yes, it is.’
    â€˜There’s a cart, a trap, and a pickup truck in here,’ she said, opening the door so he could look inside. ‘The trap is the best way of getting about, considering petrol is rationed and only allowed for essential business. We have a darling grey pony called Misty to pull it. She spends most of her time in the pasture.’
    There was another shed which was a storehouse of strange objects. The walls were hung with garden and farm implements of all kinds – shovels, rakes, sickles, scythes, flails, weed hooks – and iron implements and bits of leather tackle whose original use had been forgotten but which Arthur insisted on keeping. There were bins for chicken feed, bags of seed and trays for storing apples and even an ancient wooden plough. Jars and tins of ointments, powders, scours, linseed oil and turpentine stood on shelves. It had a strange yet familiar smell all of its own. Karl roamed round it smiling and occasionally putting out a hand to touch something.
    â€˜Pa can’t bear to throw anything away,’ she said. ‘And some of it comes in handy.’
    â€˜My father is like that,’ he said. ‘This reminds me so much of home.’
    â€˜What would you be doing if you were at home now?’
    â€˜Much the same as I will do here.’
    â€˜What sort of farm do you have?’
    â€˜Mixed, like this,’ he said. ‘But I do not know what has happened to it and my family since the Russian raids. My older brother, Wilhelm, died on the Polish front very early in the war. I have a sister, Elise, and uncles, aunts and cousins, but I don’t know what has happened to them either. And I have a fiancée. She is in Berlin.’
    â€˜I’m sorry. Perhaps we shouldn’t talk about the war.’ She remembered the regulations for employing German prisoners: there was to be no fraternisation and all conversation was to be kept to giving instructions about the