Читать книгу The Put-Em-Rights - Enid blyton - Страница 4

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Sally walked over to the Rectory the next day at about four o’clock. The family were about to have tea in the garden and Micky and Podge were carrying out chairs.

‘Hello!’ called Micky. ‘You’re just in time. You can sit over here with Podge and Amanda.’

‘I’ll help bring out the chairs,’ said Sally, who could not bear to sit down and see other people doing things: she just had to help. She was strong, and she helped to carry out a table, too.

‘Well, Sally,’ boomed the Rector’s hearty voice behind her, ‘helping as usual? You’ll be as good a woman as that mother of yours one day! What we should do without her in this village I don’t know!’

Many people said that about Sally’s mother, and Sally was used to hearing it. She smiled, and set down the table.

‘Had a good report, Sally?’ asked the Rector. ‘But I needn’t ask you that, I suppose. It’s always excellent, isn’t it? I only wish our lazy little Amanda would get a better one. She has brains, but she doesn’t use them.’

Amanda didn’t mind being teased at all. She grinned at her father. She made no attempt to help with the chairs. There were plenty of people to do that!

A bell rang loudly in the house. ‘That’s the Tramping Preacher,’ Amanda called out. ‘He’s walked all the way from Tidding Village—seven miles! He must be as energetic as you, Sally!’

Mrs Gray, the Rector’s wife, came out into the garden with the visitor. The children stared at him, fascinated. He was burnt a very dark brown, his eyes were intensely blue, and his thick shock of hair was black, streaked with grey. He wore corduroy trousers and a blue shirt, with a fairly respectable jacket over it.

‘Here is the Tramping Preacher,’ said Mrs Gray. The Rector shook hands. Then the Preacher turned to the watching children, and his piercing blue eyes burned into theirs. They fell under his spell at once.

There was no doubt about it; the Preacher had a way with children. Boys and girls, big and small, could not help listening to him, watching him, hanging on to his every word. He had a quiet, resonant voice, very pleasant to hear, and he spoke in simple, direct language that even the smallest child could understand. He was somehow a most exciting, unusual person.

‘I feel as if he’s awfully powerful,’ whispered Yolande to Podge. ‘You know, as if he might do miracles suddenly or something.’

Podge nodded. Big boy though he was, he too felt the strange, compelling power of the wandering preacher. The man was talking to the Rector and his wife, ignoring the children for the moment. Their turn would come later on the village green—then he would turn his piercing eyes on them, and pour his quiet, simple words into their ears.

The Rector was talking about his work with the children. ‘You never preach to us grown-ups!’ he said, laughing. ‘Aren’t we worth it, Preacher?’

The Preacher shook his head, smiling. ‘I can’t make a better world out of men and women,’ he said, taking a piece of bread and butter in a thin, brown hand. ‘They’re hard to change. But the children can make a better world if they start out right. The children don’t know what power they have for good or evil. I tell them. And they listen to what I tell them.’

For one moment he flashed his deep blue eyes round the listening children and they felt his glance like a burning flame. Yolande glowed with sudden admiration for him. He was a wonderful man. She would do anything in the world for him! The children were too overawed to talk. Even Sally found nothing to say, although usually she had plenty. The Preacher talked of his work and of the various societies and bands that children in different places had started, and of the good work they had done. He thought the world of children. He believed in their goodness and strength and, in a most miraculous way, so it seemed to the Rector, goodness and strength seemed to flow out of any children he preached to. The Rector wished he had the same power.

Tea was finished at last. Mrs Gray took the Preacher round the garden, while the children cleared away and got themselves clean and tidy for the meeting. They walked down to the green with the Preacher. The Rector and his wife went too, though the Preacher did not encourage grown-ups to attend his meetings: it was only the children he wanted. But the Rector thought he might learn something from the Tramping Preacher which would help him to handle some of the unruly children in his own village.

All the village children were there, sitting quietly on the green, under the eyes of Sally’s mother. They rose when the Preacher came down the high street. Some of the bigger boys looked sulky. They had wanted to play cricket, not to listen to a preacher. But in two minutes the Preacher had them all under his spell in his usual easy way. There was not a sound to be heard as he talked. He told them stories. He made them laugh, and he made the tears stand in their eyes. He stirred their hearts and their imaginations; he made them feel that they were strong and could do anything, anything!

The Preacher was a real spell-binder. He spoke for half an hour and it was much too short for the children. But the Preacher did not believe in overdoing things. He said goodbye, after telling the children he would be back some day to see how they were getting on. He said he felt sure the children of Under-Ridge would help the world along, and when he came back, he would like to hear how they had done it. He left the little gathering and went striding back to the Rectory over the fields, the Rector at his side. The children all sat quietly for a minute or two, thinking over the stirring message. They would do something, they really would! They would be better themselves, for one thing—and how they would help the grown-ups! Grown-ups needed helping. The Preacher had said so.

The five children who had come from the Rectory were very much moved, too. They walked a little way home and then sat down. ‘Wasn’t he fine?’ said Amanda. ‘I couldn’t help feeling that I loved him, somehow.’

The others knew what she meant. The Preacher had a strange power. ‘Shall we—shall we do what he said—and try to make the world a better place?’ said Yolande in a small and rather timid voice.

‘I think we ought to,’ said Sally at once. ‘And what’s more, we ought to do it properly. Make a real band of ourselves, and make rules and promises.’

‘Oh, no rules,’ said Amanda.

‘Yes, rules,’ Sally said firmly. ‘Rules we’ve got to keep, too. It’s no good beginning anything of this kind unless we do it properly.’

‘You always want to do everything so very properly,’ groaned Amanda. ‘I like to be more easy-going.’

‘Easy-going people never get anywhere worthwhile,’ said Sally, rather primly. ‘Look here—this is a wonderful chance for us all really to do something—to put wrong things right—to run our own village and help everybody.’

‘What sort of wrong things do you mean to put right?’ asked Micky.

‘Oh—if we hear of anyone being cruel to anything or anyone we’ll put it right,’ said Sally. ‘Or maybe we shall hear of someone having very bad luck. We can put that right, too, perhaps. We might try and teach Old Dicko not to steal, too—and try to get Mrs Lundy to be a bit cleaner.’

‘Gracious! We’d never do that!’ said Amanda. ‘Mother’s tried for years.’

‘Oh well, I don’t say we can do these things,’ Sally said. ‘I’m only just saying they’re the kind of things we might tackle. We mustn’t shirk anything just because it seems hard or impossible.’

Podge had been very much stirred by the Preacher’s talk too. He was a careless, rather arrogant boy, who had had rich parents and an easy life, but sometimes he yearned to do something worthwhile. He glanced at his little cousin Yolande. Her eyes were shining. She would ask nothing better than to help, and with her sweet nature she would make a very good member of any band they formed.

‘Well, let’s start a little band or society, or whatever you like to call it, of our own,’ Podge said. ‘It may be a failure but at least we shall have tried. What do you think, Micky?’

‘I’d like to,’ Micky said at once. ‘Daddy and Mother would like us to, too. Let’s all belong.’

Suddenly a voice came through the hedge, making them jump. ‘Could I belong too? I want to help as well.’

The children turned. ‘It’s Bobby Jones!’ said Amanda. ‘I saw you at the meeting, Bobby.’

‘Yes. Wasn’t the Preacher grand?’ said Bobby, crawling through the hedge to join them. He was twelve years old, smooth-haired, with a pale, polite-looking face, and neat but old clothes. He lived with his mother, a widow, who was very poor but proud. Bobby went to the village school, but his mother was always telling him that he was much better than the other boys there, and only went there because she could not afford anywhere else. So Bobby turned up his nose at his schoolfellows, and was always trying to make friends with the Rectory children. Amanda didn’t mind him and found him useful in many ways, but Micky was bored with him.

‘I think it’s an awfully good idea to make a band of our own,’ said Bobby. ‘I thought of that myself and I was just wondering if I should ask you to join my band when I heard you talking about one yourselves. So I thought you wouldn’t mind if I asked to join yours.’

Nobody particularly wanted Bobby to join, but it seemed rather mean not to let him, when he had just said he was going to ask them to join his band.

There was a pause. Then Sally spoke. ‘We haven’t really made up our minds about our band yet. We’ll have to do it properly—with rules and all that sort of thing.’

‘That’s a very good idea,’ said Bobby, his eyes looking admiringly at Sally. ‘You’re so good at that kind of thing, aren’t you, Sally? You’ll be head of the band, of course.’

Sally felt she would like that very much, so she beamed at Bobby, making up her mind at once that he should belong straightaway.

‘Oh, I don’t know about that,’ she said. ‘Perhaps Amanda or one of the boys would like to be.’

‘Not me!’ said Amanda at once. ‘Too much trouble. But why have we got to have someone at the head?’

‘Well, it’s better if there is someone to see to things properly,’ said Sally, who liked to have everything just so. ‘Let’s meet here again tomorrow night, after thinking over everything carefully. We’ll have all kinds of suggestions then. Hadn’t we better go back to the Rectory now? It’s almost supper time.’