Читать книгу The Put-Em-Rights - Enid blyton - Страница 7

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Bobby talked to his mother that night, and Sally and Amanda also talked to theirs. Podge and Yolande did not say anything to Podge’s mother, for they both knew that she was not interested in the village people.

Bobby’s mother was surprised at her son’s sudden interest in the villagers, but she was quite willing to talk about them. She looked down on them and kept herself aloof, and it was always a sore point with her that her precious Bobby had to mix with the village children so much.

‘I’m so glad you are making such nice friends,’ she said to Bobby. ‘Your dear father would have been pleased. It’s nice that you go to Four Towers so much too. I think Claude and Yolande are very nice children. I wish you had better clothes, Bobby—but I have so little money.’

Bobby wished he had nicer things too. His clothes were always so worn and old, and he grew out of them so quickly. The village children were better dressed than he was. Still, it was something to be able to lord it over them, talking of ‘my friend, Claude Paget’.

‘Go on!’ the village boys said rudely. ‘You and your Claudes! You just suck up to them. They don’t think anything of you, really! You just push yourself in, and they’re too polite to push you out!’

Bobby couldn’t help feeling there was a lot of truth in this. He had pushed himself in! And he always felt that although the others were very polite to him, they were not really warm and friendly. He felt hurt about it.

‘Don’t I always agree with them?’ he thought. ‘Don’t I praise them, and say “yes, yes, yes,” all the time? I never disagree or argue like Podge or Micky.’

If Bobby had but known it, the others would have liked him very much better if he had argued sometimes, or disagreed. As it was, they hardly paid any attention to him or to what he said, knowing that he would always agree—that he would never put forward any ideas of his own.

Bobby was foolish that night. He gave the secret of the band away to his mother, although he and all the others had promised to keep it to themselves. But Bobby could not resist boasting, even to his own mother.

‘It’s a deep secret, Mother,’ he said, ‘but perhaps you’d like to know that Claude and Yolande Paget, and Micky and Amanda Gray asked me to belong to a band they’ve got up—it’s called the Put-Em-Rights.’

‘What a peculiar name!’ said his mother, surprised. ‘Whatever are you going to put right?’

Bobby told her about the Tramping Preacher and everything. His mother did not care about the helping and putting-right idea, but she cared very much that her Bobby had actually been asked to join the band. She flushed with pleasure.

‘That will be very nice for you, Bobby,’ she said. ‘I’m really glad you’re making such nice friends. Does anyone else belong?’

‘Sally Wilson does,’ said Bobby. ‘She’s sort of head of it.’

‘Oh, that Sally!’ said his mother, who didn’t like Sally at all and thought her interfering. ‘She’s going to be a regular busybody like her mother! Mrs Wilson is always on at me to do this, that, and the other. Says I don’t mix enough. As if I want to mix with the village people here, and make jam at the Institute, and go over to Tidding Hospital to mess about there ...’

‘Well, Sally’s in the band too,’ Bobby said knowing that if he didn’t interrupt his mother would go on for a long time about Mrs Wilson. ‘But I don’t take much notice of her, Mother. I just put my own ideas forward and the others agree to them. I suppose I really run the band.’

His mother beamed. She thought that was wonderful.

‘The thing is, Mother, as we’ve made this band to put things right where they are wrong, we’ve got to get to work,’ said Bobby. ‘I suppose you don’t know anything in the village we could help to put right, do you?’

Mrs Jones could think of a great many things! She disapproved of a lot of people and their ‘goings-on’ in Under-Ridge. But most of them were impossible for children to tackle. She would like to have that conceited Mrs Brown told not to wear such fashionable clothes! She would like to make the tradespeople more polite—they were none of them as civil to her as they ought to be!

‘Well,’ she said at last, ‘there’s that dirty, untidy Mrs Potts. Why don’t you tackle her, Bobby? She’s a real disgrace to the village—and that baby of hers is always crying, and so dirty. It could be a nice little thing if it was clean and tidy. Her husband’s away in the Navy, but what he’ll say when he comes back and sees that nice little cottage so filthy, the garden all weeds, and the baby a dirty, squalling little creature, I don’t know! Run away and leave her to it, I should think.’

Bobby thought that Mrs Potts and her dirty little baby would be a good job for the Put-Em-Rights to tackle, and he said so.

‘You tell her she ought to be ashamed of herself!’ said Mrs Jones. ‘Bringing up that poor little baby of hers like that! You just tell her that.’

Bobby thought that the Put-Em-Rights would hardly go about the task in that way, but he didn’t say so. He hoped it wouldn’t fall to him to tackle it; he thought it was really a job for one of the girls.

Sally had a talk with her mother, too, but Mrs Wilson was busy and inattentive. ‘Ask me another time, Sally,’ she said. ‘I’m busy now. I haven’t time to discuss the village people with you. Go among them yourself if you want to find out about them, and make friends. Though you’ll probably find, as I do, that they’re very standoffish, and you can’t get much out of them.’

Sally didn’t mean to go and find out anything herself. She had already reported Fellin and his dog to the band. If her mother had had any ideas to offer, she would have told the band these, but Sally didn’t like the villagers enough to go and talk with them. ‘I’ve done my bit in reporting Fellin,’ she thought. ‘I wonder how Micky will tackle that. He’s not lazy like Amanda, or don’t-carish like Podge, so maybe he’ll do the job quite well.’

Amanda, too, had tried to find out from her mother if there was anything wrong in the village that could be put right. But Mrs Gray did not discuss the affairs of the villagers with anyone except the Rector, certainly not with her children. She held that if the villagers came to her for help, it was their own private affair, and no one else need be told about it. Therefore the villagers trusted her, and came to her and the Rector for help in all kinds of matters.

So Amanda did not get any helpful information at all from her mother. However, she happened to overhear a remark that the daily help at the Rectory made to her mother, which set her thinking.

‘That poor little baby of Mrs Potts, it doesn’t get on at all!’ said Alice, the daily help. ‘Mrs Potts wants a good shake-up, it seems to me: lazy and dirty, she is, and her husband away and all!’

‘Ah!’ thought Amanda. ‘Now that’s something the Put-Em-Rights might do. I’ll tell them tomorrow.’

She told Micky that night, and he agreed that Mrs Potts and the baby were their job. ‘For the sake of the baby,’ he said. ‘Oh, Amanda, I hope I tackle Fellin all right. I don’t want to make him any worse than he is already!’

‘You won’t,’ Amanda said. ‘Don’t worry, Mick. We’ll soon all be tackling different things, and we can’t expect to get everything right at once. It may take weeks and weeks to do some things.’

Fellin came the next day. At his heels was the thin, half-starved little mongrel. Micky, looking out of the window, was delighted to see it.

‘Look there,’ he said to Amanda. ‘Fellin has actually brought his dog with him. That will make things easier for me. You come along too, Mandy, and if you can put in a word to help, you must.’

After breakfast the two children went down to where Fellin was hoeing. The garden was too big for the Grays, who hadn’t nearly enough money to keep a full-time gardener for it. So the Rector got odd-job men like Fellin to come and do urgent jobs from time to time. Most of the garden he and Mrs Gray did themselves, with occasional help from Micky, and very rare help from Amanda.

‘Good morning, Fellin,’ said Micky.

‘Morning,’ said Fellin, ungraciously. ‘Get to heel, Midge.’

Midge the dog crawled to Fellin’s heels, his tail drawn between his legs. He lay there, perfectly still, his eyes fixed on Micky.

‘What a nice dog!’ said Micky brightly.

Fellin said nothing. ‘He—he looks so intelligent,’ went on Micky. ‘I love dogs, don’t you, Fellin?’

‘I like dogs that are dogs!’ said Fellin, hoeing viciously at a patch of weeds. ‘That there thing isn’t a dog. It’s just a bundle of trouble. Chasing hens and sheep and barking at night till all the neighbours complain. Many’s the time I’ve thought to get rid of it.’

‘But—but he looks such a dear little dog,’ said Amanda, trying to help. ‘He’s got such nice eyes—and a nice black nose—and—’

Fellin looked at her in surprise. He was not used to hearing praise of his dirty, mangy little mongrel. He looked down at Midge to make sure it really was his dog they were talking about.

‘It’s so nice to have a dog for a friend, isn’t it?’ said Micky, trying again. ‘I had a dog once—a spaniel called Bundle. But he died. He was the best dog in the world and went with me everywhere like a real friend.’

There was such feeling in Micky’s voice that Fellin looked at him with interest. ‘Ay,’ he said, ‘it must be good to have a dog like that. That’s why I got Midge here, because I was lonely and wanted company. I thought maybe a dog would cheer me up a bit. But this one, he’s a failure right enough. Gets me into no end of trouble he does, killing hens and things. I thrash him hard to stop him, but it’s not a bit of good. He goes off and gets me into trouble again.’

‘He looks awfully thin,’ said Micky, looking at the wretched dog. ‘Do you feed him enough?’

‘He can pick up food for himself all right,’ said Fellin. ‘No call to spoil a dog, is there? Let him fend for himself, same as I do! He’s a poor fellow, this dog, though; only half a dog, I say. No good to anyone. He was a nice little pup, though. I wasn’t to know he’d grow into this ugly creature.’

‘Don’t whip him too much,’ said Micky earnestly. ‘Try a little kindness instead.’

‘Pah!’ said Fellin, scornfully. ‘What do you suppose kindness would do to a dog like that? Just make him worse than ever, see? He only understands a good whipping.’

Micky felt that he was not getting on very fast. He was racking his brains for something else to say when he heard his name called.

‘Micky! Where are you?’

It was Bobby Jones, looking rather important. ‘I’m here,’ said Micky. ‘What do you want?’

‘To call a meeting,’ said Bobby. ‘I’ve heard of something else.’

‘Right,’ said Micky, rather glad to have an excuse for leaving Fellin. ‘Podge and Yolande will be here soon.’

‘I called for Sally on my way up,’ said Bobby. ‘She’s waiting over on the lawn.’

Micky bent down to pat Midge. The dog growled and tried to snap.

‘What did I tell you?’ said Fellin triumphantly. ‘Kindness ain’t no good to him! Spiteful little cur, he is. You give him a kick and he’ll understand that!’

Micky and Amanda said nothing. They hurried off with Bobby. Micky secretly thought that Midge was as sour as his master!