BooksBarbecue
Back Plough the Furrow Save as PDF
Chapters (53)
  1. Cover
  2. Title page
  3. Dedication page
  4. One
  5. Two
  6. Three
  7. Four
  8. Five
  9. Six
  10. Seven
  11. Eight
  12. Nine
  13. Ten
  14. Eleven
  15. Twelve
  16. Thirteen
  17. Fourteen
  18. Fifteen
  19. Sixteen
  20. Seventeen
  21. Eighteen
  22. Nineteen
  23. Twenty
  24. Twenty-one
  25. Twenty-two
  26. Twenty-three
  27. Twenty-four
  28. Twenty-five
  29. Twenty-six
  30. Twenty-seven
  31. Twenty-eight
  32. Twenty-nine
  33. Thirty
  34. Thirty-one
  35. Thirty-two
  36. Thirty-three
  37. Thirty-four
  38. Thirty-five
  39. Thirty-six
  40. Thirty-seven
  41. Thirty-eight
  42. Thirty-nine
  43. Forty
  44. Forty-one
  45. Forty-two
  46. Forty-three
  47. Forty-four
  48. Sow the Seed
  49. Reap the Harvest
  50. About the Author
  51. ALSO BY MARGARET DICKINSON
  52. Acknowledgements
  53. Copyright page

With the news that Sam Brumby was so very ill, and mindful of her promise to care for him until the end, Esther decided to move out of the attic boxroom above the kitchen for it had no direct access to the upper floor of the house. She needed to be nearer Sam.

Stepping into the room on the opposite side of the small landing to Sam’s room, Esther found what appeared to have once been a nursery. Pushed into the corner was an assortment of children’s toys – a battered rocking horse, a doll’s house, a high chair, a doll with a china face and cloth body and in another corner a full-sized baby’s cot.

Esther wondered if all these things had belonged to the sweet-faced girl in the faded picture in Sam’s bedroom. Perhaps he could not bear to throw anything away; maybe a lot of the old man’s memories of happier days were stored away in this room with these toys. Esther could almost see the little girl with her long hair flowing as she rocked to and fro on the wooden horse; could almost hear her childish laughter . . .

Esther shook herself; her worry over Sam was making her fanciful and morbid. She must concentrate on practical matters, she told herself firmly.

Another door led into a long narrow room with a sloping ceiling, beneath which there was just enough room for the iron bedstead to stand. At one end of the room there was a small chest of drawers and a basin and jug stood on a wash-stand. Although the whole place needed scrubbing out and the bedlinen washing, the room was luxurious compared with the attic boxroom. This room had obviously been the nurserymaid’s, but Esther chose it in preference to the larger nursery for it seemed warmer. If she left the two intervening doors open, she would still be able to hear if Sam needed help in the night.

Three nights later, when the room was clean, the bedlinen freshly laundered and the dust banged from the mattress with a carpet beater, Esther moved in. For the first time in her life, she was sleeping in a real bedroom and on a proper bed.

Yet, as she lay awake listening to the rasping, laboured sound of Sam’s breathing, she wished she was back in the quiet solitude of the cramped boxroom.