Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard by Eleanor Farjeon (best new books to read txt) 📕

the pattering moonless orchard he hunted them in vain; and the place was full of slipping shadows and whispers. And every now and then those cuckooing milkmaids called him, sometimes at a distance, sometimes at his very ear. But he could not catch a single one.

And now it seemed to Martin that there were more of these elusive shadows than he could have believed, and whisperings that needed accounting for.

For once he heard somebody whisper, "Oh, you were right! the world IS flat--for six months it's been as flat as a pancake!" And a second voice whispered, "Then I was wrong! for pancakes are round." And Martin said to himself, "That's Joyce!" but the first voice he couldn't recognize. And then followed a sound that was not exactly a whisper, yet not exactly unlike one; and Martin darted towards it, but touched only air.

And again he heard a mysterious voice whisper, "How could you keep yourself so secret all these months? I couldn't have. However can girls keep secrets so long?" And the answer was, "They can't keep them a single instant if you come and ask them--but you didn't come!" "What a fool I was!" whispered the first voice, but whose Martin could not for the life of him imagine. Yet he was sure that the other was Jennifer's. And again he heard that misleading sound which seemed to be something, yet, when he sought it, was nothing.

And now he heard another unknown whisperer say, "You should have seen my drills in the wheatfield last April! How the drill did wobble! Why, I was that upset, any girl could have thrown straighter than I drilled that wheat." And a second whisperer replied, "It MUST have been a sight, then, for girls throw crookeder than swallows fly!" This was surely Jessica; but who was the first speaker?

He was as strange to Martin as another one who whispered, "It was the silence got on my nerves most--it was having nobody to listen to of an evening. Of course there were the lads, but they never talk to the point." "I often fear," whispered a second voice, "that I talk too much at random." "Good Lord! you couldn't, if you talked for ever!" Each of these two cases ended as the first two had ended; and for Martin in as little result.

He hastened to another part of the orchard where the whispers were falling fast and fierce. "It was Adam's fault after all!" "No, I've found out that it was Eve's fault!" "But I've been looking it up." "And I've been thinking it over." "Rubbish! it WAS Adam's fault." "It was NOT Adam's fault. What can a stupid little boy know about it?" "I'm a month older than you are." "I don't care if you are. It was Eve's fault." "Well, don't make a fuss if it was." "Wasn't it?" "Stuff!" "WASN'T it?" "Oh, all right, if you like, it was Eve's fault." "Here's an apple for you," said Joscelyn quite distinctly. "Oh, ripping! but I'd rather have a--" "Sh-h! RUN!" Martin was just too late. "Rather have a what?" said Martin to himself.

He was beginning to feel lonely. His hair was wet with rain. He hadn't seen a milkmaid for an hour. He prowled low in the grass hoping to catch one unawares. In the swing he saw a shadow--or was it two shadows? It looked like one. And yet--

One half of the shadow whispered, "Do you like my new corduroys?" "Ever so much," whispered the other half. "I'm rather bucked about them myself," whispered the first half, "or ought I to say about IT?" "I think it's them," said the second half. The first half reflected, "It might be either one thing or two. But arithmetic's a nuisance--I never was good at it." The second half confessed, "I always have to guess at it myself. I'm only really sure of one bit." "Which bit's that?" whispered the first half, and the second half whispered, "That one and one make two." "Oh, you darling! of course they don't, and never did and never will." "Well, I don't really mind," said little Joan. And then there was a pause in which the two shadows were certainly one, until the second half whispered, "Oh! oh, you've shaved it off!" And this delighted the first half beyond all bounds; because even in the circumstances it was clever of the second half to have noticed it.

But Martin could bear no more. He sprang forward crying "Joan!"--and he grasped the empty swing. And round the orchard he flew, his hands before him, calling now "Joyce!" now "Jane!" now "Jessica!" "Jennifer!" "Joscelyn!" and again "Joan! Joan! Joan!" And all his answer was rustlings and shadows and whispers, and faint laughter like far-away echoes, and empty air.

All of a sudden the light rain stopped and the moon came out of her cloud. And Martin found himself standing beside the Well-House, and nobody near him. He gazed all around at the familiar things, the apple-trees, the swing, the green wicket, the broken feast in the grass. And then at the far end of the orchard he saw an unfamiliar thing. It was a double ladder, arched over the hawthorn. And up the ladder, like a golden shaft of the moon, went six quick girls, and ahead of each her lad.* And on the topmost rung each took his milkmaid by the hand and vanished over the hedge.

Martin Pippin was left alone in the Apple-Orchard.

*It is not important, but their names were Michael, Tom, Oliver, John, Henry, and Charles. And Michael had dark hair and light lashes, and Tom freckles and a snub-nose, and Oliver a mole on his left cheek, and John fine red-gold hair on his bronzed skin; and Henry was merely the Odd-Job Boy whose voice was breaking, so he imagined that it was he alone who ran the farm. But Charles was a dear. He had a tuft of white hair at the back of his