“Fell a cow with one swipe, did you, Smythe?” Mr. Farington laughed wheezily. He was a very thin man who, Lydia had noticed, had difficulty opening heavy doors.
“How big was the cow, Father?” asked Lydia.
The broad man looked down at his daughter, the remnants of a prideful smile still on his face.
“What’s that, Liddy?”
“Was it a full grown cow?” she asked.
Her father’s face shifted uncertainly. “Uh, perhaps not…”
Lydia scrunched up her little nose affectedly and asked, “Wasn’t that the calf that the knacker took away because you broke two of its legs?”
Both men looked at the girl who sat at the table, calmly examining the crumbling biscuit in her hand.
The face of the large, rough man broke into an embarrassed grin. He pulled on the scratchy collar of his shirt. ”Lydia, you’re blowing all the glory out of farming.”
You oughtn’t be telling stories of poor little broken-legged calves, Lydia countered silently.
“Ah, she’s an intelligent young girl, Smythe. You can’t inflate your stories with her around.” Mr. Farington laughed and pushed the plate of biscuits closer to the farmer and his daughter.
“Sharp indeed, she is. You ought to hear her read,” Farmer Smythe said, clapping his hand on Lydia’s shoulder.
“Ah, you know your letters now, do you?” Mr. Farington asked, peering at Lydia through his spectacles, a kind smile on his face.
“Oh no, Farington! She’s known letters since she was three. This one’s reading words as long as your arm.” He stuck out his own long, bulky appendage.
“Really?” The older man asked and stood up from the table. “I have some things from my teaching days. Let me go get one of them.”
Farmer Smythe winked at his daughter who set down the biscuit.
She suppressed a smile, thinking, I shall surprise him as I do everyone.
A moment later Farington returned with a paddle shaped piece of wood and handed it to Lydia.
A thin layer of horn was tacked onto the paddle and words had been carefully scratched into its surface. Hiding her disappointment at the simplicity of the poem before her, Lydia determined to read with fluency and animation. She began:
“For want of a nail the shoe was lost.
For want of a shoe the horse was…”
“No, Farington, none of those silly hornbooks!” interrupted Farmer Smythe. “That book there. Hand that to her.” He pointed at a thick brown volume resting on the far-end of the table.
“Wordsworth? Really, Smythe?” Mr. Farington smiled and lifted his eyebrows at Lydia. “Would you like to try to read some Wordsworth, Child?”
Lydia nodded, delicately brushing crumbs from her fingertips, thankful for once for her father’s brashness.
“Very well.” Farington cracked open the book. “Let’s try the first stanza of The Daffodils. That’s from here to here.”
He held the book open before her, pointing out the first six lines with his crooked, aged index finger.
The book thunked to the table and Lydia pinned the pages down with her small hands, breathing in their distinctive wooden smell.
Even this looks rather easy, she thought.
Clearing her throat, she read:
“I wander’d lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o’er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze…”
Stanza after stanza she read, pausing only once at the word ‘jocund’ in the third stanza. She pronounced it with an ‘s’ sound for the ‘c’. Mr. Farington corrected her quietly as she internally vowed to never mispronounce it again.
“Excellent!” Mr. Farington cried, clapping his hands at the poem’s conclusion.
“Thank you, sir,” Lydia murmured as she began to flip through the pages. Settling on The Thorn she began to read silently.
“How old did you say she was, Smythe?”
“Only seven!”
“Truly, Smythe, for decades I was a schoolmaster, and very rarely did I hear a child of seven read with such ease and fluidity. Child?”
Lydia looked up from the book to see a pair of eyes glowing appreciatively at her.
“To such a reader as yourself, I open my library of books. Any book you want to borrow, you may. Just promise you will keep it safe as I love nothing as I love my books.”
“Thank you, sir.” Lydia smiled genuinely. She turned her eyes back to the open book before her as the conversation between the two men began anew.
3: Counting Windows
~ Jonathan, age 9
Whitehall
“12 and 13 for the blue parlor
14 and 15 for Papa’s study
Just 16 for the drawing room as it only has one window…”
There was a slight chill in the air as the dazzling sunlight pained Jonathan’s eyes. He sat in the crook of his favorite cherry tree, counting the windows of the building he called home. Having visited a few other stately homes, he knew Whitehall was impressive, not as large perhaps, but very grand.
Papa would often give tours to visitors though Mama insisted this should be done by the housekeeper as was done at other great homes.
“But no one knows the place as I do,” Sir William would respond, a pleased glint in his eyes. “I know every inch of it and now that I’ve restored every rotunda and hidey-hole, I want to be the one to show it! Do you honestly think Old Smithy-Pot would be able to answer anyone’s questions?”
At this, Lady Clyde would shake her head, though a little smile played on her lips.
Jonathan watched this slightly playful exchange between his parents quietly. It was a rare occurrence and made him feel pleasantly warm.
Old Smithy-Pot, he chuckled to himself, thinking of the dour housekeeper who frowned at him whenever she saw him sliding
