And there was the
allotment--that 'ud run to weeds. And ...
Well, the allotment has run to weeds. I passed it to-day and looked over
the hedge and saw the chickweed and the thistles in undisputed possession.
For David has gone. "It will take a long time to turn him into a soldier,"
we said when we saw him leave his thatched roof last spring to join up, and
watched him shambling down the lane to the valley and the distant station.
"The war will be over before he gets into the trenches," I said cheerfully
to his wife, his mother, and Aunt Jane as they sat later in the day
mingling their tears in the "parlour"--that apartment sacred to Sundays,
funerals, and weddings. "Poor boy, what'll he do without his comfortable
bed?" moaned his mother.
But by May there came news that David was in France. By June he was in the
trenches, and woe sat heavy on the three women to whom the world without
David was an empty place.
Then came silence. The postman comes up the lane on his bicycle to our
straggling hamlet on the hillside twice a day, and after David had gone his
visits to the cottages of the three women had been frequent.
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