Read Online Tuppence To Spend by Lilian Harry - Free Book Online

he’s got to go and fight the war first.’
    They went back to Bridge End a day or two after that, just in time for the snow. It was a heavy fall and it lay over thefields like a thick white quilt. Everyone turned out to shovel it from the roads to let the horses and carts through, and the children organised snowball fights, built snowmen and took huge delight in stamping their footprints over the smooth white billows. Tim and Keith built an igloo and begged the Corners to let them sleep in it. Reg was half inclined to let them, but Edna put her foot down and was justified when it collapsed during the night.
    ‘I don’t reckon this bombing’s going to happen after all,’ Ruth Purslow remarked to her sister Jane when she tramped up to the farm for some eggs. Jane’s husband George was foreman, in charge of up to a dozen workers, and they had a nice house a little way away from the main farmhouse. ‘I reckon they just got in a panic.’ She put down her basket and took off her hat, shaking out her coppery hair.
    ‘That’s not what my Alec says,’ Lizzie said. She worked in a shop in Southampton but hadn’t been able to get in that day because of the snow. She was knitting beside the fire, but now she produced a letter from her knitting bag. ‘I had this letter this morning. He says the German navy’s all over the place, chasing our merchant ships from pillar to post. He reckons there’ll be food shortages. Well, it stands to reason, don’t it? It’s as if the Germans have got us under siege.’
    ‘Well, yes, I know it’s going on at sea,’ Ruth said apologetically. ‘You must be worried about him – we all are. But it’s the bombing I’m talking about. I mean, we never had much during the last war, did we?’
    ‘They never had the aeroplanes then,’ Jane pointed out. She split some fresh scones and buttered them. ‘Have one of these, Ruth, they were in the oven five minutes ago. They didn’t have the bombs either, not many. But they’ve been making them ever since and you can mark my words, they’ll use ’em. I think Hitler’s just biding his time and you can’t blame him with the weather the way it is.’ She sighed.‘I just hope it doesn’t last too long. Our Terry will get his papers before long, I dare say, and Ben’s coming up to seventeen, you know, and if they start calling up the youngsters … It’ll put paid to his college course.’ She stared at the scones for a moment without seeing them. ‘Still, there’s no use looking for trouble. How’s Dad today?’
    Ruth put a scone on to one of Jane’s pretty plates. ‘Oh, you know, much the same. Still on about his chubbleducks. Goodness knows what they are today but he got himself proper worked up, trying to explain something to me this morning. Him and Silver, they make a good pair, neither one of ’em knows what they’re talking about. In fact, Silver makes more sense than he does at times. I swear that bird does know what some of his little sayings mean, he brings them out so apt.’
    ‘You ought to just leave them to chat away together.’
    Ruth smiled but shook her head. ‘The squawking gives Dad a headache. He likes Silver, but he can’t stand being in the same room for too long. It’s a shame he can’t get out now. He used to be such an active man. Not that he complains, mind.’
    ‘I know.’ Jane poured another cup of tea. ‘He’s a wonder really, always keeping so cheery. But don’t think I don’t realise how hard it is for you, Ruth. You know you can always call on me for a hand, or to come and sit with him so you can get out a bit if you need to go into Southampton, that sort of thing.’
    Ruth nodded. She could slip out for an hour or so, like this afternoon or to Women’s Institute meetings, but she didn’t like to leave her father to go out of the village.
    ‘Thanks, Jane, but I don’t think I’ll be going anywhere much till this snow clears away. It’s a good three foot deep across the pathfields, I