More William Read Free Page A

various parts of the mincing machine. His face was set and strained in mental and physical
effort. He looked up as she entered.
    ‘It’s a funny kind of mincing machine,’ he said, crushingly. ‘It’s not got enough parts. It’s made wrong—’
    ‘Do you know,’ she said, slowly, ‘that we’ve all been looking for that mincing machine for the last half-hour?’
    ‘No,’ he said without much interest, ‘I di’n’t. I’d have told you I was mendin’ it if you’d told me you was lookin’ for it. It’s wrong ,’ he went on aggrievedly. ‘I can’t make anything with it. Look! It says in my book “How to make a model railway signal with parts of a mincing machine”.
Listen! It says, “Borrow a mincing machine from your mother—” ’
    ‘Did you borrow it?’ said Mrs Brown.
    ‘Yes. Well, I’ve got it, haven’t I? I went all the way down to the kitchen for it.’
    ‘Who lent it to you?’
    ‘No one lent it to me. I borrowed it. I thought you’d like to see a model railway signal. I thought you’d be interested. Anyone would think anyone would be
interested in seein’ a railway signal made out of a mincin’ machine.’
    His tone implied that the dullness of people in general was simply beyond him. ‘An’ you haven’t got a right sort of mincin’ machine. It’s wrong. Its parts are the
wrong shape. I’ve been hammerin’ them, tryin’ to make them right, but they’re made wrong.’
    Mrs Brown was past expostulating. ‘Take them all down to the kitchen to Cook,’ she said. ‘She’s waiting for them.’
    On the stairs William met Aunt Lucy carrying her volume of sermons.
    ‘It’s not quite the same as the spoken word, William dear,’ she said. ‘It hasn’t the force. The written word doesn’t reach the heart as the
spoken word does, but I don’t want you to worry about it.’
    William walked on as if he had not heard her.
    It was Aunt Jane who insisted on the little entertainment after tea.
    ‘I love to hear the dear children recite,’ she said. ‘I’m sure they all have some little recitation they can say’
    Barbara arose with shy delight to say her piece.
    Lickle bwown seed, lickle bwown bwother,
    And what, pway, are you goin’ to be?
    I’ll be a poppy as white as my mother,
    Oh, DO be a poppy like me!
    What, you’ll be a sunflower? Oh, how I shall miss you
    When you are golden and high!
    But I’ll send all the bees up to tiss you.
    Lickle bwown bwother, goodbye!
    She sat down blushing, amid rapturous applause.
    Next Jimmy was dragged from his corner. He stood up as one prepared for the worst, shut his eyes, and –
    Licklaxokindness lickledeedsolove –
    make – thisearfanedenliketheeav’nabovethasalliknow.
    He gasped it all in one breath, and sat down panting.
    This was greeted with slightly milder applause.
    ‘Now, William!’
    ‘I don’t know any,’ he said.
    ‘Oh, you do ,’ said his mother. ‘Say the one you learnt at school last term. Stand up, dear, and speak clearly.’
    Slowly William rose to his feet.
    ‘ It was the schooner Hesperus that sailed the wintry sea ,’
    he began.
    Here he stopped, coughed, cleared his throat, and began again.
    It was the schooner Hesperus that sailed the wintry sea.
    ‘Oh, get on !’ muttered his brother, irritably.
    ‘I can’t get on if you keep talkin’ to me,’ said William sternly. ‘How can I get on if you keep takin’ all the time up, sayin ’ get on? I
can’t get on if you’re talkin’, can I?’
    ‘It was the Hesper Schoonerus that sailed the wintry sea an’ I’m not goin’ on if Ethel’s goin’ to keep gigglin’. It’s not a funny piece, an’
if she’s goin’ on gigglin’ like that I’m not sayin’ any more of it.’
    ‘Ethel, dear!’ murmured Mrs Brown, reproachfully. Ethel turned her chair completely round and left only her back exposed to William’s view. He glared at it suspiciously.

    ‘IT WAS THE HESPER SCHOONERUS THAT SAILED THE WINTRY SEA AN’ I’M NOT GOIN’ ON