Free (5/13) Return to Thrush Green by Miss Read

arrivals who rushed to greet her. The asphalt, she noticed with her experienced teacher's eye, was quite dry again.
    Thank heaven, the children would be able to play outside! She entered her splendid new classroom in good spirits.

    Albert Piggott, on that Monday morning, was certainly not in good spirits. He had woken with a sharp pain in his chest and a severe headache.
    He had no doubt about the cause of these symptoms. It was that dratted bath that his fool of a daughter had bullied him into—and he told her so.
    'Don't talk soft, Dad,' Molly said tartly at breakfast, but secretly she felt a little guilty. Could he have caught a chill? In any case, it was absolutely necessary for him to be cleaned up, and she did not regret burning his disgusting garments.
    'Well, wrap up when you go out,' said Molly. 'And I'll get you some cough mixture when I go down to Lulling.'
    The old man continued to grumble throughout the day, and certainly by tea time, was flushed in the face and breathing heavily. Molly, trying to hide her alarm, persuaded him to go to bed early.
    'He's not right,' she told Ben. 'I'm going to get the doctor to him if he's no better in the morning. Sometimes I wonder if we oughtn't to settle here. He needs looking after, and there's no one but me, now Nelly's gone. And another thing, we'll have to be thinking of George's schooling soon. It's not fair to send him here, there, and everywhere, for a week or so at a time, as we move around. He won't learn nothing that way.'
    Ben nodded understandingly.
    'I've been thinking too. I reckon we've got to face staying put, and if you want that place to be Thrush Green, then that suits me. But not in this house, love, and not until we can get a place of our own.'
    'But when will that be?' cried Molly, in despair. 'All we've got is the fair, and would you ever want to give it up?'
    'It looks as though I might have to,' said Ben slowly, and began to tell her the problems and plans which had been plaguing him for the last few months.
    She listened in silence, and then put her hand on his.
    'You did right to tell me. You shouldn't have kept all this to yourself, Ben. We'll put our heads together and work out what's best to be done, and find out more from Dick Hasler too. You see, something'll turn up.'
    A heavy thumping came from the bedroom above them.
    'That's Dad,' said Molly. 'I promised him a cup of tea, and clean forgot it.'
    She crossed to the sink.
    'You go and earn some honest pennies over the fair there,' she smiled at Ben. 'We're going to need 'em in the future.'

    Some sixty miles away, Robert and Milly Bassett were rejoicing in the doctor's verdict that a journey to Thrush Green could be undertaken at any time.
    'But watch it!' he warned. 'Keep those tablets in your pocket, and don't ignore any warning signs. I have been in touch with your son-in-law, Doctor Lovell, and I know you will be well looked after.'
    'And I intend to do the driving,' said Milly. 'Not on the motorway though. We'll take the old road, and stop at our old haunts on the way.'
    'Good idea. But he's quite fit to drive, you know, as long as he stops if he feels the least bit tired.'
    'I shall ring Joan tonight,' said Milly, when the doctor had gone. 'Won't it be lovely to see Thrush Green again?'
    'I can't get there fast enough,' confessed Robert. 'Now that I know the business is safe in Frank's hands I have just given up worrying about it completely. It's wonderful to look forward to something. That's been half the trouble, I realize now, thinking about what one has done, or ought to have done, instead of looking ahead with hope. Thrush Green is going to set me up, and I'm not going to be such a fool as to jeopardise my health again. Life's too good to waste.'
    'Come on Friday,' Joan said, when her mother telephoned. 'Everything's waiting, and everyone here wants to see you. Don't be surprised if all the flags are out!'

    As it happened, Isobel's letter was not opened until after dinner time, for