Chapter V: Billy's Present

NEXT morning Billy came downstairs looking heavy-eyed and poorly. He had had bad dreams, he said, when his grandfather asked him if he had not slept well; but he did not say that in them he had lived again through the night of the air raid and the grievous time which had followed, so that the hours of darkness had been a horror to him.

"You'd better spend the morning out-of-doors," remarked Mrs. Brown. "It couldn't be finer weather—a good thing, too, as it's washing-day. I hope Mrs. Varcoe will come early, then we shall get the clothes dried during the day."

Mrs. Varcoe was a woman from the village, Billy learnt, who came to Rowley Cottage every Monday morning to do the washing. He met her in the yard, after breakfast, where he was waiting for his grandfather, who was getting his wheel-barrow and gardening tools from an out-house, and she paused to look at him. She was a tall, muscular, red-headed woman, with a big freckled face and small greenish eyes.

"Good morning!" he said politely, thinking that she was certainly the ugliest woman he had ever seen.

"Good morning," she answered gruffly, turning towards the house.

"Mrs. Varcoe is very ugly, Grandfer," Billy remarked, as, his grandfather having joined him, they went around the house towards the vegetable garden.

"Aye," William Brown agreed, "but she's a good sort—a widow who's brought up a family of boys and made men of 'em!—men of the right kind, I mean. Four are serving their country—two in the Navy, one in Mesopotamia, and one in France. There was another, but he was killed in action at the beginning of the war. The eldest he was. His death must have been a big blow to his mother; but I've never heard her mention it except once."

"What did she say?" Billy asked, much interested.

"She said, 'It's a grief, but there's no bitterness with it. My boy died fighting for the right, and I shan't be ashamed of him when I meet him before God.' It was a brave speech, wasn't it?"

"Yes," agreed Billy, "I think it was."

"Now the first thing I mean to do this morning is to make a bonfire," William Brown said, as they entered the vegetable garden. "You can help me collect all the dead leaves and rubbish lying about. We'll make the bonfire in this corner where there's nothing growing at present."

So Billy set to work with his grandfather. It took them more than an hour to make the bonfire—a huge one. The little boy was allowed to light it, and gave a shout of pleasure as the flames leaped up followed by a volume of smoke.

"Oh, this is splendid!" he cried, "splendid!" A tinge of colour had come into his pale cheeks, and his eyes were sparkling.

"It's burning very well," his grandfather said, smiling at his excitement, "and the smoke's blowing right away from the house—fortunately. I'd forgotten till this moment about the washing—it's always hung out in the orchard at the right side of the house. If the wind had not been blowing the smoke away from that direction the clean clothes might have had smuts on them by this time, and I don't know what Granny would have said—not more than I should have deserved, though, of course. Ah, here comes Master Tom!"

Billy looked at Tom Turpin rather shyly as he greeted him. He wished he had not shown himself such a coward before this young soldier, who, he imagined, did not know what fear meant. He was very quiet as he followed him and his grandfather about the garden, but he listened with the greatest attention to all that was said. William Brown showed where he intended sowing his various crops in the spring, and the bit of orchard he meant to take into the garden.

"I don't know how I'm going to do all I want to," he remarked, "but I shall just plod on bit by bit from day to day and do my best."

"That's what we're doing across in France and Flanders," Tom replied gravely.

"I want to help Grandfer," Billy said eagerly. "I do wish I was bigger and stronger. I tried just now to use Grandfer's spade, but I couldn't—I couldn't drive it more than an inch or two into the ground." He sighed, looking at his thin arms ruefully.

"I've some light garden tools at home my father gave me when I was a boy no bigger than you, and you shall have them," Tom told him. "I'd like to know they were being used. I'll give them to you, Billy, if you'll accept them."

"Oh, Mr. Turpin!" cried the little boy. He could say no more for a minute, so overcome was he with surprise and gratitude; then he added earnestly: "Oh, thank you—thank you!"

"It's too kind of you, Master Tom, really, but if you'll lend the tools to him—" William Brown was beginning, when he was interrupted.

"No, no!" Tom Turpin said decidedly, "I wish him to have them for his own—I'm sure he'll make good use of them."

"Oh, yes, yes!" cried Billy, his face aglow with delight and excitement.

Tom Turpin had stopped to see William Brown's garden on his way to the village. When he left, Billy went with him through the pathfields to the gate leading into the high road. There they were to part.

"I don't suppose I shall see you again this time I'm home," the young man said, as he looked back at Rowley Cottage, then let his eyes wander to his home on the opposite hill, "so this will be 'good-bye,' Billy. I'll send the garden tools this evening by one of our men who lives in the village."

"Oh, thank you!" cried Billy. Then, suddenly, his face, which had been bright, clouded. "Mr. Turpin," he said, "you weren't ever afraid of anything, were you?"

"What a question!" smiled the young man. "Why, yes, indeed," he answered, becoming serious as he saw this was a serious matter to his little companion. "The first night I spent in the trenches, for instance, I was afraid," he admitted. "Oh, God knows I was awfully afraid!"

Billy gazed at the soldier with amazement. "I should never have thought it!" he declared; "I wouldn't have believed it if anyone but yourself had told me! But you didn't show you were afraid?"

"I don't think I did."

"You didn't scream as I did when I heard the blasting?"

"No. I asked God to strengthen me and take my fear away. I prayed, 'Be not Thou far from me, O Lord,' and by-and-by I began to feel His presence, and then wasn't afraid any more."

Billy drew a deep breath. "I couldn't help being afraid when I heard the blasting," he said in an ashamed tone.

"No, nor could I help being afraid that first night in the trenches. But I found help in my weakness, and that same help is for you if you ask it. Now I must really be off. Good-bye!"

The young soldier vaulted over the gate, greatly to Billy's admiration, waved his hand, and disappeared from view.

Billy hurried back through the path fields, intending to return to his grandfather immediately; but in the orchard, hanging out clean clothes, was Mrs. Brown, and the thought struck him that he would tell her about the gardening tools.

"Oh, Granny," he began, running up to her, "I've had a present—at least I'm to have it by-and-by. A set of gardening tools!"

"Oh!" exclaimed Mrs. Brown. "And who's going to give you that?" she asked sharply. "Not your grandfather, I hope?"

"No, Mr. Turpin—Mr. Tom Turpin," Billy replied. "It's a set he had when he was a boy. Now I shall be able to help grandfather, shan't I?"

Mrs. Brown looked at Billy without answering, and smiled. There was something so contemptuous in her smile that the little boy turned from her with reddening cheeks. Of course she thought he was too small and weak to do gardening, he told himself.

Tom Turpin sent the tools in the evening, as he had promised. Mrs. Brown barely gave them a glance, but her husband pronounced them to be "first-rate" and just the right weight for his grandson's use.

"I may start using them to-morrow, mayn't I, Grandfer?" asked Billy.

"Yes, if all's well," William Brown answered, smiling; "that means if you sleep well, and come down looking better to-morrow morning than you did to-day."

That night Billy had no bad dreams to disturb him. He added the young soldier's prayer—"Be not Thou far from me, O Lord—" to his usual evening prayers, and fell asleep very quickly. He did not awake till morning—the morning of another beautiful day.