Mrs. Pringle of Fairacre Read Online Free Page A

go smoothly. There would be frustrations and annoyances, possibly hostility from parents who preferred Mr Fortescue's régime, but these thoughts did not stop me from sleeping from ten o'clock until nearly seven the next morning.

CHAPTER 3
Bob Willet Remembers
    There was no doubt about it, as all agreed, Mrs Pringle was a good worker.
    Her chief passion was a fierce proprietory love of the two coke-burning stoves which dominated the infants' room and my own. These monsters had heated the school throughout many winters extremely efficiently. Each was surrounded by a sturdy fireguard which had a brass top running round it. On this we dried gloves, socks, tea towels, scarves and very useful it was.
    In bitterly cold weather I warmed the children's milk in a saucepan kept for the purpose. Children with earache or toothache were placed with the afflicted area close to the stove's blessed warmth. All in all, each provided the classroom with much varied comfort.
    But Mrs Pringle's attitude towards these charges of hers went far beyond our general gratitude and affection. Like the Romans, she had her household gods, and top of the list were Fairacre School's two coke stoves.
    She did her duty conscientiously with the desks, cupboards, floors and so on, and also came to wash up the dinner things. Everything sparkled, tea towels were snowy,
the zeal with which she laboured was highly commendable. But it was the stoves which meant most to her.
    At the beginning of the term they had shone like jet with lots of blacklead and Mrs Pringle's elbow grease. The cast-iron lids were much indented with a pattern, and by dint of skilful use of a blacklead brush these ornamentations stood out splendidly.
    A light dusting was really all that was needed to keep them in pristine condition for the first few weeks. Even so, I noticed that the blacklead brush appeared now and again to keep them just as Mrs Pringle wanted.
    We were lucky with the weather, and it was not until half term that the first chill winds of October began to blow.
    I had been looking forward to tidying up the garden. Fallen leaves were strewn everywhere, and the dead spires of lupins, delphiniums and other summer plants needed cutting down. The lawns were in need of mowing and edging, and the plum tree had surpassed itself with a harvest of yellow fruit which bid fair to nourish the whole village.
    But my plans were frustrated by the weather. Rain lashed across the garden, the distant downs were invisible, and it was so cold that I lit a fire in my sitting room.
    Amy rang to see how I was getting on, and I vented my frustration into her listening ear.
    'As Burns says: "The best laid schemes of mice and men gang aft agley",' she quoted.
    I was not comforted. 'Well my schemes certainly have "ganged agley",' I told her. 'What about yours?'
    'We're off to a wedding tomorrow, and apart from a mackintosh, Wellingtons and a sou-wester, I can't think what to wear.'
    'Thermal underwear for a start, and then anything warm under the mac.'
    'I expect you're right. And how are things with you? Is Mrs Pringle still playing up?'
    'Mrs Pringle,' I said forcefully, 'will be lighting the school stoves this week, come hell or high water, if this weather lasts.'
    'Attagirl!' said Amy, putting down the receiver.

    School began on the Tuesday. I saw Mrs Pringle sloshing through the puddles in the playground soon after eight that morning. She was wearing a raincoat, Wellingtons and a shiny plastic head square, and carried the usual oilcloth bag on her arm.
    I snatched a coat from the peg on the kitchen door and sped after her. She was busy unlocking the school when I caught up.
    'Mrs Pringle! Let's get inside and out of this downpour.'
    We gained the comparative peace of my classroom. A pool of water lay on the floor immediately below the skylight in the roof. It was my first encounter with a problem which would be with me throughout my teaching years at Fairacre School.
    'Good heavens!' I exclaimed.