Free (5/20)Over the Gate by Miss Read

Mrs Drew arrived in the morning confidently expecting to be back in her own cottage in rime to cook her midday dinner. But the day wore on, Bertha continued her labours, Leslie ate bread and cheese for his dinner, the same for his tea, and went post-haste for the doctor at six o'clock when Mrs Drew clattered down the stairs in a state of urgent alarm.
    Fairacre watched with some agitation. What could be happening to Bertha? Always had her babies as easy as shelling peas! Could Mrs Drew have bungled things? Not like her to send for the doctor! Mind you, she was getting on a bit; perhaps she was a shade past it!
    So the tongues wagged. Doctor Martin was seen to enter the cottage at a quarter to seven. No-one saw him leave. Of course it was dark, but then the doctor's old Ford car made enough noise to rouse the dead. What could be going on?
    As St Patrick's church clock struck eleven Dr Martin was drying his hands in Bertha's crowded bedroom. He was smiling broadly, but his eyes were on his patient. Her eyes were closed, her hair, damp and dishevelled, clung to her forehead. Mrs Drew was busy with baby clothes. Leslie Foster, summoned from his vigil below, had just approached the bed. He looked thunderstruck, as well he might. Beside his exhausted wife lay three tightly-wrapped snuffling bundles.
    He stroked the hair back from his wife's hot forehead.
    'Bertha?' he whispered questioningly.
    Her eyes opened slowly. She gazed at Leslie and then at the three small faces beside her. A look of intense joy lit her face.
    'Let Mrs Next-Door copy that! ' cried Bertha triumphantly.

5. A Tale of Love
    T HE alterations to the pair of cottages where Polly and Bertha had once lived took many weeks. The children's interest in all that went on continued unabated. The four workmen who were engaged on the job became their friends and heroes, and I became more and more annoyed as the children arrived late for school.
    'You can miss your playtime,' I announced to a little knot of malefactors who entered noisily, bursting with good spirits, at a quarter past nine. 'I'm tired of telling you to be punctual.'
    They looked at each other with dismay.
    'But we was only givin' the workmen a hand, like,' said Richard, assuming an air of injured innocence. 'They had an ol' bucket they was pulling up to the top windows, see, on a bit of rope—'
    'On a little wheel, sort of-' broke in Ernest, his eyes alight at the happy memory.
    'A pulley, he means, miss,' said John, sniffing appallingly. 'They has cement in this 'ere bucket and it's heavy to lug up the ladders, so they has this wheel thing called a pulley, miss, as pulls it up. That's why it's called a pulley, ' explained John patiently, as though to a particularly backward child.
    'I daresay,' I said shortly. 'And nine o'clock is not the time to stand and watch it. Get to your desks at once, and for pity's sake blow your nose, John.'
    There followed a great fuss of pocket searching, feeling under his jersey, exploring sleeves, looking in his desk and so on, accompanied throughout by sniffs and exclamations of surprise and dismay.
    'Don't seem to have one, miss,' said John at length.
    'Get a Kleenex from the cupboard,' I said ominously, 'and don't let me hear another squeak, or sniff from you for the rest of the morning!'
    This sort of thing went on intermittently throughout the early part of the spring term and I should be heartily glad, I told myself, when the workmen had vanished and the new house was occupied. Mrs Pringle agreed with me.
    'Bad enough sweeping up honest Fairacre mud,' boomed the lady, after school one afternoon, 'without bits of cement off their boots, and shavings and nails and that out of their pockets. And when it comes to this, ' added Mrs Pringle opening a massive fist and thrusting it before my nose, 'it's time to speak! '
    In her palm lay some glutinous grey matter which I recognised as putty.
    'Stuck on the lobby wall, if you please,' said Mrs Pringle, disengaging the stuff with