William's Happy Days

by Richmal Crompton

  ‘William, your father wants you.’

  William shot into the tool shed like an arrow from a bow, and crouched behind the wheel-barrow.

  ‘William!’

  He didn’t stir. There was silence except for the sound of his heart beating. It was beating so loud that he was afraid it would betray his hiding-place if his mother came out to look for him . . .

  ‘William!’

  That was his father. William recognised the tone of voice. He rose and dragged himself reluctantly into the morning room. His father stood by the fireplace, and Mr. Ferris sat in an arm-chair. There was a very peculiar expression on Mr. Ferris’s face.

  William fixed his eyes on the ceiling. His brow was wet with perspiration. His throat was dry. His knees were unsteady.

  ‘William,’ said his father, ‘Mr. Ferris tells me that you went round to his house the other evening to ask him to explain something in the Arithmetic lesson that you hadn’t quite understood. He says that he’s glad to see you take such an interest in your work, and he’s kindly offered to give you an hour’s extra Arithmetic after school every day for the next fortnight.’

  Mr. Brown’s voice showed his bewilderment. It was clear that that was all Mr. Ferris had told him, and that Mr. Brown was mystified. He kept trying to imagine William going round to Mr. Ferris’s house to ask him to explain something in the Arithmetic class that he hadn’t understood, and he couldn’t. He could swallow a lot of things but he strained at that. Still—if Mr. Ferris said that it had happened, it must have happened. Perhaps they had all misjudged poor William—even the masters who gave him such execrable reports term after term. Perhaps William really took an interest in his work after all . . .

  ‘Well, aren’t you going to say thank you?’ he said sharply to his son.

  ‘Thank you, sir,’ said William to the ceiling.

  He simply couldn’t meet that peculiar expression in Mr. Ferris’s eye.

  WILLIAM FIXED HIS EYES ON THE CEILING. HIS THROAT WAS DRY, HIS KNEES WERE UNSTEADY.

  In the garden he climbed on to the fence to consider the situation. An hour every day for a fortnight. The only hour that was ever left when he’d finished his homework. No games with his Outlaws, except at the week-end, for a fortnight. He plunged his hands into his pocket in search of consolation, and found some string, a penknife, a piece of putty, and the little girl’s note. He opened it and read:

  ‘WILLIAM,’ SAID HIS FATHER, ‘MR. FERRIS TELLS ME THAT YOU WENT ROUND TO HIS HOUSE THE OTHER EVENING.’

  Dere William,

  I think that you are the most wunderful pursun in the wurld. I shal nevver forget you.

  His frown lightened despite himself.

  In the little girl’s imagination at any rate that sinister omnipotent figure of William’s dreams would live on . . .

  ‘William!’

  It was his mother. She carried a bowl in her hands.

  ‘William, I thought you might like to scrape this out.’

  She had left a shamelessly large portion of her mixture in it, half a cake at least.

  (Mrs. Brown had been most indignant at her husband’s incredulity.

  ‘Of course he went to Mr. Ferris because he wanted to understand his Arithmetic. Why should Mr. Ferris say he did, if he didn’t? I think it’s most unfair to William not to believe it. I’ve always thought that William must be better at his work than they make out. I’ve never believed those awful reports he gets.’)

  ‘Here you are, dear. The spoon’s in it. And, William, I’m so glad that you’re beginning to take such an interest in your work. I’m very much pleased about it.’

  ‘Uh-huh!’ said William modestly. She returned indoors. He scrambled down from the fence, and went to the wheelbarrow that had been left under the tree at the end of the lawn. Lying in it full length, he began slowly and with lingering relish to eat the delicious mixture. Jumble came running across the lawn, leapt upon him and sat down firmly upon his stomach. Jumble, too, loved ‘raw cake,’ and William divided it with him, giving them a spoonful each in turn.

  Lying there in the wheelbarrow in the perfect summer evening with Jumble sitting on his stomach and this bowl of the food of the Gods in his arms, it was difficult to feel despondent, even with the prospect of that fortnight’s bondage staring him in the face. After all, a fortnight has to come to an end sometime. It can’t last for ever . . .

  As he scraped out the last spoonful and put it into his mouth, he thought of that peculiar expression on Mr. Ferris’s face—eyes twinkling, lips compressed to keep them steady—and it suddenly occurred to him that even that fortnight might not be so bad.

  CHAPTER 9

  WILLIAM PUTS THINGS RIGHT

  William wandered down the road, dragging his toes in the dust. He generally did this when alone for the simple reason that he wasn’t allowed to do it when with his mother. It afforded him a certain mild satisfaction, but still—he was bored.

  The holidays had arrived and all his friends were away and he’d no one to play with. Even the grown-ups were of less use than usual—though grown-ups at the best of times were of little enough use—for an imminent local bazaar seemed to fill their entire horizon.

  Had his friends been at home, William, of course, would have been glad that this should be so, because the Outlaws always preferred that the grown-ups should have some engrossing interest of their own; but it is difficult to devise really engrossing interests alone, and William was bored.

  He had tried all the obvious resources that afternoon. He had practised with his bow and arrows till he had smashed the scullery window, and then hastened to the other end of the village, accompanied by Jumble, to establish an alibi. There Jumble, spying Miss Milton’s Persian cat sunning itself in her garden, had squeezed through the hedge and returned after a short, sharp skirmish, wearing a fringe of cat’s fur round his mouth.

  Miss Milton’s cat could be heard in the garden calling upon Heaven to witness the outrage, and, as Miss Milton was an adept in the writing of indignant notes to parents, William, dragging Jumble by the collar, hastened from the scene to establish another alibi.

  He went this time into the woods for an hour’s rabbiting with Jumble. Jumble, however, wasn’t in a rabbiting mood, and kept bringing sticks for William to throw. William wasn’t in a stick-throwing mood, and so relations became strained.

  Next, William tried to play Red Indians, but Jumble wanted to play Hide and Seek instead, and, by the time William had decided to play Hide and Seek, Jumble had begun to play Red Indians, so at last William began to amuse himself by throwing stones at a tree. But the whole of creation seemed to be leagued against him because he didn’t hit it once.

  Then, more bored than ever, he plodded his way homewards, thinking that even a row about Miss Milton’s cat or the scullery window would be preferable to another hour of his own company.

  Jumble had now begun a game of his own (which seemed to consist in scratching up moss), and pretended not to hear when William told him he was going home, though he followed him casually from moss heap to moss heap as if by accident. William and Jumble adored each other, but occasionally they got on each other’s nerves.

  So William strolled aimlessly along the road, dragging his toes in the dust, and Jumble ferreted about in the ditch, pretending that he was out by himself. As William walked, he gazed about him, half unconsciously looking for some adventure to suggest itself. Suddenly he stopped.

  A small house stood by the roadside, and behind it lay a long, narrow strip of garden. Two large beech trees stood, one on either side of the garden, at exactly the same distance from the house. One branch of each just met the other across the garden.

  At once William felt that he would know no peace till he had discovered whether or not it were not possible to climb up one, cross over by those two branches that just met, and climb down the other. It might, of course, be rather difficult, because the two branches that met didn’t look very strong, but still—he must find out. />
  He peered cautiously over the hedge. In the middle of the lawn was a table, laid for tea, with a chair near it, but there was no human being in sight.

  William crept along the hedge till he came to the beech tree. Then he began to swing himself up. Progress was rather difficult, till he reached the branches, but then it was quite easy. He climbed up to the branch that stretched across the garden and along it. Yes, he thought, it was a bit thin, but it just held him.

  Here was the other branch. He had to give a little jump to get from one to the other. He gave it. He landed quite safely on the second branch, but—yes, he had been right, it was too thin, he thought to himself, as he hurtled through the air on to the tea-table below.

  The tea-table gave way beneath him, and he sat up on the lawn in a ruin of broken table legs and smashed crockery, wondering which part of his person to rub first, and watching an interesting display of stars that seemed to be taking place around him. When that vanished, he saw to his dismay, a thin, middle-aged, rather precise-looking lady making her way down towards him from the house. He made an effort to rise, but a couple of stars knocked him on the head, and he sat down again suddenly. He was just wondering whether he could crawl to the hedge, when he saw to his amazement that the lady’s face expressed only pity and concern.

  ‘Oh, my dear boy,’ she gasped, ‘are you hurt?’

  ‘I’m all right,’ he said. ‘It’s stars keep hittin’ me, an’ I can’t hit ’em back.’

  She was lifting him very tenderly on to the basket chair.

  ‘Now,’ she said, ‘do you feel better?’

  ‘Yes,’ said William, looking round. ‘They’re all gone now.’ He added bitterly: ‘They would. Jus’ when I’m all right again an’ could get at ’em.’

  ‘No bones broken?’ she faltered.

  William felt himself all over with an expression copied as faithfully as possible from his family doctor.

  ‘No,’ he said at last. ‘I can’t feel any broke. I bet anyone else’d have every one broke, but I’m a jolly good faller.’

  ‘Now you just stay there a minute,’ said the lady, ‘and I’ll get you something to eat.’

  William stayed there. Dismayed, he glanced around him at the welter of broken china and the fragments of what had once been a tea-table. He had noticed them when he first sat up after the fall, but hoped that they would clear away with the stars.

  The lady reappeared with a tray on which were lemonade, iced buns, and a plate of chocolate biscuits. William’s eyes glistened and his heart was struck with compunction. He had never heard the expression ‘coals of fire,’—and would have considered it a very queer one if he had—but he would have appreciated its meaning at that moment. His eyes wandered again guiltily to the chaos around him.

  ‘I’ll bring you my pocket money every Sat’day,’ he offered brusquely, ‘till I’ve paid for ’em.’

  ‘Oh, no, my dear boy,’ said the lady. ‘It was entirely my fault. Entirely.’

  ‘Yours?’ said William, amazed.

  ‘Yes. I saw you begin to do it, and I ought to have stopped you. But, well—you know, I’ve always wondered if one could climb up one of them and down the other, and I wanted to see if you could. I know that if I’d been your age I couldn’t have resisted it.’

  ‘You?’ said William.

  ‘Yes. I was a great tree climber. I’ve climbed every tree in the Hall grounds. I used to live there when I was a little girl, you know.’ She looked up at the trees again. ‘It’s not strong enough where they join, is it?’

  ‘No,’ said William. ‘And you have to give a sort of jump to get from one to the other—and that does it.’

  ‘Yes, so I saw. I’m so sorry that you hurt yourself, but I’m glad that we know quite definitely that it can’t be done. And never mind those broken things. It was quite an old table, and the china can easily be replaced. I never use good china in the garden.’

  ‘Won’t you have somethin’ to eat?’ said William politely, passing her the buns.

  ‘Well, you stay here and I’ll bring my tea out. Are you sure you feel all right now?’

  ‘Yes, thanks,’ said William, rather regretfully. ‘I feel I’d like to have a look at those stars again now, but they always go jus’ when you’re feelin’ well enough to enjoy ’em, don’t they?’

  ‘Yes, they do,’ agreed the lady. ‘I often used to fall from trees when I was a little girl.’

  She disappeared into the house. William sipped his lemonade and nibbled his chocolate biscuits with luxurious enjoyment. A maid came out, cleared away the broken china and table, and brought out another table and another chair.

  Then the lady appeared with a tray of tea, and sat down opposite William.

  ‘It’s really very nice to have you here to tea this afternoon, dear boy,’ she said, ‘because I happen to be feeling rather worried.’

  ‘Why?’ said William, as distinctly as he could through half an iced bun.

  ‘You wouldn’t understand, dear,’ she said with a sigh.

  ‘I bet I would,’ said William earnestly. ‘I often feel like that myself.’

  ‘Ah, but you wouldn’t understand this worry,’ she sighed.

  ‘I bet I would,’ said William again.

  Gratitude at the unexpected kindness of his reception was swelling in his bosom, so that he was conscious of an uncomfortable sensation of constraint quite unconnected with either his fall or the iced bun. The expression of his sympathy with the lady’s worry might, he thought, ease it to a certain extent.

  ‘I bet I’d jolly well understand it,’ he went on, still more earnestly, ‘’cause the things I worry about seem silly to other people, so I bet I’d understand about yours.’

  ‘What sort of things do you worry about?’ said the lady.

  ‘Oh, when windows keep gettin’ in the way of my arrers an’ cats go stickin’ their fur in Jumble’s mouth an’ things like that,’ he said, and added truthfully: ‘I don’t mean that I worry a norful lot about them.’

  ‘My worry,’ said the lady, pouring herself out another cup of tea, ‘is to do with the bazaar.’

  ‘Yes,’ said William, absent-mindedly taking a piece of the lady’s bread and butter, ‘yes, I’ve been a bit worried about that myself. When you think,’ he went on, warming to his theme, ‘of all the things people might have and then they go an’ have—bazaars!’

  He brought the word out with such contempt that he swallowed a mouthful of bread and butter unmasticated, and was seized with a fit of choking.

  ‘Of course,’ said the lady vaguely, patting him on the back. ‘But, you see, I’ve had one of the fancy stalls since I was twenty. My mother always used to have one and I the other, and this was the last year I was doing it; and I did so want to have a good display, and I shall have nothing. Nothing at all. Take the plate to the kitchen window, dear, and the maid will give you some more buns.’

  William obeyed, and returned with a fresh supply of buns. The lady refilled his glass with lemonade. Gratitude swelled again to bursting point in his bosom.

  ‘I bet I could give you some things for your stall,’ he said. ‘I’ve got a catapult that’s only broke a bit. It shoots all right. An’ I’ll make a bow an ’arrer for you an’—’

  ‘No, dear,’ said the lady sadly, ‘it wouldn’t do for a fancy stall.’

  ‘What d’you want for a fancy stall?’ said William. ‘I could bring you my Sunday stockings. They’ve only been washed twice an’ they’ve got fancy tops—and I could tell mother a burglar had stole ’em.’

  ‘No, dear, thank you so much,’ said the lady again. ‘It’s very good of you, but it really wouldn’t do. You see—it’s a long story and you wouldn’t understand it. She thinks that it’s entirely my fault that people don’t call on her.’

  ‘Who?’ demanded William, mystified.

  ‘Mrs. Porker.’

  William knew Mrs. Porker. She lived at the Hall. She was large and stout and wealthy, and, though she dropped fewer ai
tches than her husband, she still dropped a good many.

  ‘I used to live at the Hall before we had to sell it,’ went on the lady. ‘My family has lived there for hundreds of years, and, you see, people come to see me here who won’t go to see her at the Hall, and she thinks it’s my fault. It isn’t, of course. I try to make them call on her.

  ‘But she’s very bitter about it and she dislikes me, and she’s having the other fancy stall and she’s asked everyone for things, even the people who generally give to me. She told them she didn’t think I was having a stall this year. I dare say she really thought so, because I’ve been ill, and I meant to make a lot of things myself, and, having been ill, I’ve not been able to. And nearly all my friends seem to be abroad, and the result is I’ve got practically nothing, and, of course, she’ll be delighted. Not that I really mind much about that, but I did so want to have a nice stall, and it’s the last year I’m doing it. As it is, people will simply laugh at it.’

  William gazed at her with a puzzled frown, as if trying hard to see the matter from her point of view.

  ‘Yes, I see in a way,’ he said at last, ‘I kind of see. It’s like havin’ to go to school when you’ve not done any homework.’

  ‘Yes,’ said the lady, ‘Yes. I suppose that it’s something like that.’

  William considered the problem in silence for a second, then brightened. ‘You could pretend to be ill an’ stay in bed,’ he said, and added rather bitterly: ‘You could. You’ve no one to bring in the doctor to make you go to school or drink what he calls med’cine, but what tastes to me like poison. I never feel s’prised,’ he added with a sinister laugh, ‘when I hear of folks he’s been goin’ to dyin’.’