Innocent Birds Read Online Free Page B

Wimple, who always took a master’s pride in the graves he dug. Job Wimple was there, and Susy, who dusted the church and set traps for the mice, and who listened with more than a proper interest when Mr. Tucker mentioned God in his sermons. Susy, a large black figure, stood in the church porch and held up a broom, as if she meant to sweep the heavens clean.
    But Mr. Tucker was notat present visible.
    â€˜â€™Tis well that they school children bain’t about,’ remarked Mr. Chick, who hated silence. ‘For if they children were out to play, parson mid be late for funeral.’
    â€˜But there bain’t nothing come yet,’ said Pim, a little disappointedly.
    â€˜Poor parson be afeard,’ said Chick, who liked to get any sort of matter safely out of his head when he once started it coming, ‘of they playing children.’
    Pim nodded.
    â€˜Farmer Barfoot do say that if so be ’e were to stop one little foot a-kicking, even though ’tis naughtiness they be at, ’e ’d drown ’isself.’
    Pim nodded.
    â€˜Poor parson would go round by way of starsand moon sooner than stop one small girl from doing what she shouldn’t.’
    â€˜â€œâ€™Tis thik story book,” Susy do say, that ’e do always carry in ’is pocket, that do tell ’e to let happy folk bide happy,’ said Pim to Solly, by way of explaining the clergyman’s odd behaviour as narrated by Mr. Chick.
    Solly now looked at the church again, and saw the short figure of a man, whose gait expressed itself in little runs and quick steps, hurry into the churchyard.
    This was Mr. Thomas Tucker, who carried his hat in his hand, and whose head—for he had but one or two streaks of grey hair to be proud of—glistened in the sun.
    Mr. Tucker at first hastened to the new grave, tripping over an old one in the journey. But hearing the laughing voices of children playing in the lane near by, he appeared to change his mind when he stood upon his legs again, and retired quickly into the church.
    â€˜Poor man,’ said Chick feelingly, ‘’tis a pity ’e don’t know why they children do laugh, for if ’e did ’is poor heart would be comforted.’
    â€˜Parson be come,’ remarked Mr. Pim, ‘before they tothers be come.’
    The summer sun does not only stand still in the Book of Joshua. It likes to rest in these days for a little while over Madder. Upon that other occasion it stopped going, out of pure astonishment and fear, at seeing so many flashing spears‚and thought no doubt that it had set the sand on fire. In Madder the sun sometimes stays still in the sky for a few moments, in order to see how the little girls and the sparrows are behaving.
    All things, of course, interest the sun, and here in Madder is a new grave to peep into. After peeping into the grave the sun waited, in a rather wicked mood, for Miss Polly Wimple to come.
    Upon the hills, where the hot summer mist stayed very still, something wonderful now arrived in view. And whatever this wonderful thing was, it caught the interest of Mr. Pim in a remarkable way. He watched it, as though he hoped very much that his eyes were not lying to him. The new thing shone brilliantly; it shone like a star, and remained stationary upon the hill for a moment, as though it waited there on purpose to be admired.
    Meanwhile, another party had come to the gate. This was Job Wimple who, having satisfied himself that the grave was as ready as he could make it, wished to show a little of the knowledge he was so proud of to those who waited in the lane. His arrival caused Chick, who noticed the charnel chalkiness of Wimple’s boots, to hide behind Pim.
    Solly nodded to Wimple, and Wimple looked at the hills. For Mr. Wimple to have remarked truthfully what he thought the shining thing he saw really was, would have raised Pim’s glory.And so, forgetting for the moment that a sort of afterglow