Our Frank | Page 6

that
noise was there must be people, whom he could ask for food, and he
got up and staggered on again. As he went the sound got louder and
louder, and he could also hear a voice singing. This encouraged him so
much that he quickened his pace to a run, and soon came to a great
clearing in the wood. And then he saw what had caused the noise.
Felled trees were lying about in the round open space, and there were
great heaps of curly yellow shavings, and strange-looking smooth
pieces of wood carefully arranged in piles. Two little sheds stood at
some distance from each other, and in one of these sat a man turning a
piece of wood in a rudely fashioned lathe; as he finished it he handed it
to a boy kneeling at his feet, who supplied him with more wood, and
sang at his work in a loud, clear voice. And then a still more interesting
object caught Frank's eye, for in the middle of the clearing there burned
and crackled a lively little wood-fire, and over it, hanging from a
triangle of three sticks, was a smoky black kettle. It held tea, he felt
sure, and near it were some tin mugs and some nice little bundles of
something tied up in spotted handkerchiefs. It all suggested agreeable
preparations for a meal, and he felt he must join it at any risk.
He stood timidly at the edge of the wood observing all this for a minute,
and then, as no one noticed him, he slowly advanced till he was close to
the man and boy; then they looked up and saw him.
A wayworn, weary little figure he was, with a white face and mournful
blue eyes; he had a shrinking, frightened air, like some hunted creature
of the woods; and here and there the dry brown leaves had stuck to his
clothes. Holding out his hand, and speaking in a low voice, for he felt
ashamed of begging when it came to the point, he said:
"Please can yer give me a morsel of bread?"

The man, who had kind slow brown eyes and a very placid face, looked
at him without speaking, and shook his head at the outstretched hand.
But the boy answered with a wide-mouthed grin:
"He's hard o' hearin', my pardner is. He don't know what yer say."
He then rose, and going close to the man shouted shrilly in his ear:
"Little chap wants summat t'eat."
The man nodded.
"He's welcome to jine at tea," he said, "and he can work it out
arterwards. Where dost come from?" to Frank.
Frank hesitated; then he thought of a village several miles beyond
Danecross, and answered boldly, "Dinton."
"And where art goin'?"
"I'm seekin' work," said Frank.
These answers having been yelled into his ear by the boy, the man
asked no further questions, though he gravely considered the stranger
with his large quiet eyes. Shortly afterwards, having been joined by the
mate who was sawing in the other shed, the company disposed
themselves round the fire, and to Frank's great joy the meal began. And
what a meal it was! Roasted potatoes, tea, thick hunches of bread, small
fragments of fat bacon, all pervaded with a slight flavour of
smoke--could anything be more delicious to a famished boy? Frank
abandoned himself silently to the enjoyment of it; and though his
companions cast interested glances at him from time to time, no one
spoke. It was a very quiet assembly. All round and above them the new
little green leaves danced and twinkled, and on the ground the old ones
made a rich brown carpet; the blue smoke of the fire rose thinly up in
the midst.
At last Frank gave a deep sigh of contentment as he put down his tin

mug, and the deaf man clapped him kindly on the shoulder.
"Hast taken the edge off, little chap?" he said.
Then the two men, stretched luxuriously on the ground, filled their
pipes and smoked in silence. The boy, who was about Frank's own age,
but brown-faced and stoutly built, busied himself in clearing away the
remains of the meal, and in carefully making up the fire with dry chips
and shavings; he seemed to have caught the infection of silence from
his companions, and eyed the stranger guest without speaking a word.
But Frank, who was revived and cheered by his food, felt inclined for a
little conversation; he was always of an inquisitive turn of mind, and he
was longing to ask some questions; so as the boy passed near him he
ventured to say, pointing to the neat piles of wood:
"What be yon?"
The boy stared.
"Yon?" he repeated; "why, yon be legs and