A Croft in the Hills Read Online Free

before the pipe-track was dug.
    Jim packed up his job and we decided to move by the first of November. Then the men really got busy. On our last weekly visit we found the place reverberating with hammer-blows and cheerful
whistling and shouting and clanking.
    The day of our arrival came at last. The removal people had sent too small a van with the result that two journeys had to be made. We had to spend an extra night in town, as it was too late to
make the trip ourselves that day.
    Next morning, when we reached our destination, we were greeted by the sight of half our worldly goods standing stacked at the roadside. Furniture, books, pictures, pots and pans stood there,
looking forlorn in the chill, grey light.
    We had arranged with a neighbour to ferry our belongings from the road to the house on his tractor-trailer, as the van could not manage to make the journey to the house with the access road in
its wintry state. Luckily this neighbour had had the good sense to cart all the bedding and really perishable stuff along to the house the day before, and the night had been fine, so no irreparable
damage was done.
    We changed into gum-boots and started right away to rescue the most precious books, as the sky was clouding and rain threatening. At once we were overwhelmed with goodwill. The tractor came
lurching into view and strong arms soon had another load secured. Our eastward neighbour appeared at her door as we passed and offered to take charge of Helen for the day, so that we could get on
with the work as quickly as possible. They were already firm friends, she and Helen, and we gladly agreed. On arrival at the house we found a roaring fire in the kitchen, more cheery faces and a
welcome brew of tea.
    All day the tractor plied back and forth with load after load of goods and chattels. There was hammering and singing and mud and plaster everywhere, but by tea-time we had everything under cover
and the beds made up, so we fetched Helen from our kindly neighbour. The men brought pail after pail of water from the well and we all ate an enormous meal of ham and eggs. I even managed to give
Helen her tub, as usual, before carrying her through the ‘burach’ to the safe oasis of her bed. Then we lit a fire in the great hearth in the living-room and sat round it, all six of
us, till our eyelids drooped.
    Those were happy days as, slowly, our house began to take shape. The men were up at six and had a fire in the kitchen for me to cook breakfast. After dark they worked on by the light of
oil-lamps so as to get done and, as they put it, ‘out of our road’. Secretly, I think they were missing the pub and the cinema of their little home town. Certainly their singing and
whistling grew more light-hearted and obstreperous as they kept up their spirits till the time came for their release. But they were good sorts and did their best in what were, for them, difficult
and unusual conditions.
    We celebrated Helen’s third birthday with a cake I had made weeks before. Our black Labrador presented us with a litter of pedigreed pups. At last the men completed the plumbing and wiring
and departed with cheerful waves and ‘rather-you-than-me’ expressions on their faces.
    Then Peter, a young friend of ours who was waiting to start a new job, came to help Jim dig the trench for the water pipe. For nearly three weeks they dug, pausing only for meals and fly cups of
tea. Sometimes they would be lost to view in the mist, and only the ring of the pick and the scrape of the shovel told us they were still hard at it. But the job was accomplished, though we were
still to wait a long time before the water would flow from the tap.
    Meantime, I was clearing rubble from around the outside of the house and making a gravel path to the door so that some, at least, of the mud would not be brought inside on the soles of our
boots. I got to know the ways of my new oven and I carried water, and more water!
    At last, towards the beginning