The Fortunes of Springfield Read Online Free PDF Page B

once.”
    “What?” he asked.
    “Tell Babs you are sorry.”
    “I’m not so rr y. I shall kick it down again.” He kicked the loose bricks about the kitchen floor.
    “Come and have tea, Wendy and Babs,” said Caroline, “and build your lovely castle again afterwards. We cannot have such a bad-mannered boy as Terence at the table. If you want some tea, Terence, you had better say you are sorry.”
    “ I’ m not sorry and I don’t want any tea.”
    “Very well,” said Caroline calmly, and sat down to tea with Babs and Wendy. Terence glowered at them and wait ed out into the garden.
    When they had finished their tea, the little girls ran out to join him. Caroline, washing the dishes, thought he must be hungry but decided he could wait until supper-time. But when Terence was hungry, he was also bad-tempered. He had cut a long thin stick from the bamboos growing at the bottom of the garden and was swishing it round and round, so that it hummed alarmingly. With this, he chased the two girls. At first, they took it as a game. Thai they began to be frightened, and to scream a little; and as their self-induced panic mounted, they screamed more.
    “Whatever can they be up to?” wondered Caroline, putting dishes away. She went to the window and looked out. Terence was after Wendy, brandishing his cane. Babs had fallen over and was crying again. Even Wendy was really frightened. Caroline went out into the garden.
    “Terence,” she called, coming behind him, “give me that stick at once.”
    Elated and gleeful at the consternation he had caused to his sisters, he swung round, still waving the cane wildly, and caught Caroline a stinging blow on the side of the face. She recoiled, exclaiming in pain, and put her hand up to her cheek. For a moment, she was incapable of action; and in that moment a strange quiet fell on the children. Babs stopped crying. Wendy looked frightened. Even Terence was shocked into absolute stillness. There was a cringing look about the two older children, and Caroline knew that, they expected an outburst, shrill scolding and punishment . She tried to pull herself together, took the stick from Terence and ordered the children into the house. They went, but already the frightened look on Terence’s face was giving way to his usual sullen one. In the kitchen, Caroline stood the stick in a corner .
    “Don’t you know,” she said to Terence, “that such a stick is very dangerous, and that your sisters were frightened, and that, even if you meant it as a game, you should not frighten them like that? You had better have your supper and go to bed.”
    He looked astounded but would not speak. She gave him supper and packed him off to his room. Wendy said:
    “You have an awful mark on your face, Miss Hearst.”
    “Have I, Wendy?”
    “Does it hurt yon very much?”
    “It stings a bit,” said Caroline with a painful smile.
    “Will you cane him?” asked Wendy.
    “Cane him? No. He didn’t mean to do it. It was an accident. You don’t punish people for accidents.”
    “He meant to hit us,” Wendy pointed out.
    “But he didn’t hit you,” said Caroline cheerfully. “Now look at your picture books until it is time for bed.”
    When they were at last in bed, Caroline looked in the mirror for the first time, and wondered how she could conceal the angry weal on her cheek from David Springfield. She might have known it was impossible to conceal it from him. As she carried the supper tray into the morning room where she always set this meal, he said:
    “What have you done to your cheek?”
    “Oh, that,” said Caroline lightly. “It’s nothing.”
    She had tried to hide.it with cream and powder, but had merely given a mauvish look to the angry red. He said:
    “It’s certainly not nothing. It looks nasty. Let me see it.”
    “No,” said Caroline. “It’s nothing to make a fuss about. Shall I serve your soup?”
    David got up from his seat, walked round the table, and studied the mark on