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Updated: June 9, 2025
Coming home from church, Collects were to be learnt and said before tea: but Hal, after glancing over his own, took up his cap and said, "Come along, Sam, Purday will be feeding the pigs; I want to choose the size of ours." "I've not done," said Sam. "Papa never said we were to say them to Miss Fosbrook." "He meant it though," was all Sam's answer. "Don't hinder me."
And though he did not say so, and the first resolution had cost a very tough struggle, his heart seemed to have freed itself in that one great sigh, and he was at peace with himself. Miss Fosbrook was very glad he had gone to so wise and good an adviser as Purday, and was almost as happy as David himself.
Do you know, Miss Fosbrook?" "I don't quite see what you want to know, Davy." "I want to know why a pig gets fat on barley-meal, when an ox wants mange, and oil-cake and hay. I asked Nurse, and she said little boys mustn't ask questions; and I asked Purday, and he said it was because pigs is pigs, and oxen is oxen. Why do you think it is, Miss Fosbrook?"
Sunday was always celebrated by having treacle with the bread, so the butter riot was happily escaped; and Bessie was not in a gracious mood, and the corners of her mouth provoked the boys to begin on what they knew would make her afford them sport. Hal first: "I say, Bet, didn't Purday want his gun to-day at church?"
His great opponent in public life is Captain Purday, the old naval officer on half-pay, to whom we have already introduced our readers.
But the mention of the pig had set off Master Henry, who was sitting up in the window-seat with Annie, also learning the Collect, and he burst out into descriptions of the weight of money that would be found in Toby, and how he meant to go to the fair with Purday, and help him to choose the pig, and drive it home. "More likely to hinder," muttered Sam.
See, I'll make an oven." They were all stooping round this precious hot corner, some kneeling, some sitting on the ground, David with hands on his sturdy knees all intent on nursing that creeping red spark, as it smouldered from chip to chip, leaving a black trace wherever it went, when through the thick smoke, that was like an absolute curtain hiding everything on the farther side, came headlong a huge bundle of weeds launched overwhelmingly on the fire, and falling on the children's heads in an absolute shower, knocking Johnnie down, but on a soft and innocent side of the fire among the cabbage-stumps, and seeming likely to bury Sam, who leant over to shelter his precious oven, and puffed away as if nothing was happening, amid the various shouts around him, in which "Purday" was the most audible word.
"That boy will stupefy himself and his admirable cramming machine!" exclaimed Uncle John, when coming out into the court after tea to talk to Purday, the two brothers heard, "The complement A E is equal to the complement D E," proceeding out of the school-room window. "A truce with your complements to-night," shouted the Captain; "come down, Sam; I must have a game at hide-and-seek!"
Miss Fosbrook shook her head and laughed, saying that she knew much less of pigs than they did; and Susan exclaiming, "There's Purday in the court," they all tumbled to the window, one upon the top of the other.
He could see Purday among his cabbages in the garden; and further off, could watch the walking-party through the fields, his father with little George in his arms, and Uncle John as often as possible by his side; while the others frisked about, sometimes spreading out like a flock of sheep in the pasture land, or when they came to the narrow paths in the cornfields, all getting into single file, and being lost sight of all but their heads.
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