Read Online Silver on the Tree by Susan Cooper - Free Book Online Page A

powder for the guns.”
    â€œYou mean Miss Greythorne knew you were going into the Navy?”
    â€œOf course not, I didn’t know myself then.” Stephen looked a little taken aback. “Funny coincidence though. Never occurred to me before—I haven’t given her a thought for years.”
    But James’s mind had already taken off on a tangent, as it frequently did. “Will, whatever became of that little hunting horn she gave you, the year she gave Paul the flute? Did you lose it? You never even gave it one good blow.”
    â€œI still have it,” Will said quietly.
    â€œWell, get it out. We could have fun with it.”
    â€œOne day.” Will swung the lawn-mower round, shoving its handle at James’s unready hands. “Here—your turn. I’ve done the front, now you do the back.”
    â€œThat’s the rule,” said their father, passing with a weed-loaded wheelbarrow. “Fair’s fair. Share the burden.”
    â€œMy burden’s bigger than his,” James said dolefully.
    â€œNonsense!” said Mr. Stanton.
    â€œWell it is, actually,” Will said. “We measured, once. The back lawn’s five feet wider than the front, and ten feet longer.”
    â€œGot more trees in it,” said Mr. Stanton, unclipping the catch-box of grass cuttings from the front of the mower, and emptying it into his barrow.
    â€œThat makes more work, not less.” James drooped, more dolefully still. “Going round them. Trimming afterwards.”
    â€œGo away,” said his father. “Before I burst into tears.”
    Will took the box and clipped it back on the mower. “Good-bye, James,” he said cheerfully.
    â€œYou haven’t finished yet, either, matey,” Mr. Stanton said. “Stephen needs some help tying up the roses.”
    A muffled curse came from the front garden wall; Stephen, embraced by the sprawling branches of a climbing rose, was sucking his thumb.
    â€œI believe you may be right,” Will said.
    Grinning, his father picked up the wheelbarrow and prodded James and the lawn-mower up the driveway; Will was starting over the lawn when his elder sister Barbara came out of the front door.
    â€œTea’s nearly ready,” she said.
    â€œGood.”
    â€œOutside, we’re having it.”
    â€œGood, better, best. Come and help Steve fight a rose bush.”
    Rambler roses, spilling great swathes and bunches of red blossom, grew along and over the old stone wall that bordered the road. Gingerly they untangled the most wildlysprawling arms, drove stakes into the gravelly earth, and tied the branches to keep the billowing sprays of roses off the ground.
    â€œOuch!” said Barbara for the fifth time, as a rebellious rose-branch scored a thin red line across her bare back.
    â€œYour own fault,” said Will unfeelingly. “You should have more clothes on.”
    â€œIt’s a sunsuit. For the sunshine, duckie.”
    â€œNekkidness,” said her younger brother solemnly, “be a shameful condition for a yooman bein’. Tain’t roight. ‘Tes a disgrace to the neighbour’ood, so ’tes.”
    Barbara looked at him. “There you stand, wearing even
less—”
she began indignantly; then stopped.
    â€œSlow,” said Stephen. “Very slow.”
    â€œOh, you,” Barbara said.
    A car passed on the road; slowed suddenly; stopped; then began backing gradually until it was level with them. The driver switched off his engine, hauled himself across the seat and stuck a heavy-jowled red face out of the window.
    â€œMight the biggest of you be Stephen Stanton?” he said with clumsy joviality.
    â€œThat’s right,” said Stephen from the top of the wall. He gave one last blow to a stake. “What can I do for you?”
    â€œName’s Moore,” the man said. “You had a little run-in with one of my boys the other day, I