Read Online The Crowstarver by Dick King-Smith - Free Book Online Page A

possible breakages. This meant that Spider picked up each egg with such painful care that it took him an age to clear one nest-box, and then, to cap it all, he tripped, carrying a full tray of eggs, and smashed the lot.
    â€˜Send un somewheres else, Percy, for the Lord’s sake,’ said the poultryman after a few days.
    So next morning, after the rest had left the stables, the foreman said to Spider ‘How’d you like to stop in here today? You like the horses, don’t you?’
    Spider nodded.
    â€˜Good uns,’ he said softly.
    â€˜Well, you bide here along of Ephraim and he’ll find you summat to do.’
    The horseman gave Spider a long-handledfour-tined fork – four-grain prong a Wiltshire-man would call it – and told him to muck out Pony’s empty stall, but he could soon see that the boy was not able to handle the implement properly but perfectly capable of doing himself an injury. Because of his clumsy way of getting about and the enthusiasm with which he drove his fork into the straw, Ephraim could see it was only a matter of time before he should spear himself through the foot.
    â€˜Leave that for now, Spider,’ he said, and he took him down to the far end of the long cobbled stables.
    Here, hung upon pegs in the wall, was all the tack for the work horses – the big straw-stuffed headcollars, the slim brass hames that fitted round those collars, the reins, the blinkered headpieces, the heavy ridged saddles, the breechings, the girths. There were in all eight sets, of varying sizes, for Flower the shire mare, for the two retired heavyweight hunters Em’ly and Jack, for the four hairy-heeled carthorses of doubtful breeding – halfway horses, Ephraim called them – and for the pony, Pony.
    All this saddlery had to be kept clean and in good working order, Ephraim knew only too well, for it was he who had to do it all, apart fromsome occasional help from his son Albie and now that was no longer forthcoming.
    All the brasswork – the hames, all the rings and buckles of the harness, the metal plates set in the saddles – had to be burnished. All the leather parts of the saddlery had to be kept supple, with saddle soap and wax polish. Ephraim took down a pair of hames, slender and curved, with a little brass ball on the tip of each, and from a shelf he took a tin of Brasso and some cloths. He sat down on a bench and beckoned Spider to sit beside him.
    â€˜Now watch me,’ he said, and he shook some Brasso onto a cloth and began to rub it into a short length of the metal with little circular motions. Then he took a clean cloth and buffed the metal till it shone.‘Reckon you could do that, Spider?’ he asked.
    Spider nodded eagerly.
    â€˜You got to keep on doing that, all over theseyer hames, till the pair of ’em is shining bright. Take your time. I’ll be down the other end mucking out, if you wants me.’
    Spider did indeed take his time. He was painfully slow, partly because of his innate clumsiness, partly because he was obviously determined to do the job well. And he did.
    At the end of the week, the horseman took Percy Pound to show him the shining brasswork and well-polished leather of one of the eight sets of saddlery.‘Guess who done that, Percy,’ he said.
    The foreman looked at Spider.‘Did you do that?’ he said.
    Spider gave his lopsided grin, nodding his head a great many times and hopping from foot to foot.
    â€˜Good boy!’ said Percy, and he put his hand in his pocket and pulled out a sixpence.
    â€˜Here,’ he said.‘Get yourself a few extra allsorts.’
    â€˜Took him two days to do that one set,’ said Ephraim, ‘but he kept on steady.’
    â€˜I’ll leave him with you for the time being then, Eph,’ said Percy.
    â€˜Even at this rate, he’ll have done all my tack in a couple of weeks,’ said the horseman.‘That’ll be a real help to me.