Free The Tale of Hill Top Farm by Susan Wittig Albert

bright with blooming flowers. She sketched these whenever she could, and in a way, these sketches of cozy rooms and sunlit windows and comfortable furniture, peopled with cats and mice and little dogs, substituted for a home of her own and a family that didn’t sulk and glower at her. But Beatrix knew that she could never be entirely happy until she lived in her own house, a real house, exactly the right house. It didn’t matter that she would have to put all of the royalties from her little books into it, along with the small legacy Aunt Burton had left her. And it didn’t matter that she had paid more for it than anyone else thought it was worth. It was worth the world to her.
    Beatrix had admired the farm house at Hill Top since she first saw it some years before. The modest two-story house, over two hundred years old, was simple and almost severe. The exterior was covered with a pebbly mortar, painted with limewash; the roof was made of blue slate; and the chimneys wore peaked slate caps, as did most of the chimneys in the village. A staircase wing and a larder had been built on the rear a hundred years ago, along with a one-story kitchen on the side nearest the barn. And there was a little porch, with two large, flat slates for the sides and two more for the peaked roof. But these few additions could not detract from the house’s lovely simplicity. It was all perfect. Perfect in every way—or it would be, if she could sort out the difficulties.
    At that moment, two of the major difficulties—Sammy and Clara Jennings—came dancing around the corner of the house and nearly collided with her and Rascal. Clara, the six-year-old, stopped and put her thumb into her mouth, but Master Sammy, eight, came forward and regarded her soberly as she introduced herself.
    “Clara and me wuz on our way to school,” he said, “but I’ll tell m’fadder tha’s come.”
    Clara’s large brown eyes filled with tears. “Ye’re t’ lady who’s come t’ take our house away?” she whispered fearfully, around her thumb.
    Beatrix knelt down, dismayed. “Take your house? Why, whoever says so, Clara?”
    “Our mum.” The tears brimmed over and spilled in twin rivulets down the child’s cheeks. “She sez we’ve got to find us another house to live in, ’cause Miss Potter is comin’ t’ live in ours.”
    Oh, dear! Beatrix thought in alarm. “Your mother and I must have a talk,” she said out loud, but her words did not sound comforting, even to her own ears.
    A ginger-colored cat sauntered out from behind a large rose bush and joined them, ignoring the terrier at Beatrix’s heels. Clara dropped her thumb and scooped up the cat, which was nearly as large as she was.
    “And who is this?” Beatrix asked, rubbing the cat’s ears.
    “She doan’t have a name,” Clara said.
    “All cats have names,” Beatrix replied. “Otherwise, how could they answer when we call them? Let’s see.” She put her head to one side, studying the cat. “What would you think of calling her Miss Felicia Frummety?”
    The little girl began to giggle, her fears momentarily forgotten. “But frummety is what I eat,” she said. “Barley and milk, cooked up together.”
    “I daresay Miss Felicia likes frummety, too,” Beatrix said. “And she likes her new name. See her twitch her whiskers?”
    Rascal pranced forward. “Frummety, eh?” he teased. “What kind of a name is that?”
    “It’s a very nice name,” Felicia replied with some asperity. “Nicer than Rascal, and much nicer than having no name at all.” She jumped out of Clara’s arms. “P’rhaps you can tell me what’s going on at Anvil Cottage. Crumpet and I were out hunting mice late last night, and we saw—”
    Her story was interrupted when a man came around the corner of the house. He was tall, brown-haired, and brown-bearded, and he had a gruff voice. “T’ boy told me you were here, Miss. Come to walk over t’ place?”
    “If you have the time to go with me this