(10/13) Friends at Thrush Green Read Online Free Page A

inhabitants and Betty Bell in particular who did her best to keep the place in order once or twice a week.
    There was a chilly wind blowing through the narrow path which led from Thrush Green, beside the Piggotts' cottage, to the open fields beyond. The sun was beginning to sink behind the trees of Lulling Woods, dark against a pale sky.

    Dimity found Dotty in her kitchen, busy chopping onions with an enormous knife.
    'It's good to get into the warm,' she commented, seating herself at the clear end of the kitchen table, and watching Dotty at her dangerous task. 'It's more like February than May this evening.'
    'Not surprising since it's the time of the Ice Saints,' explained Dotty, ceasing her labours for a moment. 'May eleven, twelve and thirteen belong to three saints, and it is often perishing cold then. You should never shear your sheep around that time, you know.'
    'I don't,' Dimity assured her.
    She watched Dotty scrape the chopped onions on to a plate, and then tip them into a large saucepan which was bubbling on the stove.
    'That smells delicious,' she said.
    'For the hens, dear. I always add some onions at this time of year. They contain so much iron, you know, so needed at the end of the winter. Purifies the blood. My father used to eat his raw. Wonderfully refreshing, and so good for the bowels and bladder.'
    Dimity reflected, not for the first time, how naturally Dotty referred to the parts of the body and their functions with no coyness. There was something appealingly eighteenth-century about her old friend, her archaic turn of phrase, her knowledge and use of herbs, and her unshaken belief that all things English were naturally best. Dotty was refreshingly free from doubts; they seemed to have come in during Victoria's reign and had become more and more potent ever since, Dimity surmised.
    'Heard about Dorothy Watson's old place? Betty Bell tells me that that new man at the school may live there after all.'
    'I heard something about it too.'
    'Wonder why? Perhaps Dorothy and Agnes will find out when they come to stay. Have some coffee. It's dandelion—excellent stuff, I drink pints of it—but Connie and Kit still stick to Nescafe.'
    'I like that too.'
    'Well, I could make you a cup I suppose,' said Dotty. She sounded disappointed.
    'No, no! Don't bother, please. I only came to give you the parish magazine and to see how you were. Are Connie and Kit out?'
    'Yes. At a parish meeting. Somebody wants to buy the field at the back here. Lots of silly plans for houses. Who wants a lot of people living in that field? Besides, I need it for the goats.'
    'Well, people do need houses, of course,' said Dimity mildly.
    'And my goats need grass,' said Dotty. She began to look very obstinate, and Dimity decided that it was time to depart. If the demands of people and animals were in debate, she knew on whose side Dotty would be.

    What with the approaching visit of the two retired teachers, the speculation about the headmaster Alan Lester's plans, and now this disturbing news about Bertha Lovelock's oddness, the inhabitants of Lulling and Thrush Green had plenty to engage their interests. They could be seen chatting on every corner.
    The cold spell passed, and May began to show itself in all its traditional warm beauty. The lilac bushes tossed their mauve and white plumes in cottage gardens, filling the air with heady scent. Stately tulips followed the dying daffodils, their satin cups in every shade known to man.
    Lulling Woods were hazy blue and fragrant with carpets of bluebells, and the last of the wood anemones and primroses starred the leaf mould. Along the road to Nidden the ancient pond teemed with tadpoles. Young birds sat bemused on the grass verges, or hopped behind their busy parents clamouring for food, all fluttering wings and gaping beaks, oblivious of the dangers around them from traffic, callous boys, or the hovering shapes of sparrow hawks which cast their sinister shadows in the May sunlight.
    The