Free (11/13) Celebrations at Thrush Green by Miss Read Page B

wife, 'says it don't make a mite of difference having your gall bladder out. Some bits of us are real useless. Look at my appendix, for instance.'
    But nobody appeared to be interested in Percy's appendix, which perhaps was just as well because it had been removed years earlier.
    Mr Jones, who rather fancied himself as a medical man, a sort of hedge-doctor, told the assembled company that you could blast gallstones into dust with a few shots of laser rays, but you had to be careful that they didn't damage the red corpuscles.
    Blinded with such sophisticated knowledge the company dropped the subject of gall bladders and their treatment, but all agreed that Mrs Bailey 'would have to watch it' when she came out of hospital.
    'If she ever does,' said Albert lugubriously. He liked to have the last word.

    News of Winnie had reached, via Isobel Shoosmith, the two retired schoolteachers at Barton-on-Sea.
    Loving messages had been despatched to St Richard's, and Interflora had been directed to send a flower arrangement to their old friend.
    'I told them to send a small one,' Dorothy told Agnes. 'The right size for a bedside locker but smelling particularly sweet. Freesias, say, or carnations. I must say that the girl who replied seemed to understand what was wanted.'
    'I'm sure she knows all about flowers for hospitals,' Agnes assured her.
    'Well, I don't know about that! When I did my leg I had great towering bouquets of irises and gladioli, I remember, and the nurses were quite cross. They would keep falling over. The vases, I mean, not the nurses.'
    Later that day Dorothy had a bright idea. 'Do you think Winnie would like a week or so here when she is convalescent? We could easily put her up, and the air here is so particularly good. It might be just the thing to pull her round.'

    Agnes was delighted with the idea, and the evening was spent in happy anticipation of entertaining an invalid in the good air of Barton-on-Sea whenever she felt ready to accept their invitation.
    But just as Agnes's euphoria was at its height, a chance remark of Dorothy's as they made their way to bed caused it to plummet.
    'By the way, I wrote a little note to Alan Lester yesterday, to see if I could be of any help in those centenary celebrations Isobel mentioned.'
    Agnes said nothing, but once in bed her fears flocked round her like a plague of bats.
    What might come of this? Why must dear Dorothy, for the best of reasons, of course, feel obliged to meddle !
    ***
    Ella Bembridge struggled against an icy wind to pay a brief visit to Dotty Harmer's cottage.
    The sky above Lulling Woods was ominous, the clouds low and a menacing grey. If that doesn't mean snow, Ella told herself, I'm a Dutchman.
    She found Dotty, as before, at her kitchen table surrounded by papers.
    'My word,' said Ella, 'you look as though you're halfway through that book of yours.'
    'I don't know about that,' replied Dotty, thrusting her pen through her scanty hair. 'I'm getting rather tired of literary work.'
    'Why? What's put you off?'
    'I showed my manuscript to Harold, and he said that it wouldn't make one chapter, let alone a whole book, and he couldn't see any publisher taking it on. I said to him: "What about all those reviews talking about 'this slim volume' and 'a charming monograph of a much-loved father' and all that sort of thing?" But he still says it's not long enough.'
    'So what will you do? Scrap it?'
    'Scrap it?' squeaked Dotty indignantly. 'After all my hard work? Of course I shan't scrap it!'
    'Well, it seems a bit pointless to carry on,' said Ella. 'Can't you pad it out somehow?'
    'I do not propose to lower my standards for the sake of length ,' said Dotty loftily, 'but I have had another idea. I have asked a number of old boys of the grammar school to write down their memories of my father, and I intend to incorporate them.'
    'A splendid notion,' said Ella.
    Dotty shuffled the papers before her with a claw-like hand. She looked perplexed.
    'The only thing is that