Selected Stories Read Free Page B

you get me those shoes, mother? And, Beryl, if you’ve finished, I wish you’d cut down to the gate and stop the coach. Run in to your mother, Isabel, and ask her where my bowler hat’s been put. Wait a minute—have you children been playing with my stick?”
    â€œNo, father!”
    â€œBut I put it here,” Stanley began to bluster. “I remember distinctly putting it in this corner. Now, who’s had it? There’s no time to lose. Look sharp! The stick’s got to be found.”
    Even Alice, the servant girl, was drawn into the chase. “You haven’t been using it to poke the kitchen fire with by any chance?”
    Stanley dashed into the bedroom where Linda was lying. “Most extraordinary thing. I can’t keep a single possession to myself. They’ve made away with my stick, now!”
    â€œStick, dear? What stick?” Linda’s vagueness on these occasions could not be real, Stanley decided. Would nobody sympathise with him?
    â€œCoach! Coach, Stanley!” Beryl’s voice cried from the gate.
    Stanley waved his arm to Linda. “No time to say good-bye!” he cried. And he meant that as a punishment to her.
    He snatched his bowler hat, dashed out of the house, and swung down the garden path. Yes, the coach was there waiting, and Beryl, leaning over the open gate, was laughing up at somebody or other just as if nothing had happened. The heartlessness of women! The way they took it for granted it was your job to slave away for them while they didn’t even take the trouble to see that your walking-stick wasn’t lost. Kelly trailed his whip across the horses.
    â€œGood-bye, Stanley,” called Beryl, sweetly and gaily. It was easy enough to say good-bye! And there she stood, idle, shading her eyes with her hand. The worst of it was Stanley had to shout good-bye too, for the sake of appearances. Then he saw her turn, give a little skip and run back to the house. She was glad to be rid of him!
    Yes, she was thankful. Into the living-room she ran and called “He’s gone!” Linda cried from her room: “Beryl! Has Stanley gone?” Old Mrs. Fairfield appeared, carrying the boy in his little flannel coatee.
    â€œGone?”
    â€œGone!”
    Oh, the relief, the difference it made to have the man out of the house. Their very voices were changed as they called to one another; they sounded warm and loving and as if they shared a secret. Beryl went over to the table. “Have another cup of tea, mother. It’s still hot.” She wanted, somehow, to celebrate the fact that they could do what they liked now. There was no man to disturb them; the whole perfect day was theirs.
    â€œNo, thank you, child,” said old Mrs. Fairfield, but the way at that moment she tossed the boy up and said “a-goos-a-goos-a-ga!” to him meant that she felt the same. The little girls ran into the paddock like chickens let out of a coop.
    Even Alice, the servant girl, washing up the dishes in the kitchen, caught the infection and used the precious tank water in a perfectly reckless fashion.
    â€œOh, these men!” said she, and she plunged the teapot into the bowl and held it under the water even after it had stopped bubbling, as if it too was a man and drowning was too good for them.
IV
    â€œWait for me, Isa-bel! Kezia, wait for me!”
    There was poor little Lottie, left behind again, because she found it so fearfully hard to get over the stile by herself. When she stood on the first step her knees began to wobble; she grasped the post. Then you had to put one leg over. But which leg? She never could decide. And when she did finally put one leg over with a sort of stamp of despair—then the feeling was awful. She was half in the paddock still and half in the tussock grass. She clutched the post desperately and lifted up her voice. “Wait for me!”
    â€œNo, don’t you wait for her, Kezia!” said Isabel.