Читать книгу The Children of Cherry Tree Farm - Enid blyton - Страница 4

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It was a very long journey, but most exciting. For one thing, Daddy had arranged that they should all have lunch in the dining-car, and it was quite exciting to walk down the rushing, rattling train and find their places at the little luncheon-tables. Rory had to hold on tightly to Penny, because she nearly fell over when the train swayed about.

The knives and forks rattled on the table, and Penny’s bread jumped off its plate. Rory’s water spilt on the tablecloth, but it wasn’t his fault. It was funny to eat inside a train that was going at seventy miles an hour.

‘If the train keeps up this speed it will soon be at Cherry-Tree Farm, I should think,’ said Penny, looking at the hedges and telegraph poles rushing by in a long line.

‘We don’t get there till after tea,’ said Sheila. ‘We’ve got to wait for tea till we’re there, Mummy said. She said Auntie Bess would be sure to have it ready for us, and it would be a pity to spoil it by having tea on the train. So I guess we’d better eat as much dinner as we can, in case we get hungry.’

They ate such an enormous meal that they all felt very sleepy afterwards. They staggered back along the rushing train, and found their carriage. Rory had promised his mother that he would make seven-year-old Penelope lie down after the midday meal, so he made a kind of bed for her on one seat.

‘Come on, Penny,’ he said. ‘Here’s a bed for you! Look, I’ve put my coat for a pillow, and I’ll cover you up with this rug.’

‘But I want to be big like you, and talk,’ said Penny, who hated to be treated like a baby. But Rory was firm, and she had to lie down. In two minutes she was fast asleep.

And so was Rory! He leaned his head against the window, and although the train whistled and roared, he heard nothing of it—he was as fast asleep as little Penny.

It wasn’t long before Sheila curled herself up like a kitten in her corner, and shut her eyes too. It was delicious to sleep in the swaying carriage. The noise it made crept into her dreams and made a song there—‘We’re going to go wild, we’re going to go wild!’

Benjy stayed awake for a little while, thinking joyfully of the lovely holiday they were all going to have. Of the four children he was the one who most loved the country, and who longed most for the feel of animals and the song of the birds. The children had never been allowed to keep pets in London, so all that Benjy had been able to do was to make friends with the dogs in the park, and to feed the ducks there.

‘Perhaps I shall have a puppy of my own,’ thought Benjy dreamily. ‘Perhaps there will be calves at the farm that will suck my hand—and maybe I shall find a badger’s hole—or a fox’s den.’

And then he was fast asleep, and found himself sitting outside a fox’s hole with his arm round a most peculiar yellow fox, who was smoking a pipe and saying that he wanted to go to America! Yes, Benjy was certainly asleep!

So, what with talking and having lunch and sleeping, it didn’t really seem very long before the train drew up at a small breezy station, and the porter there cried ‘Cherry-Woods, Cherry-Woods! Anyone for Cherry-Woods!’

‘That’s our station!’ yelled Rory, in delight. ‘Come on, get your hats! Here’s your bag, Sheila. Come on, Penny! Hie, porter, there is some luggage of ours in the van!’

‘It’s coming out now, sir!’ said the porter. And sure enough it was. Then Rory caught sight of Auntie Bess hurrying on to the platform, the wind blowing her dark hair into tight curls.

‘Auntie Bess! Here we are!’ yelled the four children, and they rushed to meet her.

‘We had dinner on the train!’ shouted Penny.

‘Where’s Uncle Tim?’ asked Sheila, who loved her big, burly country uncle.

‘Waiting outside with the trap,’ said Auntie Bess, kissing them. ‘My goodness, what pale cheeks! And what sticks of legs Benjy has got! I wonder you can walk on them, Benjy!’

Benjy went red. He hated his thin legs. He made up his mind to eat so much that his legs would be as fat as Uncle Tim’s! And there was Uncle Tim, outside in the trap, waving his whip to the children.

What a noise there was as the four children clambered up into the pony-trap! Their luggage was coming along later in a farm-cart. The fat little brown pony turned round and looked at the children. She neighed joyfully.

‘Why, even Polly, the pony, is pleased to see you!’ laughed Uncle Tim. ‘Hallo, Penny! You’ve grown since I saw you!’

‘Yes, I have,’ said Penny proudly. ‘I don’t have a nurse now. I’m as grown-up as the others.’

It was a very happy party that drove along the pretty country lanes to Cherry-Tree Farm. Here and there a tiny splash of green showed, where early honeysuckle leaves were out. Golden coltsfoot flowers gleamed on banks in the evening sunshine, and Penny and Benjy saw a sandy rabbit rushing away over a field, his white bobtail flickering in the sunlight.

‘I’m so hungry,’ said Rory, with a sigh. ‘I ate an enormous dinner, but I’m hungry again.’

‘Well, there’s high tea waiting for you,’ said Auntie Bess. ‘Cold ham, and apple-pie and cheese, and buttery scones, and my own strawberry jam and those ginger buns you loved last time you came, and ...’

‘Oh, don’t tell us any more, it makes me feel I can’t wait,’ begged Penny.

But she had to wait until Polly, the pony, had trotted three miles to Cherry-Tree Farm. And there it was at last, shining in the last rays of the February sun, a cosy, rambling old farmhouse with a snug roof of brown thatch coming down so low in places that it touched Uncle Tim’s hat.

There was Cherry-Tree Farm at last, a cosy, rambling old farm-house.

The children washed and sat down to their meal. They ate and ate and ate. Benjy looked down at his legs to see if they had got any fatter—he felt as if they really must have grown already! Then up to bed they all went, much to their disappointment.

‘Your mother said so,’ said Auntie Bess firmly. ‘You can go later to-morrow, but to-night you are tired with a very long journey. This is your bedroom, Sheila and Penny, and this one, opening off nearby, is the boys’ room.’

The two bedrooms were snuggled under the thatch, and had big brown beams running across the ceiling and through the walls. The floors were uneven, and the windows were criss-crossed with little panes.

‘I do like a ceiling I can bump my head on in the corners,’ said Penny.

‘Well, don’t bump your head too often or you won’t be quite so fond of my ceiling,’ said Auntie Bess. ‘Now hurry up and get into bed, all of you. Breakfast is at a quarter to eight. The bathroom is across the passage—you remember where it is, don’t you? You can have either hot or cold baths in the morning—but please leave the bath clean and the bathroom tidy, or I shall come roaring at you like an angry bull!’

The children laughed. ‘We’re going to go wild, you know, Auntie Bess!’ called Penny.

‘Not in the house, Penny, my dear, not in the house!’ called back Auntie Bess, and she went downstairs, laughing.

‘I’m so happy!’ sang Benjy, as he slipped off his boots. ‘No more London! No more noise of buses and trams! No more poor sooty old trees! But clean sweet bushes and woods, bright flowers, singing birds and little shy animals slipping by. Oh, what fun!’