The Story of Danny Dunn Read Online Free PDF Page A

aback by the sudden tirade, could nevertheless see where Brenda’s intelligence originated. He had the nous to know that offering his sympathy would only exacerbate the situation. ‘Perhaps the convent?’ he stuttered. ‘I . . . er, could talk to Father Crosby . . . I’m sure —’
    â€˜That old fool and his building fund!’ Patrick O’Shane exclaimed in disgust. ‘You don’t get my drift, do you now, Mr Thomas?’ He paused momentarily. ‘Never you mind the good head on her shoulders, our daughter also has two good hands and a strong back. She can scrub and clean and do domestic work for people of your kind in town. Her mother and I can no longer go it alone. We have two other daughters, twins, to feed as well. She’s the eldest now. Don’t blame us, sir. This godforsaken country stole my boys! Drowning them in mud, murderous shrapnel and sickness and robbing us of their strong hands and broad backs for years, one of them gone forever. She’ll not be going back to school! You may be certain of that now, Mr School Inspector!’
    Brenda accepted her father’s decision calmly. After all, they were poor and she was a girl, with no reason to expect anything more than her mother had been granted in a thankless life of childbearing and hard work.
    However, Danny’s education had been her overriding ambition from the moment he was born, and she waited eagerly for the day when it could begin. A tall, sturdy, curious and confident little boy, Danny was more than ready for school at the age of five and a half. But in January 1926, disaster struck, at least in Brenda’s terms of reference. Danny was due to start school in February, but a few days after Christmas he had asked if he could have ice-cream for dinner. As ice-cream was a special treat, Brenda asked him why. Danny had a voracious appetite and rarely refused to eat what was placed in front of him.
    â€˜Because my throat is very sore, Mummy,’ he’d replied.
    The following morning his face was deeply flushed, he had a temperature and could barely talk. She’d taken him off to see Dr Light who, after an examination, announced that Danny had diphtheria.
    Brenda, not usually given to panic, burst into tears, whereupon Dr Light attempted to reassure her. ‘Mrs Dunn, Danny’s a strong, healthy little boy – there’s no reason he shouldn’t recover.’
    But Brenda wasn’t new to diphtheria. She’d seen it in her own childhood when all three children on a neighbouring farm had died from the disease. She knew it as a scourge that killed hundreds of children every year. She was also aware that, even if a child lived, there was a danger of a weakened heart or damage to the kidneys or nervous system, in some instances even incurable brain damage.
    Danny spent the following week in hospital drifting in and out of delirium. Brenda stayed at his bedside and watched in despair as his fever worsened and the disease spread its toxins through his small body. She would sponge him for hours in an attempt to reduce the fever and try by sheer willpower to draw the disease out of him.
    She’d left the running of the pub to Half Dunn with no instructions – 
a recipe for certain disaster but of no possible consequence now. She frequently sank to her knees beside the bed and prayed, saying her Hail Marys promptly every hour, then begging God, if necessary at the cost of her own life, to save her son. If she slept it was for no more than an hour or two and she’d wake exhausted and guilt-ridden.
    Half Dunn visited every evening and brought her a change of clothes and two cold bacon-and-egg sandwiches, the only thing he knew how to cook. Brenda would thank him, ‘I’ll have them later, dear,’ and put them aside. She would feed them to an ageing golden Labrador named Happy, who was permanently ensconced on the front