Free A Small Country by Sian James

cost five pounds to sit the examination, another two for the train fare to Swansea and the accommodation, no one got their certificate without satisfying the examiners in every subject. She finally got her results. She had passed with a distinction in every subject, including music.
    She had told Mr Jenkins, then, about her refusal to sing for the gentlemen fools.
    ‘Yes, I heard about that,’ he said. Perhaps someone had written to him, he wouldn’t elaborate, but gave it as his opinion that what he called her ‘donkey streak’ could only be an asset to her in the teaching profession.
    She remembered – a little ruefully – what he had said, as she watched Josi Evans ride away.

    Josi rode home almost enjoying his humiliation at the hands of the little schoolmistress.
    ‘Who does she think she is?’ Nano demanded, when he told her what had happened.
    ‘She thinks she’s as good as anyone else,’ Josi said, ‘and she’s quite right.’
    ‘Huh!’

    In due course, Catrin got first prize in the junior solo and Josi was so pleased that he bought her a new pony which they called Melody.
    He didn’t see Miss Lewis again for some months, though he thought about her grave, unsmiling face from time to time.

    In July that year, Tom came home from school with measles. He was feverish for several days, having to lie in a darkened bedroom when he wanted to be out fishing and roaming the woods. One evening, when he was convalescing, but as usual bemoaning his luck, Doctor Andrews, there on his daily visit, grew impatient and told him how fortunate he was to be getting better so soon. The Rhydfelen schoolmistress almost died of the measles,’ he told him. ‘She had to stay in bed six weeks; she’s still not back at school.’
    ‘I hadn’t heard about Miss Lewis’s illness,’ Josi told the doctor as he took him downstairs. ‘Where does she live? I’ll send her some of our peaches.’
    And the next day he gathered the choicest of the hothouse peaches, arranged them in a basket with a frill of leaves, and took them himself to Rhydfelen. It seemed a strange attention to pay to someone who had done nothing but refuse him a small favour, but Josi was a strange man.

    Miriam Lewis was in the garden of her cottage when Josi rode up. She was sitting in a basket-chair, a shawl over her shoulders and another over her knees. He left his horse at the gate and strode up the path, but as he reached her, found himself afflicted by a most unusual shyness.
    ‘Doctor Andrews told us you’d been ill,’ he said.
    Without another word, he deposited the basket at her feet.
    Miss Lewis was as tongue-tied as he.
    An elderly woman came out of the cottage.
    ‘My auntie,’ Miss Lewis said. ‘Hetty Lewis. Auntie, this is Mr Evans, Hendre Ddu.’
    Auntie proved as voluble as the other two were silent.
    ‘Oh, there’s lovely peaches and how kind of you, Mr Evans. Miriam, well, she’s had such kindness from everyone. She’s only been here since September, but the people, oh, they’ve taken her to their hearts and no mistake. Strawberries she’s had and runner beans already, and only July. Eleven chickens altogether. You can’t die now, I told her, you can’t expect wreaths on top of all these chickens. It would be selfish, wouldn’t it, Mr Evans? No, the Good Lord has spared her as Mr Jones, Soar, said this morning, to carry on her good work in Rhydfelen. And now she’ll have to go to chapel a bit more, won’t she, that’s what I say.’
    ‘Perhaps Mr Evans would like a cup of tea,’ Miss Lewis suggested. Josi’s eyes hadn’t left her face during her aunt’s recital.
    ‘I would,’ Josi said.
    ‘Fetch yourself a chair,’ Miriam said. ‘Go in through the back door and you’re in the kitchen.’
    ‘Better for you both to come to the parlour, it’s getting quite cool now.’
    Miriam stood up obediently, but before she had been able to adjust her shawls, Josi had picked her up and carried her through the kitchen and into