Just A Silver Thimble

Close by Captain the cart-horse was dozing at a five-bar gate. John climbed up to rub the bristly forehead. Tossing his head in greeting the huge animal snorted bran breath at the boy. The rabbit forgotten, John jumped down from the gate to continue up the lane. The dusty yellow smell of wheat tickled his nose. Soon it would be harvest time. He remembered last year when the men had gathered to shoot rabbits that had retreated into the last little square of wheat. He hadn`t known how many would be in there. The men had continued to cut and the wheat patch shrank to the size of a pocket handkerchief. He had begun to think there weren`t going to be any rabbits but at the very last minute, when it seemed that only a few stalks remained, half a dozen had come bounding out to make a run for it and not one of them had made it. After that all the children had climbed up onto the cart sprawling aboard the hay and Captain had hauled the full load up to the barn.

There was a strip of late sunshine on the back door step. He gave in to a huge yawn. If he were a dog he would curl up there and go to sleep. Inside the cottage his mother had been blacking the oven. Alfred was sitting under the kitchen table playing with some of the animals from the Noah`s Ark.

“Hello Ma.”

“Hello son. Where`s tha bin?” and he told her about his afternoon.

“Be a good lad and fill the wood box John, then tha can play outside with Alfred.”

It had been a warm, contented summer afternoon. They had a roof over their heads, food on the table and boots on their feet. The little family felt secure. They could manage.

Out in the lane John struggled under Alfred`s weight, nearly throttled by sturdy little brown hands clinging on for dear life in a precarious piggy-back ride.

“Tha`s too heavy. I`ll drop thee.”

Just then a group of men came striding down the lane towards the boys. They were carrying something between them. It was a door. There was baggage on the door. No not baggage. It looked like a man. Why were they bringing a man on a door down the lane? There was only their cottage and Grey`s farm before the lane petered out at the copse and the brook. John and Alfred stood back as the small procession passed. It smelt of men who did hard, sweaty work and bathed once a week. The whites of their eyes gleamed in faces coated with gritty brick dust. They all looked the same; straining muscles, taut sinews, greasy caps above grim faces.

“Hold the gate open lad.”

“Run round an` ask tha Ma to open the front door.”