The Spuddy Read Online Free PDF Page B

was unmistakable and Uncle Ben made no secret of the warmth of his feelings and even his aunt, whose testiness had once unnerved him, began to betray a hitherto unsuspectedly tender side to her nature. Sarah had never had any wish to appear forbidding but she was a congenitally fussy woman and having no children of her own she had not relished the prospect of taking Andy into her home. She had done it, she confided to her husband and to her neighbours, because she considered it her duty and though this was undoubtedly true Andy had not been in her care for more than a few weeks before she was admitting to herself that she hoped his father’s voyage would be a prolonged one.
    She began to consider the boy’s education, complaining to Ben that it had been wickedly neglected; she rowed with the local schoolmaster when he refused, because of Andy’s affliction, to take him into the school as a pupil and when the darker evenings brought long hours indoors she determined that she herself would be Andy’s tutor. Confiding this intention to a friend who also happened to be the school cleaner she induced him to ‘borrow’ some lesson books so that she could teach Andy to read and write. Despite a scolding tongue she displayed not only a natural ability to teach but also an astonishing patience with the boy and, stimulated by his keenness to learn, she tended to ignore most of the chores she normally felt compelled to undertake in the evenings so as to devote the time to Andy and his studies, with the result that at the end of three months Andy found he could write to his father giving him the glorious news that if his father wrote a letter in return he would now be able to read it for himself.
    During all the hours of daylight Andy and the Spuddy were down at the pier, mingling with the fish porters and watching the comings and goings of the boats. His eye was becoming trained to the lines of boats and to their different responses to the sea so that he could recognize each boat long before it reached the harbour. He knew most of the crews and was accustomed to being thrown a rope to hitch round a bollard or being told to bring a hose or even being called aboard to collect the empty pop bottles to take to the grocer with the instruction that he could keep the ‘penny backs’ for himself. Andy was glad of the ‘penny backs’ because they helped him to buy more food for the Spuddy and so augment the scraps he saved from his own meals. Uncle Ben helped too by saving his own scraps and if Aunt Sarah ever noticed the total lack of food on her table at the end of their meals she made no comment. So long as Andy did not offend the neighbours by allowing the Spuddy to hang round the place she felt it right to hold her tongue. After all, she conceded, maybe a dumb boy needed a dumb friend and at least the dog kept Andy out all day so that he wasn’t constantly under her feet.
    After a long lingering autumn winter howled in with wild sharp-toothed winds that scraped the skin like a steel comb. The hills which had been snow-capped became snow shawled and soon snow-skirted; the pier puddles were skimmed with ice and fishermen and porters flapped their arms across their oilskinned bodies trying to keep warm during the minutes of inaction. Andy, snug in the thick sweaters his aunt knitted for him and in the ‘oilies’ she had bought for him began to worry anew over the Spuddy’s sleeping quarters. He suspected that wherever the Spuddy spent his nights it was too exposed a place for him to with-stand the severity of winter. There were mornings when the dog’s coat was unaccountably wet and one day Andy noticed him shivering a lot. The next morning, after a night of blizzard, Andy found the Spuddy waiting for him in snow that was up to his belly; his ears were drooping and snow from the last flurry was still melting in his coat. Andy was sure the Spuddy was sick and resolved to go to Uncle Ben