The Crowstarver Read Online Free Page A

handkerchief.
    â€˜Come on, Red,’ he said to his brother. ‘Don’t be so daft. Anyone’d think you was soft in the head, like Tom Sparrow’s kid.’
    â€˜Who says he’s soft in the head?’ asked Albie Stanhope.
    â€˜Our mum do,’ said Rhode. ‘Going to be the village idiot, she do say,’ and the three younger ones laughed.
    Frank and Phil Butt reacted differently.
    â€˜â€™Tis a shame,’ said one.
    â€˜Poor little bagger,’ said the other.
    Billy Butt of course had rather more to say. ‘Same as I told the missus,’ he squeaked,‘Tom and Kathie’d have been better off without un. ’Twas a bad day for the Sparrows when thik babbie were dumped on them. Why, if that had been a lamb as wasn’t right, born with a girt big head, say, and a girt tongue stickin’ out of its mouth – like you do get a bulldog calf sometimes – or got five legs or summat, well then Tom would have knocked ’ee on the head, thees’t know. I bain’t saying he shoulda done that to the babbie, but he ought to have let un fade away.’
    â€˜Not for my money, Billy,’ said Ephraim the horseman. ‘I reckon Tom done right.’
    â€˜And so do I,’ said Percy Pound, and his voice was angry, ‘and I’m telling you all, here and now, you keep your mouths shut about that kid, especially you young uns. If I hear you’ve been poking fun so that Kath and Tom get to hear of it, you’ll get your cards, understand?’
    Now, as the sheep grazed peacefully away, Percy leaned on his stick and looked directly at the shepherd.
    â€˜He’ll be all right, Tom,’ he said.
    â€˜Who will?’
    â€˜Your Spider.’
    Tom rubbed his chin. ‘You know, Percy, do you?’ he said.
    â€˜Yes. We all know, barring Mister. All the village knows by now. Some’ll be kind about it and some’ll be cruel and some won’t care – that’s human nature for you. But I’ll tell you one thing, Tom. Your Spider is a lucky little boy.’
    â€˜Lucky?’
    â€˜Yes, to have you and Kath for his dad and mum. He’s happy, after all, isn’t he, now?’
    Tom nodded. But will he be happy when he’s older, he thought, say in three or four years time?

C HAPTER F IVE
    T he years passed and it was lambing time again on the farm. It was also John Joseph Sparrow’s sixth birthday, so quickly does time fly.
    There was of course no knowing the precise date on which he had been born, but Tom reckoned it as being a couple of days before that night when he had found the baby in the straw of the lambing-pen.
    One evening, as the light faded, Kathie and Spider walked up the drove to take the shepherd his supper. It was some time since Spider had graduated from his hands-and-feet scuttle to a walk, though his progress was not like other children’s. He walked in a curious bent-forward manner, long arms hanging, and he was flat-footed, his feet splayed outwards, each oneplanted deliberately as he went, as though he were crushing some creature at every step, something he would never deliberately have done.
    The village boys copied his walk, and often, when Kathie went with him to the shop or the Post Office, there would be two or three children behind them, aping Spider’s action. It was a form of Grandmother’s Footsteps, or Creepmouse as it was locally called, and if Kathie looked round, the boys would instantly revert to a normal walk, giggling and sniggering.
    Amongst the adult villagers, the reactions to Spider as the years passed were as Percy Pound had forecast. Some took little or no notice of the boy, while others showed, by remarks passed or by the mere expression on their faces, that they found the child in some degree repellent. But there were still plenty who would trouble to speak a kind word.
    â€˜My, you’ve grown, Spider!’ they might say, and Spider, smiling, would