The Classic Morpurgo Collection (six novels)

by Michael Morpurgo

  ‘Then with the children growed and flown the nest, more or less, she said we both had the time to do it. She said we should sit down together in the evenings when I come in off the farm, and do it. And so we did. No more’n a month later, I wake up one morning and she’s still in bed beside me. She was always up before me, always. And she were cold, so cold. I can mind I knowed at once she was dead. Weak heart, the doctor told me. She had the rheumatic fever when she was little. I didn’t know it. She never told me.’

  He waved me into the chair opposite him, and looked me long and hard in the eye before he began again. ‘I still talk to her, y’know. Last night I asked her. I said: “Shall I tell him? Would he do it? What d’you think?” And she was listening, I know that. She never says anything, but it’s like I can hear her listening, hear her thinking sometimes. Like last night. She was thinking: “It’s about time you finished what we started. No use just sitting there for the rest of your life feeling all sorry for yourself. Ask him, you old misery. Worst he can say is no.” ’

  He reached out suddenly and took me by the arm. ‘Well, will you?’ I still hadn’t a clue what he was asking me. ‘Will you stay here for a few months? You could give us a hand out on the farm. I’d pay you mind, proper man’s wages. And maybe…’ He was looking down at his hands, picking at his knuckles. He didn’t seem to want to go on. ‘And maybe, you could teach me, like she did. I’d learn quick.’

  ‘Teach you what, Grandpa?’ I said.

  ‘I can’t read,’ he mumbled. ‘And I can’t write neither.’ There were tears in his eyes when he looked at me. ‘You got to teach me, lad. You got to.’

  ‘But you went to school,’ I said. ‘You told me.’

  ‘Till I was thirteen, and I wasn’t bad either. Few wiggings for this and that, but we all had wiggings, ’cepting Myrtle. Oh, she could read and write something terrific. Didn’t help her much though, did it? She went into service up at Ash House and died of the diphtheria before I was twenty. Poor maid. Pretty as a picture she was, too.

  ‘I never had the diphtheria, but I got the scarlet fever. I’d have been all right without the scarlet fever. Missed a year of school with that. And then when I got better, I wanted to be out on the farm all I could. I’d fetch in the cows before I went off to school. I’d feed Joey in his stable, and old Zoey too. It was near enough a two-mile walk to school after that. I was late most mornings, so I got a wigging of course; but I never took no notice of that. Trouble was, I was always dropping off to sleep in Mr Burton’s lessons, and he didn’t like that; so then I got a wigging again. And sometimes, if the brown trout were rising down on the Ockment, I’d bunk off school anyway.

  ‘Harvest times, of course, I never bothered much with school anyway. I’d be out in the fields, sunrise to sunset if need be. Hay in June, wheat in July, potatoes in October, cider apples too. I’d go rat catching at threshing time, bash ’em on the head as they came a-skittering out. I’d trap the beggars too, when I could. Father’d give me a penny a tail for that. And he’d give me sixpence for a nice rabbit.

  ‘Father couldn’t do it all on his own, see. He weren’t ever well enough. Leg from the war played him up something rotten, and he still had the ringing in his head, and the pain with it. Mother helped when she could, but they couldn’t have managed without me, ’specially at harvest time.

  Always something to be picked up, there was: mangolds, swedes – I do love a good swede – turnips too. And stones. I used to be out there with Mother days on end, picking up the stones off the corn fields. Weren’t slave labour. Father paid me for every bushel I picked up, and I’d give half of everything to Mother for the housekeeping. But I was happy enough to do it. You ask me where I’d rather be, in Mr Burton’s writing lesson at school, or cleaning out the pigs? Pigs any day. Honest.

  I was doing something useful, wasn’t I? Don’t matter how smelly it was. Mr Burton said I was a turnip-head, and if I wasn’t careful I’d be nothing but a farm boy all my life, and I didn’t see anything wrong in that. Still don’t. And besides, I could read enough words, all the words I’d need. That’s what I thought. I could write a bit, too. I wasn’t stupid like Mr Burton said. I just didn’t like being in school, and I didn’t like him much either, not with all the wiggings he give me.

  ‘Trouble was that when I left school, I forgot even the little learning I had learnt. No cause to practise much, see? Then, like I say, your grandmother comes along, and she can read and write well enough for both of us. So I never bothered with it after that, until she told me I wasn’t a turnip-head at all, and how she’d teach me. But we left it too late, didn’t we?’

  He sighed and sat back in his chair. ‘So? Will you do it? Will you teach me like she did?

  Will you? I want to learn so as I can write just like I can speak, so as I can read an Agatha Christie book from cover to cover. Well? Proper wages. I’ll pay you proper wages.’

  ‘I don’t know, Grandpa,’ I said. ‘I’ve never taught anyone anything. And besides, I was thinking of going to Australia for a while, after Christmas, when I’ve got some money saved up.’

  ‘Australia!’ He chuckled and shook his head. ‘What a world it is!’ He leant forward. ‘All right,’ he went on. ‘Tell you what we’ll do. You stay here till after Christmas, till the New Year, say. I’ll do it in four months, easy. You’ll see.’ I must have made a doubting face. ‘You don’t think so, eh? All right.’ He looked back over his shoulder, a little nervously. ‘Her on the dresser there, she never liked me to bet. Chapel she was, said it was a sin.’ He was whispering now. But I’m betting you one hundred pounds that if you teach me…let’s say three hours a day till Christmas, I’ll be able to read an Agatha Christie book all on my own, cover to cover; and what’s more, I’ll write you out a bit of a story of my own, too. You see if I won’t. Hundred pounds says I can do it – the reading and the writing, both. So you’ll have a hundred pounds more to take with you to Australia. Well, what do you say?’

  We got out the paper and pencil there and then, sat down at the kitchen table and began. It turned out to be a lot more than three hours a day. Grandpa stopped only to cook, to eat, to walk up the lane at dusk to shut the chickens up – ‘fowls’, he always calls them – and to sleep. The moment I came in from feeding up the cows or checking the sheep or mucking out the pigs, he’d be sitting there at the kitchen table with his pencil and his books, waiting. He’d barely give me time to wash my hands. To begin with he learnt all his reading from newspapers. He liked the large print, and the photographs helped him to guess a word sometimes when he couldn’t quite make it out. Any new word he came across he’d write down in his book.

  That way, I thought, he could practise his reading and writing at the same time. He found the writing harder. He said his fingers wouldn’t do what he told them. Mostly he’d find ways to laugh off his failures; but from time to time, when things didn’t go right, he would become angry and morose, and then I’d leave him to get on by himself.

  After a while I could see the newspapers weren’t helping. He’d sit silent through a meal, dwelling on some dreadful story he’d just struggled so hard to read. One evening, after he’d read a piece about yet another savagery in Bosnia, I saw there were tears in his eyes. ‘Don’t it ever stop?’ he said. ‘I can mind Father telling me that there’d be no more wars, not after his one. It shames me. It shames all of us. What’s the good in reading, if that’s all there is to read about?’

  I tried Farmer’s Weekly on him for a while, but the print was small. And besides, he said, he’d done farming all his life, he didn’t want to read about it too. Then there was a jumble sale up in Iddesleigh Village Hall that produced sudden and unexpected treasures: a copy of Animal Farm and Travels with a Donkey, and a dozen Tintin books; but best of all a dictionary and a magnifying glass. After that, his reading seemed to come on in leaps and bounds. His writing was slower though. He couldn’t seem to manage joined-up very well, so I didn’t make him. He would print each letter very deli
berately, pressing down too hard on the paper and often breaking his pencil in the process. He went through pencils as if he was eating them. But he never let up, not for a single day. Some nights he’d stay up till midnight and he would still be at it; and I’d be dead on my feet and longing for bed. When it came to the lessons, it was Grandpa that was the slave driver, not me.

  On Christmas Eve at midnight he took me up the lane to the barn. ‘I want to show you something,’ he said in a whisper, and he opened the door slowly. ‘Same every year. Look at this.’ And he switched on the light. The cows on one side lay in their straw, blinking at us; and on the other side the sheep eyed us lazily. ‘All kneeling, see? Christmas Eve, and they’re all kneeling, just like they was in the stable two thousand years ago.’

  ‘They’re lying, Grandpa, not kneeling,’ I said. ‘And besides, they always lie down in the middle of the night.’

  ‘Do you want your Christmas present or not, you miserable beggar?’ he chuckled, gripping me by the back of the neck. ‘Now, my lad, are they lying or kneeling?’

  ‘Kneeling, Grandpa,’ I squealed, and he released my neck.

  He smiled at me, sat down on a bale of straw, patted the straw beside him and told me to sit. He took a book from his coat pocket. ‘I’ve got a surprise for you,’ he said. Then he began. ‘Death on the Nile by Agatha Christie. Chapter One.’ He read slowly, stumbling every now and again, his eyebrows meeting in a frown of frustration whenever he did. When he’d finished the chapter, he closed the book and looked at me, a smile of wild exhilaration in his eyes. His face was flushed with the effort of it. ‘You’ll get two chapters a day till I’ve done,’ he said. And so I did, sometimes three, and by the end, by New Year, he wasn’t reading the words, he was reading the story.

  A week or so later, I found myself on the train from Eggesford Junction to Exeter, my rucksack on the floor between my knees. I was on my way home, then off to Australia sometime in February. I should have been looking forward to it, but I was not. I had been a farm boy for only a few months, and had loved every smelly, backbreaking moment of it.

  I had no real desire to travel any more, nor to go to college either. I had hated leaving Grandpa all alone down at Burrow. He had waved me off rather abruptly, a quick pat on the head. ‘Off you go. Miss your train else,’ he’d said. Then he’d turned away and gone inside. I’d just walked away.

  My rucksack tumbled over at my feet. As I picked it up, I saw a white envelope sticking out of its side pocket. I pulled it out. There were ten ten-pound notes inside. The bet! The hundred pound bet. I’d forgotten all about it. There was a note with it. It read:

  I hope you like my story. I wrote it for you just to show you I could. It’s about the old Fordson tractor at the back of the barn and it’s about Joey and its about me thanks a million for teaching me. God bless.

  Grandpa.

  After a short search, I found the story. It was folded down the inside of my rucksack, just six crinkled sheets of paper, heavily indented with black pencil, every letter laboriously, meticulously formed, all of it quite legible. There wasn’t much punctuation. We’d done capital letters and full stops, but not much more.

  When I was a littleun Mayday up in Iddesleigh village was always the best day of the year. There was the march around the village behind the Hatherleigh Silver Band all the menfolk following the Friendly Society banner blue ribbons on their jackets and Father standing a head higher than any of the others.

  There were swing boats up around the village green and a carousel and pasties and toffee apples and lemonade and then in the afternoon we had games down on West Park Farm. We did all sorts of egg and spoon races and sack races three legged races skipping races. You name it we did it. But best of all was chicken chasing. They let some poor old fowl loose in the middle of the field and old Farmer Northley waved his flag and off we went after him, the fowl not old Farmer Northley. And if you caught him well then he was yours to keep. We had some fun and games I can tell you. You could see more bloomers and petticoats on Mayday up in Iddesleigh than was good for a chap. Every year I went after that cockerel just like everyone else but I never caught him.

  I can mind it was the year that Father caught him that it happened. I were maybe seven or eight perhaps. He flew at Fathers face and Father had him and hung on spite of all the flapping and squawking.

  We would have a good supper out of that and we were pleased as punch I can tell you. Father and me stayed up in the village and Mother went off home with the fowl.

  There were a whole crowd of folk in the Duke of York and as usual there was some that had too much of the beer or cider. It were rowdy in there and I was sat outside with the horses waiting for Father. It was the drink that started the whole thing. Mother always said so after.

  Harry Medlicott he had West Park in them days. Biggest farm in the parish it was. Harry Medlicott comes out of the Duke drunk as a lord, he was knowed for it. He was a puffed up sort of chap a bit full of himself. Had the first car in the parish the first tractor too. Anyway Father and me we were mounting up to leave. Father was on Joey and I was up on Zoey and this Harry Medlicott comes up and says.

  Look here Corporal he says you got to get yourself up to date you have.

  What do you mean says Father.

  Those two old nags of yours. You should go and get yourself a proper newfangled modern tractor like me.

  What for says Father.

  What for. What for. I’ll tell you what for corporal says he. My Fordson can plough a field five times as fast as your two old bag of boneses. Thats what for.

  Bags of bones is it says Father. Now everyone knows what Father thinks of his Joey how he won’t hear a word against him. Common knowledge it was at the time. Well for a moment or two Father just looks down at Harry Medlicott from on top of Joey. Then he leans forward and talks into Joeys ear.

  Do you hear that Joey says he. Joey whips his tail and paws the ground like he wants to be off. A bit of a crowd was gathering now most of them as drunk as Harry Medlicott and laughing at us just like he was. He dont much like what youre saying Mr Medlicott says Father. And whats more neither do I.

  Like it or not Corporal, Harry Medlicott is still swigging down his cider. Like it or not the days of horses is over. Look at them two. Fit for nothing but the knackers yard if you ask me.

  Tis true that Father had drunk a beer or two. I am not saying he hadn’t else I am certain sure he would have just rode away. I don’t think he was ever angry in all his life but he was as upset then as I ever saw him. I could see that in his eyes. Any rate he pats Joeys neck and tries to smile it off. I reckon theyre good enough for a few years yet Mr Medlicott says he.

  Good for nothing I say Corporal. And Harry Medlicott is laughing like a drain all the while. I say a man without a tractor these days can’t call himself a proper farmer. Thats what I say.

  Father straightens himself up in his saddle and everyones waiting to hear what hes got to say just like I was. All right Mr Medlicott says he. We will see shall us. We will see if your tractor is all you say it is. Come ploughing time in November. I will put my two horses against your tractor and we will just see who comes off best shall us.

  Well of course by now Harry Medlicott was splitting himself laughing, and so were half the crowd. Whats that Corporal he says. They two old nags against my new Fordson. I got a two furrow plough reversible. You got an old single furrow. You wouldnt stand a dogs chance. I told you I can do five acres a day easy. More maybe. You havent got a hope Corporal.

  Havent I now says Father and theres a steely look in his eye now. You sure of that are you.

  Course I am says Harry Medlicott.

  Right then. And Father says it out loud so everyone can hear. Heres what we’ll do then. We’ll plough as many furrows as we can from half past six in the morning to half past three in the afternoon. Hour off for lunch. We’ll have Farmer Northley to do the judging at the end of the day. Furrows got to be good and straight like they should be. And ano
ther thing Mr Medlicott since youre so sure youll win we’ll have a little bet on it shall us. If I win I drive away the tractor. If you win theres a hundred bales of my best meadow hay for you. What do you say.

  But my Fordsons worth a lot more than that says Harry Medlicott.

  Course it is says Father. But then your not going to lose are you so it don’t matter do it. And he holds out his hand. Harry Medlicott thinks for a while but then he shakes Fathers hand and that was that. We rode off home and Father hardly spoke a single word the whole way. We was unsaddling by the stables when he sighs deep and he says. Your mothers going to be awful vexed at me. I shouldnt have done it. I know I shouldnt. Dont know what came over me.

  He was right. Mother was as angry as I ever saw her. She told him just what she thought of him and how could we afford to go giving away a hundred good bales and how he was bound to lose and how no horse in the world could plough as fast as a tractor. Everyone with any sense knew that she says. Father kept his peace and never argued with her. He just said he couldnt go back on it now. What was done was done and he would have to make the best of it. But I tell you something Maisie he says to her. That Harry Medlicott with his fancy car and his fancy waistcoat and his fancy tractor hes going to be worrying himself silly from now on till November you see if he wont.

  But youll be the silly one when you lose wont you says Mother.