The Tale of Cuckoo Brow Wood Read Free Page B

and contemplating the beginning of another lovely day. In the barnyard beyond the garden, Blossom, the new black-and-white Galway calf, bawled for her breakfast. Beatrix’s favorite Berkshire pigs, Aunt Susan and Dorcas, chuckled merrily in the mud of their pigsty, as a trio of busy red hens—Mrs. Bonnet, Mrs. Shawl, and Mrs. Boots—scurried past on their way to the garden to see if the early worms might be out and about. A parade of gleaming white Puddleducks headed in the opposite direction, on the way to Wilfin Beck for their morning swim. Mustard, the big yellow dog who had recently come to work at Hill Top, kept a watchful eye on things from the barn doorway, at the same time warming his creaky old bones in the morning sun. And on the fence, in companionable contemplation, sat two of the village cats, Tabitha Twitchit and Crumpet, while Felicia Frummety, the Hill Top cat, was making her way to the barn, to search (it was to be hoped) for rats.
    Beatrix smiled down at the scene before her. If she could only open her arms wide enough, she would embrace every single wonderful thing, from the cats on the fence to the clucking chickens in the garden and the tiniest of the Puddleducks dabbling heads-down, tails-up in the beck. Not to mention the lambs on the hillside and the larks in the sky and—
    “Good morning, Bea!” a woman’s cheery voice called. “I’ve brought you a fresh-baked loaf of bread for your breakfast.”
    Beatrix looked down. Sarah Barwick was standing on the flagstone path below, her sleeves rolled to the elbows, a basket in her hand.
    “Good morning, Sarah,” Beatrix said. “My goodness, you’re out and about early.”
    “You’re late getting up,” Sarah replied in her downright way. “I’ve been baking for hours already. But I s’pose you can be forgiven, poor thing, since you must’ve been very tired from your journey. I’ll just go inside and put your kettle on, shall I?” And without waiting for an answer, Sarah disappeared through Beatrix’s door. The two cats leapt down from the fence to follow her.
    Beatrix hurried to comb her hair and dress in what she had come to think of as her farm costume—a simple blue blouse, gray tweed skirt, and a gray knitted cardigan—and hurried downstairs. Sarah had poked up the fire until it blazed brightly and was busily slicing bread and setting out butter and marmalade. A pot of sausages was warming on the range while tea brewed in the green china pot.
    Sarah looked up from her task. “Thought you deserved a bit of a welcome home,” she said with a wide smile. “What’s it been since you were last here? Two months?”
    Beatrix made a face. “Eight weeks and five days.”
    She had been trying to get away from her parents for the past fortnight, while her mother—always a hard woman to satisfy and rarely pleased with anything Beatrix proposed to do—came up with first one thing and then another that must be done before she might leave. But Beatrix was determined. While she might have to live in the gloomy house at Number Two Bolton Gardens, Hill Top Farm and Sawrey Village were her true home. Now that she was finally here, she didn’t intend to waste a single instant. There was so much she wanted to do! Meet the new lambs and piglets, work on drawings for her new book, take a long walk in the woods to sketch the spring flowers—
    “We’ve missed you, dear,” Sarah said, picking up the teapot, “and that’s God’s truth. The village isn’t the same without you.”
    Beatrix sat down at the table and let Sarah pour her a cup of steaming tea. “How kind of you, Sarah,” she said gratefully. “Thank you.” She smiled down at the two cats peeping out from under the tablecloth. “Hello, Tabitha. Hello, Crumpet. Nice to see both of you.”
    “Hello to you, Miss Potter,” Crumpet returned politely. “Tabitha Twitchit and I should like to be among the first to welcome you home.”
    The cats had another reason, of course, for coming