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

came to taking what Hobb had, she could take and take without exhausting it, and give and give and always have something left to give, because that wasn't measurable. And the tree is the tree, and love is never anything else but love.

Martin: Oh, Jessica! who has been your schoolmaster?

Jessica: And so when she threw away her four pints what did it matter, any more than when the tree loses its leaves, or its flowers, or snaps a twig, or drops its apples? For though nobody else thought them lovely or clever or witty or splendid, she and Hobb were so to each other for ever and ever; because--

Martin: Because?

Jessica: It doesn't matter. I've told you enough, and you thought I couldn't tell you anything, and I simply hated saying it, but you thought I couldn't throw straight and I can, and your riddle was as simple as pie.

Martin: (Look out, I tell you!) You have thrown as straight as a die. And now I will ask you a straight question. Will you give me your key to Gillian's prison?

Jessica: Yes.

Martin: Because you dreaded lest Hobb's rose was blighted for ever?

Jessica: No. Because it's a shame she should be there at all.

And she gave him the key.

Martin: You honest dear.

Jessica: You thought I was going to beg the question--didn't you, Martin?

Martin: Put in your tongue, or--

Jessica: Or what?

Martin: You know what.

Jessica: I don't know what.

Martin: Then you must take the consequences.

And she took the consequences on both cheeks.

Jessica: Oh! Oh, if I had guessed you meant that, do you suppose for a moment that I would have--?

Martin: You dishonest dear.

Jessica: I don't know what you mean.

Martin: How crooked girls throw!

She boxed his ears heartily and ran to her comrades. When she was perfectly safe she turned round and put out her tongue at him.

Then they both lay down and went to sleep.

Martin was wakened by water squeezed on his eyelids. He looked up and saw Joscelyn wringing out her little handkerchief in the pannikin.

"Let us have no nonsense this morning," said she.

"I like that!" mumbled Martin. "What's this but nonsense?" He sat up, drying his face on his sleeve. "What a silly trick," he said.

"Rubbish," said Joscelyn. "Our master is due, and yesterday you overslept yourself and were troublesome. Go to your tree this instant."

"I shall go when I choose," said Martin.

"Maids! maids! maids!"

"This instant!" said Joscelyn, and dipped her handkerchief in the pannikin.

Martin crawled into the tree.

"Is a dog got into the orchard, maids?" said Old Gillman, looking through the hedge.

"What an idea, master," said Joscelyn.

"I thought I seed one wagging his tail in the grass."

The girls burst out laughing; they laughed till the apples shook, and Old Gillman laughed too, because laughter is catching. And then he stopped laughing and said, "Is an echo got into the orchard?"

And the startled girls laughed louder than ever, and they grew red in the face, and tears stood in their eyes, and Joscelyn had to go and lean against the russet tree, where she stood frowning like a stepmother.

" Tis well to be laughing," said Old Gillman, "but have ye heard my daughter laughing yet?"

"No, master," said Jessica, "but I shouldn't wonder if it happened any day."

"Any day may be no day," groaned Gillman, "and though it were some day, as like as not I'd not be here to see the day. For I'm drinking myself into my grave, as Parson warned me yesternight, coming for my receipt for mulled beer. Gillian!" he implored, "when will ye think better of it, and save an old man's life?"

But for all the notice she took of him, he might have been the dog barking in his kennel.

"Bitter bread for me, maids, and sweet bread for you," said the farmer, passing the loaves through the gap. " Tis plain fare for all these days. May the morrow bring cake."

"Oh, master, please!" called Jessica. "I would like to know how Clover, the Aberdeen, gets on without me."

"Gets on as best she can with Oliver," said Gillman, "though that fretty at times tis as well for him she's polled. Yet all he says is Patience.' But I say, will patience keep us all from rack and ruin?"

And he went away shaking his head.

"Why did you laugh?" stormed Joscelyn, as soon as he was out of earshot.

"How could I help it?" pleaded Martin. "When the old man laughed because you laughed, and you laughed for another reason--hadn't I a third reason to laugh? But how you glared at me! I am sorry I laughed. Let us have breakfast."

"You think of nothing but mealtimes," said Joscelyn crossly; and she carried Gillian's bread to the Well-House, where she discovered only the little round top of yesterday's loaf. For every crumb of the bigger half had been eaten. So Joscelyn came away all smiles, tossing the ball of bread in the air, and saying as she caught it, "I do believe Gillian is forgetting her sorrow."

"I am certain of it," agreed Martin, clapping his hands. And she flung the top of the loaf to his right, and he made a great leap to the left and caught it. And then he threw it to Jessica, who tossed it to Joan, who sent it to Joyce, who whirled it to Jennifer, who spun it to Jane, who missed it. And all the girls ran to pick it up first, but Martin with a dexterous kick landed it in the duckpond, where the drake got it. And he and the ducks squabbled over it during the next hour, while Martin and the milkmaids breakfasted on bread and apples with no squabbling and great good spirits.

And after breakfast Martin lay on his back, chewing a grassblade and counting the florets on another, whispering to himself as he plucked them one by one. And the girls watched him. He did it several times with several blades of grass, and always looked disappointed at the end.

"Won't it come right?" asked little Joan.

"Won't what come right?"