Our Frank | Page 7

rungs of cheers--that's what
we make 'em fur."
"Where be the cheers?" pursued Frank.
"We send all yon down to Wickham, to the cheer factory," answered
the boy; "we don't fit 'em together here."
He seated himself at Frank's side as he spoke, and poked at the fire with
a long pointed stick.
"How do they get 'em down to Wickham?" asked Frank, bent on getting
as much information as possible.
The boy pointed to a broad cart-track, which descended abruptly from
one side of the clearing.
"They fetch a cart up yonder, and take 'em down into the high-road."
"And how fur is it?"

"A matter of two miles, and then three miles further to the factory, and
there they make 'em up into cheers, and then they send 'em up to
Lunnon Town by the rail."
Frank remembered the great cart-loads of chairs that he had seen
passing through Danecross, but what chiefly struck him in his
companion's answer were the two words "Lunnon Town." They fell on
his ear with a new meaning. He had read of Lunnon Town, and heard
schoolmaster talk of it, but had never imagined it as a place he could
see, any more than America. Now, suddenly, an idea of such vast
enterprise seized on his mind, that it stunned him into silence. He
would go to Lunnon Town! Everyone became rich there. He would
become rich too; then he would go back to Green Highlands, and give
all his money to mother; there would be no need for any more
field-work, and they would all be happy. At the thought of mother his
eyes filled with tears, for he knew how unhappy she would be when he
did not come back, and how she would stand at the door and look out
for him. He longed to set about making this great fortune at once, it
seemed a waste of time to sit idle; but he knew he must rest that night,
for his legs felt stiff and aching; besides he had to work out his meal.
In half an hour the deaf man's lathe was hard at work again, and the two
boys busily employed near. Frank's new friend showed him how to
arrange the pieces of wood neatly in piles when they were turned and
smoothed. He hummed a tune in the intervals of conversation and
presently asked:
"Can yer sing?"
Frank could sing--very well. He was one of the best singers in
Danecross choir, and Mrs Darvell held her head very high when she
heard her boy's voice in church; so he answered with a certain pride:
"Ah, I can sing proper well."
"Sing summat," said the boy.
Frank waited a minute to choose a tune, and then sang "Ring the Bell,

Watchman," straight through. The boy listened attentively, and joined,
after the second verse, in the chorus, which was also taken up in a gruff
and uncertain manner by the mate in the other shed. The deaf man
looked on approvingly, and the lathe kept up a grinding
accompaniment.
"That's fine, that is," said the boy when the last notes of Frank's clear
voice died away. "Do yer know any more?"
"I know a side more," said Frank, "and hymns too."
"Can yer sing `Home Sweet Home?'" asked the boy.
"Ah."
But this song was not so successful, for after the chorus had been sung
with great animation, and the second verse eagerly expected, something
choked and gurgled in Frank's throat so that he could not sing any more.
All that night, as he lay on the bed of shavings, which he shared with
his new companion, he waked at intervals to hear those words echoing
through the woods: "Home Sweet Home--There's no place like Home."
But with the morning sun these sounds vanished, and he began his
onward journey cheerily, refreshed by his rest and food. As he went
down the cart-track the boy had pointed out to him he sang scraps of
songs to himself, the birds twittered busily above his head, and the
distant sound of the deaf man's lathe came more and more faintly to his
ears. He felt sure now that he was on his way to make his fortune, and
the wood seemed full of voices which said, "Lunnon Town, Lunnon
Town," over and over again. The thought of his mother's sad face was,
it is true, a little depressing. "But," he said to himself, "how pleased
she'll be when I come back rich!" Then he considered what sort of
shawl he would buy for her with the first money he earned--whether it
should be a scarlet one, or mixed colours with an apple-green border,
like one he had seen once in a shop at Daylesbury.
These fancies beguiled the way, and he