Читать книгу More Adventures on Willow Farm - Enid blyton - Страница 5

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It was thrilling for Mark to wake up in Rory’s bedroom the next morning and hear all the farmyard sounds, though they were somewhat muffled by the snow. He heard the sound of the horses, the far-off mooing of the cows, and the clucking of the hens. The ducks quacked sadly because their pond was frozen.

“I wish I lived on the farm always,” thought Mark. He looked across to Rory’s bed. The boy was awake and sitting up. He looked at his watch. “Time to get up,” he said.

“What, so early!” said Mark, in dismay. “It’s quite dark.”

“Ah, you have to be up and about early on a farm,” said Rory, leaping out of bed. “Jim and Bill have been up ages already—and as for Davey the shepherd, I guess he’s been awake for hours!”

Mark dressed with Rory and they went down to join the others, who were already at the breakfast-table. Rory’s father had had his breakfast and gone out. The children sat and ate and chattered.

“What would Mark like to do to-day?” said Sheila politely, looking at Rory. “It’s too cold for a picnic. One day we’ll take him to see Tammylan, the wild man. But not to-day.”

“Oh, I don’t want you to plan anything special for me at all,” said Mark hastily. “I don’t want to be treated as a visitor. I really don’t. Just let me do the things you all do. That would be much more fun for me.”

“All right,” said Rory. “I dare say you are right. I remember when we all went from London to stay for a while at our uncle’s farm, the year before last, we simply loved doing the ordinary little things—feeding the hens and things like that. You shall do just the same as we do. Sheila, you take him with you after breakfast.”

“He can help me to scrape all the perches,” said Sheila. “And he can wash the eggs too.”

“I want to do that,” said Penny. “Since the calves that I looked after have grown up, there isn’t much for me to do.”

“Davey the shepherd will let you have another lamb soon,” said Mother. “Then you can hand-feed it and look after it as you looked after Skippetty last year. You will soon be busy.”

“And you can come and milk a cow this afternoon, Mark,” promised Benjy. “We’ll see if you are a good milker or not.”

Mark wasn’t sure he wanted to milk a cow. He thought all animals with horns looked dangerous. But he didn’t like to seem a coward, so he nodded his head.

“Have you finished your breakfast?” asked Sheila. “Have another bit of toast? You’ve only had four. We’ve all had about six.”

“No thanks,” said Mark, whose appetite was not quite so enormous as that of the other children. “Are you going to do the hens now, Sheila? Shall I get ready?”

“Have you brought some old things?” asked Sheila. “Good. Well, put on an old coat and your rubber boots and a scarf. I’ll go and get ready too.”

It wasn’t long before both children were on their way to the hen-house, each carrying a pailful of hot mash that Harriet the cook had given them. The snow was now melting and the yard was in a fearful state of slush. The children slithered about in it.

“Oh, isn’t this awful?” said Sheila. “Snow is lovely when it’s white and clean—but when it goes into slush it’s simply horrid. Mark—be careful, you silly!”

At Sheila’s shout Mark looked where he was going. He had turned his head to watch Jim the farm-hand, taking a cart full of mangels out of the yard—and he walked straight into an enormous, slushy puddle near the pig-sty. He tried to leap aside, and the pail of mash caught his legs and sent him over. In a trice he was in the puddle and the pail of mash emptied over his legs.

“Mark! What a mess you’re in!” cried Sheila in dismay. Mark scrambled up and looked down at himself. His coat was soaked with horrid-smelling dampness, and his rubber boots were full of hot hen-mash. He was almost ready to cry!

“Don’t worry,” said Sheila. “Your coat will dry.”

“I’m not bothering about that,” said Mark. “I’m bothering about the waste of that hot mash. Just look at it, all over the place.”

“You go in and ask Mother to lend you some old clothes of Rory’s,” said Sheila comfortingly. “I’ll get a spade out of the shed and just get most of the spilt mash back into the pail. It will be dirty, but I don’t expect the hens will mind very much.”

Mark disappeared into the house. Sheila shovelled up most of the spilt mash. She took it to the hen-houses and the hens came down from their houses into the slushy rain, clucking hungrily.

“I’ll let you out into the farmyard to scratch about there as you usually do,” said Sheila, who had always talked to her hens as if they were children. “Your yard is nothing but mud—but so is everywhere else. Now then, greedy—take your head out of the bucket!”

Sheila put the mash into the big bowls, and then broke the ice on the water-bowls. There had been a frost in the night, and the ice had not yet melted. She went to get a can to put in fresh water. The hens clucked round it.

“I know that your water must always be clean and fresh,” said Sheila to her hens. “Look—there’s the cock calling to you. He’s found something for you!”

The cock was a beautiful bird, with an enormous drooping tail of purple-green feathers, and a fine comb. He had a very loud voice, and always awoke all his hens in the morning when it was time to get up. Now he had found a grain of corn or some other titbit on the ground and he was telling the hens to come and eat it.

Mark arrived again, wearing an old brown coat of Rory’s, and somebody else’s boots. “Look at the cock,” said Sheila. “He’s a perfect gentleman, Mark—he never eats a titbit himself—he always calls his hens to have it.”

“Cock-a-doodle-doo!” said the cock to Mark.

“He’s saying ‘Good morning, how do you do?’ ” said Sheila, with a laugh. She always amused the others because whenever her hens or ducks clucked or quacked, she always made it seem as if they were really saying something. Penny honestly thought that they said the things Sheila made up, and she felt that they were really very clever.

“Come and scrape the perches for me,” said Sheila. “The hens haven’t very good manners, you know, and they make their perches in an awful mess.”

Mark had the job of scraping the perches clean. He wasn’t sure that he liked it much, but he was a sensible boy and knew that there were dirty jobs to do as well as nice ones. You can’t pick your jobs on a farm. You have to be ready to do everything!

Sheila looked to see if there was enough grit in the little box she kept for that purpose. She told Mark what it was for. “It’s to help the hens digest their food properly,” she told him. “And that broken oyster-shell over there is to help them to make good shells for their eggs. Take this basket of eggs indoors into the kitchen, Mark. You can begin to wash them for me. Some of them are awfully dirty.”

Poor Mark broke one of the eggs as he washed it! It just slipped out of his fingers. He was upset about it, but Sheila said, “Never mind! We brought in twenty-three eggs, and that’s very good for a day like this.”

Mark soon began to enjoy the life on the farm very much. The days slipped by, and he was sad when Saturday came and he packed to go home. Then, quite unexpectedly, his mother telephoned to ask if he could be kept there a little longer as his grandmother was ill, and she wanted to go and look after her.

“Oh!” said Mark, in delight, “oh, do you think I can stay? If I can, I promise I’ll do my best to help on the farm. I’ll even clean out the pig-sties!”

Everyone laughed at that, for they knew how Mark hated the smell. “Of course you can stay,” said Mother, who liked the quiet, but rather awkward little boy. “You are really quite useful, especially since you have learnt how to milk.”

It was a very funny thing, but Mark had been most successful at milking the cows. He had been terrified at first, and had gone quite pale when he had sat down on a milking-stool, and had watched whilst Benjy showed him how to squeeze the big teats and make the milk squirt down into the great clean pails.

He couldn’t get a drop of milk at first—and then suddenly it had come, and Mark had jumped when he heard the milk go splash-splash into the pail. The boy’s hands were strong, and he just seemed to have the right knack for milking. Jim the farm-hand had praised him, and Mark had felt proud.

“Milking is quite hard work,” he said to Penny. “And what a lot you get! Isn’t it creamy too? No wonder you are able to make a lot of butter.”

All the children worked during the holidays, and they disliked the slush and wet very much. Rain had come after the snow, and everywhere was squelchy, so that it was no pleasure to go round the farm and do anything. The farm-hands were splashed with mud from head to foot, and the old shire-horses had to be cleaned well every day, for they too were covered with mud.

“I shall be quite glad when it’s time to go to school again,” said Rory, coming in one day with his coat soaked, and his hair dripping. “Farming really isn’t much fun in this weather. I’ve been cleaning out our donkey-stable. Mark’s been helping me. He kept holding his nose till he found the smell wasn’t bad after all. Daddy says the manure will be marvellous for the kitchen-garden, where Mother grows her lettuces and things.”

“Nothing’s wasted on a farm, is it?” said Mark. “Jim told me yesterday that he takes all the wood-ash for that field called Long Bottom. He says it’s just what the soil wants there. And Bill is piling the soot from the chimneys into sacks in that shed behind the donkeys. He says you will use that somewhere on the farm too.”

Mark was learning a great deal, and liked airing what he had learnt. He had ridden all the donkeys now, and all the horses too—though that wasn’t very difficult, for the shire-horses had backs like sofas! He wouldn’t ride on Buttercup the cow. The children themselves were not supposed to, but actually Buttercup didn’t mind at all. She was a placid old lady, and loved having children round her.

The Christmas holidays only had a day or two more to go. The children began to look out their pencil-boxes and pile together their books. All of them went to the vicarage for lessons, but later on, perhaps in the autumn, the two boys were going to boarding-school again. They hated to think of this, and never talked about it.

Mark was to go home after the first day at school. The others were sorry, for it had been fun to show him all round Willow Farm. Mark was sad too. He knew all the animals there by now, and it was such a nice friendly feeling to go out and talk to a horse or a cow, or to Rascal, the shepherd’s clever dog.

“If only holidays lasted for always!” he sighed. But alas, they never do!