The Tale of Hill Top Farm by Susan Wittig Albert Read Free Book Online Page B

terrifies me.”
    On the bed, Miss Potter stirred and sat up, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes. When she saw the dog and the cat, she swung her bare feet out of bed and onto the floor. “What are you two doing here?” she asked, pushing the hair out of her eyes. She got out of bed and shooed Rascal and Tabitha Twitchit out the door, closing it behind them. Taking up a gingham cloth, she spread it over the three cages on the shelf.
    “And as for you,” she said firmly, “it’s time to stop chattering and go to sleep.” With that, she got into bed and pulled the covers over her head.
    And then all was silent, except for Tom Thumb, who whispered to himself over and over, in a small and disconsolate voice, “Not cut out to be a country mouse, no, never, never, never,” until he, too, fell asleep.

4
    Losses, Mix-Ups, and Confusions
    Dimity Woodcock looked up with a smile as her brother, Captain Miles Woodcock, came into the breakfast room at Tower Bank House and sat down at the table across from her with a cheerful “Good morning, my dear.” Dimity did not have to ask what he would like; she poured tea, passed toast and Elsa Grape’s freshly made orange marmalade, and dished up a plate of eggs and bacon from the warming pan.
    Dimity had never for a moment regretted her decision, some ten years before, to come to live with Miles when he retired from the Army and set up housekeeping in the Lakes. Her choice had not seemed entirely wise at the time; she had lived at home in Plymouth the whole of her twenty-four years and had seen very little of the world. When their parents were both killed in a train wreck on the south coast, there had been enough money for her to spend a year or two globe-trotting, as her cousins urged her to do, and then take up residence in London, with the aim of finding a husband, preferably rich.
    But globe-trotting did not appeal to Dimity. Furthermore, she had her own income and was not in want of a husband, rich or otherwise; in fact, she had the idea that men (except for her brother, of course) were more bother than they were worth. To placate her cousins, Dimity had taken two sight-seeing trips, one to Italy and the other to Switzerland, and then accepted Miles’s invitation to visit him at the house he had just purchased in the village of Sawrey. A few weeks later, he broached the subject of her staying permanently.
    “I’m afraid there isn’t much excitement,” he had said, “but it’s a pretty place, and quiet. Rather ideal, actually.” He sighed and rubbed the bad leg he’d got in Egypt, along with malaria and the Victoria Cross. “I’ve no great yearning for society, and quiet and peace have a many charms, at least for me.” And Dimity, who had very much enjoyed her walk down to Esthwaite Water, with the view of Coniston Old Man shrugging its mountainous shoulders beyond, had happily agreed.
    But although life had been on the whole peaceful, it had not been very quiet, for either of them. Captain Woodcock soon found himself serving as Justice of the Peace for Sawrey district, a post that required him to hear complaints, witness documents, certify deaths, and the like. And his sister, when it became known that she was a sensible woman with abundant goodwill and energy, found herself asked to volunteer for all manner of village and parish activities. She had finally to say no to some things, simply in order to have time to garden and take the long tramps across the fells that she so much loved.
    Dimity poured herself another cup of tea. Miles had attended a meeting of the Hawkshead Bell Ringers the night before, and she had not seen him since breakfast the previous day. “Miss Potter arrived yesterday afternoon,” she said, adding two lumps of sugar. “I met her as we waited for the ferry.”
    “Ah, Miss Potter,” Miles said dryly. “The worthy London authoress who aspires to become a tiller of the soil. Where’s she putting up whilst she’s here?”
    “With the