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

T’was never my favourite job.’
    â€˜Don’t drive him too hard, mind,’ said Percy.‘He’s only a kid after all. Give him the afternoon off, now and again.’
    So one day the following week Ephraim said to Spider at midday,‘Well done, boy. Now then, you can have the rest of the day off.’
    Seeing that Spider did not understand, the horseman took him by the shoulders, propelled him towards the stable door, and said,‘Off you go, there’s a good lad. Have a little holiday.’
    â€˜Where go?’ Spider said.
    â€˜Why, to your house of course,’ said Ephraim, meaning to Tom’s cottage.
    â€˜Spider’s house?’
    â€˜That’s right.’
    So Spider set off. He did not know why he was going but he knew where he had to go, so up the drove he went and off across the fields to the spinney that lay between Maggs’ Corner and Slimer’s, and so to his house, as he’d been told.
    He pulled aside the flap and went and sat on the box and got out his lunch and began happily eating. For a moment he thought about his fox, but did not worry at not seeing it, especially as a robin now appeared on the ground in front of the shelter. Spider particularly liked robins, and he threw out some crumbs.
    â€˜Tic-tic-tic-tic,’ he called softly.‘Tssip! Tseee!’ and the robin, intrigued at hearing its own voice, hopped nearer. Soon a large number of other small birds appeared on the ground outside Spider’s house – sparrows, chaffinches, dunnocks, tomtits, and what he always called a‘birdblack’, and between them they accounted for a large part of Spider’s lunch. All of them showed no sign of fear of the boy, but all of them disappeared in a hurry when a big carrion crow dropped down.
    Perhaps because it was alone, perhaps because it was not stealing corn and only croaks that did that were bad, Spider did not think of trying to frighten it away. Instead, he spoke to it in its own tongue.
    â€˜Kraa!’ said Spider, realistically hoarsely for his own voice was beginning to break, and ‘Kraa!’ the crow replied.
    Spider threw it his last crust, and it took it in its strong bill and flew up into the trees above.
    Spider was very hungry that evening.
    â€˜I don’t reckon I’m giving you enough for your lunch,’ said Kathie.‘Growing boy like you.’
    â€˜Birds!’ said Spider with his mouth full, and then he swallowed and illustrated his meaning by giving some bird calls, the robin’s, the ‘cheep’ of sparrows and the ‘tseep, tseep’ of the dunnock, and the unmistakable song of the cock chaffinch, a cascade of a dozen notes ending in a loud ‘choo-ee-o!’ At the same time, he mimed the throwing of bits of food.
    â€˜Giving half his lunch to the birds!’ saidKathie to Tom.‘I might have known.’
    Tom went down to the pub that evening (it had always pleased him that his local should be called The Lamb) for a glass or two of the rough cider that most of the farm men drank, and there, by chance, met Ephraim Stanhope.
    â€˜Evening, Eph,’ he said.‘Do us a favour, will you?’
    â€˜What’s that?’ asked the horseman.
    â€˜Let our Spider have a pocketful of tail corn to feed his blessed birds with. He give them half his lunch today. Dunno if you saw him feeding them?’
    â€˜I never,’ said Ephraim.‘I sent him home midday.’
    â€˜That’s funny. Kathie never said.’
    â€˜I give him the afternoon off.“Have a little holiday”, I said.“Go on back to your house” .’
    Spider’s house, thought Tom, so that’s where he went!
    He said nothing of this to Kathie, but next day, as he and Spider set out together from the cottage, he said ‘You had the afternoon off yesterday, did you?’
    Spider nodded, grinning.
    â€˜Hol-i-day!’ he said.
    â€˜Where’d you go