Patricia St John Series

by Patricia St John

  My aunt took hold of my arm. “Go straight to bed,” she said firmly. “Don't let me hear any more of this rudeness. I thought you were going to try and improve, but this does not look like improvement at all. Off you go!”

  I shook myself free and marched off with my head in the air.

  “I don't care,” I muttered over my shoulder, and slammed the door behind me as hard as I could.

  But I did care—very much indeed! Almost before I'd reached the top of the stairs, I'd realized what I'd done, and by the time I crept into bed I thought my heart was breaking. I curled up in a ball, buried my face in the pillow, and sobbed and sobbed.

  I had forgotten to listen to the voice of the Good Shepherd. Perhaps He would never speak to me again. Perhaps He would stop loving me. Perhaps I should even stop belonging to Him, and then there would be no one to help me to be good. Oh, why hadn't I waited and listened?

  “Ruth, what is the matter? You mustn't cry like this!”

  I had been sobbing so bitterly that I never heard my aunt come in. I turned around quickly and tried to stop crying, for I did not really want her to see how sorry I was. She was sitting by my bed, and she had a glass of milk and a plate of biscuits in her hand.

  “What is the matter, Ruth?” she asked again, and her voice was rather worried for she had never seen me cry like that before.

  I tried to answer in my ordinary voice, but could not manage it. I buried my head afresh in the pillow and began crying again.

  I did not want to tell her, but I suddenly thought that she may be able to answer my questions, and I wanted to know the answer so badly that I blurted it all out.

  “It's the Shepherd,” I sobbed. “I lost my temper and perhaps I shan't belong to Him anymore. Oh, Auntie, do you think I shall be able to come back to him if I'm good next time?”

  I lifted my face in my eagerness to hear her answer, but she was staring at me as if I had lost my senses.

  “What are you talking about, Ruth?” she asked helplessly.

  I dived for the chair and found my picture in my Bible. I pulled it out and held it in front of her with a great sniff and a gulp.

  “That,” I answered. “You see, I was His sheep, but I forgot to listen, and perhaps He'll never speak to me again because I lost my temper so badly. Do you think, Auntie, He'd forgive me just this once?”

  My aunt was staring very hard at the picture, and she didn't speak for a long time. “Who gave you this picture, Ruth?” she asked at last.

  “Mr. Robinson,” I replied. “And he told me all about it. You do know the story, don't you, Auntie? Do you think He will, Auntie, if I never, never do it again?”

  She was still staring at the picture and the answer was a long time in coming.

  “Auntie,” I whispered impatiently, giving her arm a little shake, “do you think He might?”

  “If you are really sorry for being naughty, and are determined to try and be different, I am quite sure God will forgive you. You had better ask Him.”

  My aunt stayed with me while I had my milk and biscuits, but we said very little. When I had finished, she kissed me good night and left me very sleepy and quite comforted. Before I fell asleep I buried my face in the pillow again and said a prayer for forgiveness to the Good Shepherd, who I knew cared equally for lost lambs, sleeping babies, and bad little girls.

  We Get a Letter

  The summer term passed very quickly. Philip and I spent long, happy evenings on the Common playing cricket. Early in the mornings we often climbed the hills to watch the larks spring up from the bracken and fly high up into the sunrise. We loved to lie silently on the tops of the hills in the early morning and then race home to breakfast.

  The summer holidays had come around again before we heard from Terry. All summer he had been in a children's hospital in Birmingham, and from time to time we got news of him from Dr. Paterson. We wrote to him quite a lot and told him all about the woods, what flowers were coming out and what birds we had seen, but he never answered. So it was a great surprise when the postman, meeting us at the gate one morning, handed us a letter address to us.

  Nobody but Mum or Dad ever wrote to us, and this was certainly not their writing. It was larger, and shaky, and looked as though the writer was not very used to writing letters at all. Philip politely handed it to me to open and looked over my shoulder while I read.

  “Dear Filip and Ruth,” it said, “I am come home now but I has to stay in bed. Please come and see me. From Terry. My address is Willow Cottage, the Hollow, Tanglewoods.”

  We were so impatient to start that we could hardly eat our dinner, and we talked about it all the time.

  My aunt didn't seem too sure when we showed her the note, but said we could go all the same. “I only hope it's a clean cottage. Don't stay too long, will you?”

  As soon as dinner was over, we raced to our rooms to hunt in our drawers, for we wanted to take Terry a present. I found a bar of chocolate and Philip found a catapult, so we wrapped them up in separate parcels and put them in our pockets. Then we rushed out the front door and set off for Tanglewoods.

  Tanglewoods was such a little village that it was really quite difficult to tell when you got there. There was a shop that sold groceries and candles and cattle food and medicines and cough mixtures, and had a post office in one corner. Farther on was a tiny church with some old tombstones falling backward. But the real Tanglewoods consisted of scattered farms and cottages along the low hills, and barns and outhouses hidden among the hop yards. No one knew where Tanglewoods started or ended, so Terry's address took us some time to find.

  We came through the woods, and down over the hill where the view in front reminded us of a patchwork quilt. Everywhere we looked we saw risings and hollows and little hills and valleys, and we stood for a while trying to guess in which particular hollow Terry lived.

  There was no one in sight, and we made for the nearest farm to ask the way. We found a woman churning milk in a cool stone dairy. She came to the door, and pointed farther down the valley. “You'll be meaning that tumbledown place down Sheep's Hollow. There's a gypsy sort of woman lives there with a boy. She's been up begging a lot of times. Follow the track down through the gorse bushes, then follow the brook. It leads right down into the hollow.

  We thanked her and went on, and she stood staring after us curiously, as though she would have liked to know our business at Willow Cottage. But we did not want to be held back, and we hurried down the hill as fast as we could until we could see the cottage in the hollow lying just below us, with its broken chimney pot and the holes in the roof where slates had blown off.

  It was a dark little hollow that had once been part of a quarry, although the clematis had covered up the bare rocks and made a green curtain around its sides. The stream trickled through it in a stagnant, slimy ooze, and we wondered why anyone should have chosen to build a cottage in such a damp, cheerless spot when there was all the open hillside to choose from. But we learned later from Terry that it had been built as a hut for storing dynamite for the quarry, and only later made into a house.

  It looked so miserable and deserted, with its broken windows stuffed with rags and nettles growing around the door, that we hung back half-frightened. Surely Terry couldn't live here! But as we stood hesitating at the entrance of the hollow, the door opened and a woman appeared and stood staring back at us.

  We knew that she was Terry's mother because of her great black eyes, but even so we felt afraid of her. She was a big, powerful woman with dark skin and black, untidy hair gathered back in her handkerchief. Her face was hard and unhappy, and she looked at us as if she disliked us.

  Nobody spoke for a moment or two. Then the woman broke the silence.

  “Well,” she asked, “what do you kids want here?”

  We came forward slowly.

  “Please,” explained Philip. “Terry wrote us a letter to come and see him, so we came. We're so glad that he's well enough to come home.”

  The w
oman's face did not look any happier.

  “Are you the children who was with my Terry when he fell?” she asked suspiciously.

  “Yes,” we answered rather guiltily.

  “You didn't ought to have let him done it,” she muttered. “Still, he's been carrying on something awful about you two coming to see 'im, so you'd best come in.”

  She jerked the door back roughly and led the way inside. We followed, but I slipped my hand into Philip's and held it tightly. The little room into which she entered was gloomy, hot, and airless, and there was a strange smell, too, that made me want to sneeze. There was only one little window and it was too high to see through.

  But a moment later we had forgotten all this, and both ran forward with a cry of welcome. For on the bed in a corner lay Terry, and we had not seen him for three and a half months.

  Of course we knew it was Terry because we were expecting him. But otherwise, I'm not sure if we would have recognized him, for he was changed. He looked small and weak and pale.

  He did not smile at us, for his face had grown so sullen and unhappy that he looked as though he hardly knew how to smile. But he held out his hand and said that he was really pleased to see us, and he'd been looking for us ever since morning.

  We said just as seriously that we were very pleased to see him, and then there was a long silence because none of us could think of anything to say.

  Philip broke it at last by asking how Terry had enjoyed the hospital.

  “'Tweren't bad,” Terry admitted, “but I got fed up with lying so still like, and nothing to look at but them streets. And here it's just as bad. Nothing to look at but that there wall. The window is too high up to see out of, and if I could, there'd be nothing to see but the side of the hollow.”

  “Couldn't we carry your bed outside?” I asked, looking doubtfully at the heavy iron bedstead on which he lay.

  He shook his head. “Couldn't get it through the door without taking it to pieces,” he replied gloomily, “And you can't move me off it. Me back hurts too bad.”

  “Haven't you any books?” we asked.

  “I ain't much good at reading,” he answered, “although maybe I'd enjoy them if they'd got pictures in. What I want to see is them hills and birds and animals and things.”

  His voice shook a little, and his big eyes filled with tears. Poor, tired, cross little Terry! We both felt dreadfully sorry for him and didn't know how to comfort him.

  “I'll bring you all my bird books,” said Philip, who was looking most upset. “We'll come ever so often and tell you what things are looking like, and then when we've gone you can shut your eyes and pretend you're seeing them. I'll tell you what Tanglewoods looks like now, when we came over the hills this afternoon. The hay is still lying out in the fields, and the willow herb patches are just beginning to turn woolly. The hops will soon be ripe and are beginning to smell when you go past the yards, and the apples in the orchard are beginning to turn rosy and weigh down the branches. Oh, and I think they will cut the harvests very soon because the wheat is ripe and the wind makes nice noises in it and I saw Mr. Lake getting out his tractor. And there are lots of flowers. We'll bring you some next time, and some apples.”

  Terry seemed pleased. A faint pink tinge crept into his almost colorless cheeks.

  “You going to the hop fields?” he asked sadly.

  “We might,” I answered, “if Auntie will let us. We could earn some money then, couldn't we, Philip? To help with the camera.”

  “I used to earn a lot of money down at the hop yards,” said Terry. “Enough to buy me a pair of winter boots. Mum will have to try and go this year, but she can't leave me long, and she's had to give up her work to stop and mind me.”

  We didn't find it difficult any more to find things to say. In fact we talked so much that we stayed much longer than we meant to, and were interrupted by Terry's mother coming in with his tea.

  Terry's meal was a cup of very strong tea and a crust thinly spread with margarine on a chipped old plate. It did not look at all appetizing to me, but it reminded me of the chocolate I'd brought. It had begun to melt in my pocket, but it was still very nice, and Terry's eyes really gleamed when he saw it. We did not give him the catapult because it did not seem as though it would be any use. His arms looked too thin and white to aim it.

  “Terry,” asked Philip just as we were leaving, “when are you going to be able to get up and play with us again?”

  He did not answer for a minute, but the frightened, unhappy look came back into his eyes.

  “Maybe never,” he whispered. “They think I don't know, but down at the 'ospital I heard the doctor talking to the nurse, and he said, ‘It's all up with him, poor little chap. I can't do nuffing for him.’ And I think maybe that's why they let me mum take me home. They can't do nuffing more to make me better.”

  We were horrified to hear this, and once again we could think of nothing to say to comfort poor Terry. So we left him, rather sadly. But just as we were going out of the door he called after us. “When are you coming again?”

  “We can't come tomorrow,” answered Philip, “because we've got to go to the dentist. But we'll come the day after and bring the bird books.”

  “For certain sure?” called Terry.

  “For certain sure,” we called back.

  Terry's mother was out in the hollow hanging up a torn little nightshirt on the clothesline. She gave us a sour glance, but did not speak. When we said good afternoon she only grunted.

  “What a miserable woman,” I remarked, as we climbed the hollow. “I'm glad she's not my mother.”

  On the whole we were very silent on the way home, because we were both feeling sorry for Terry and we were both wondering what we could do to make his life happier. Nothing we could think of seemed much good, because nothing could make up for having to lie all day in a dark, stuffy room, staring at the wall, while the apples ripened and the harvest fields rustled outside.

  As I walked home that hazy summer day, I realized for the first time how thankful I ought to be for the things that I had always taken for granted. I had never thought about it before, but now I suddenly noticed my strong little arms and legs, and my warm, healthy body. I paused on the top of the hill and looked over the countryside, then for one glad moment my heart suddenly rose up in thankfulness to God because I had eyes to see, and ears to hear, and feet to run.

  A Moonlight Adventure

  We went to see Terry very often during the next few weeks, and I believe now that it was only our visits that kept him alive through those long, dark days when he lay flat on his aching back, staring at the wall. Philip lent him all his most precious nature books, and we took him all the chocolate we had, and baskets of fruit from the orchard. We felt well rewarded every time by the look of pleasure on his white cheeks and the flicker of happiness that would light up his eyes. He never thanked us in words, and his mother still stared at us as though she hated us. But we knew nevertheless that Terry's waking hours were spent wondering if we would come, and that he lay from dinner time onward with his eyes fastened on the door and his ears straining for the sound of our footsteps.

  We told Aunt Margaret about him, and once or twice she had sent him little presents. Aunt Margaret and I were slowly getting to understand each other, and I no longer tried to avoid helping her in the mornings. At first I did my jobs because I thought I ought to, but after a few days I found that housework was really quite fun, as long as I was doing my best and not trying to get out of it all the time. My aunt said nothing, but I knew she was pleased at the change, and gradually we grew fond of each other and I began to talk to her more freely instead of keeping everything a secret from her.

  Uncle Peter was interested in Terry, too, and once or twice he took the stepladder to the orchard and picked the enormous rosy apples that grew right at the top of the tree against the sky, for us to take to him. They were the size of big grapefruits, and when they were polished up we could see our faces in their shiny
skins. Terry loved them, and even his mother looked interested.

  “Did ya pick those in yer garden?” she asked suddenly one afternoon as we placed one of them between his small, white hands.

  We quite jumped, for except for her first greeting it was the first time she had ever spoken to us. We turned smiling toward her, for we wanted her to come to like us as much as Terry did.

  “Yes,” I answered. “We've lots of trees full of big, shiny apples like these. We shall be picking them in about a week, and then we'll bring some more. But we picked these early because we thought Terry would like them.”

  She only grunted and turned away, but I could not help feeling pleased she had spoken to us and admired our apples. I thought I would try and talk to her again another day.

  The nights just then were very hot, and owing to the extra “Summer Time,” it did not get dark until very late. Philip and I used to kick our bedclothes onto the floor and lie in our night things by the open windows trying to get cool. Often I got tired of lying alone and would go and sit on his bed. We would talk until the cool darkness gathered around us and we felt ready for sleep.

  It was on one of these hot, still nights, when the sky was still red with the last glow of sunset, that I tiptoed across the passageway and found Philip with his head out the window. I pushed him up a little and stuck my head out beside him. In the distance we could hear a sheep cry up among the rocks.

  “I don't think I shall be able to go to sleep all night, Phil,” I remarked. “It's such a beautiful night, I seem to want to look out the window all the time. It's full moon, too. Look, I can see it coming up behind that fir tree.”

  We watched it climb above the horizon, almost blood-red in color. It seemed all tangled up in the black boughs of the fir tree, but it would soon steer clear and all the world would be flooded with soft, silver light.

  I turned suddenly to Philip, my head full of moonlight madness. “Phil,” I whispered excitedly, “have you ever been out on the hills at night?”