Read Online The Little Bookroom by Eleanor Farjeon - Free Book Online Page B

wouldn’t say; not that it matters, since now she’s as gay as a lark, and the doctor comes no more.’
VI
    Another year went by in peace and content. The work was good, the dogs thrived, the hut was comfortable, and there was always enough to eat; though, as Daddy still lay on the bed, Joe still lay on the floor. And on the First of June, his twentieth birthday, he went once more through the wood with the pup at his heels, to find Betty before him at the Forester’s Lodge. Who wouldn’t, thought Joe, be glad to be out at such an hour, with the birds singing in the leaves, and the dew on the flowers in the grass? But today Betty looked less glad than usual, as she gabbled her news.
    â€˜Yes!’ she was saying, ‘there we are, just where we were a year ago, and it’s all to do again. And she’s no more help now than she was then; there’s only one thing she wants in the world, what, nobody knows! though her father asks what, and her mother asks what, and her nanny asks what, and I ask what! The doctor comes daily to change her physic, all to no purpose, and he says if she doesn’t get it soon she’ll die of longing. So the last day of the month there’s to be another Assembly, to say what the Princess wants, since she won’t say herself, and he who gives it her shall have anything he names, no matter whatso, and—Bless me, Forester, there’s the eight o’clock bell! Out upon you, keeping me here a-talking and a-talking when it’s time for the Princess’s chocolate!’
    Off she ran, but not before the Forester had given her a hearty kiss, for which she smacked his face; and he only wagged his head saying, ‘An excellent wench!’ Joe took his orders, and went away very much troubled. If the Princess wanted a second love-letter, he couldn’t think of anything else to say; yet the first one had plainly ceased to serve her purpose. In his bother, he failed once more to observe the absence of the Clumber Pup. Later in the day he turned up, barking and jumping and wagging his tail, so that Joe had to throw down his axe and have a rough and tumble before he would be satisfied. Yet that night he never touched his supper at all, a thing that had only happened once before, just a twelve-month since, now Joe came to think of it. It brought it all back so strong to him, that as he lay on the mat before the fire and dozed off into his first sleep, he even dreamed that he heard the spaniel and her pup talking as they had talked a year ago.
    â€˜Now, pup, what’s wrong that you can’t gnaw your bone? Don’t tell me you’ve distemper!’
    â€˜Not me, mother! I’m fed full of King’s meat.’
    â€˜Where did you get King’s meat?’
    â€˜In the King’s kitchen.’
    â€˜What were you doing in the King’s kitchen, then?’
    â€˜Calling on a friend.’
    â€˜What friend, indeed?’
    â€˜A cat.’
    â€˜Go drown yourself!’
    â€˜What for, mother? It was your foster-daughter.’
    â€˜Ah, that one! How’s she grown?’
    â€˜Gold as honey.’
    â€˜But spits, no doubt?’
    â€˜Yes, secrets.’
    â€˜Still what the Princess is thinking?’
    â€˜Still. The Princess tells her what she tells no other.’
    â€˜And what’s she thinking now?’
    â€˜That it is time she had a ring.’
    â€˜Oh,’ said the spaniel. Her ear flopped over her eye, and she was asleep; and Joe’s dream passed out of being.
    But in the morning it revived in his mind, as clear as if it had happened. And had it not? He could not decide; and Daddy from his bed asked, ‘What’s the puzzle!’
    â€˜A funny sort of dream I had last night. I don’t know whether to do aught about it, or naught.’
    â€˜If you did aught, what then?’
    â€˜It might save a damsel’s life.’
    â€˜And if naught?’
    â€˜She might