The Early Life and Adventures of Sylvia ScarlettMacKenzie, Compton
General
The Early Life and Adventures of Sylvia Scarlett
MacKenzie, Compton
Fiction
Sylvia explained that she had misunderstood the first inquiry, but that
nobody had passed her since she turned back five minutes ago.
"We call the turkey Major Kettlewell because he looks like Major
Kettlewell, but Major Kettlewell himself lives over there."
The elderly lady indicated the other side of the road with a vague
gesture, and went on:
"Where can that dratted bird have got to? Major! Major! Major!
Chuch--chick--chilly--chilly--chuck--chuck," she called.
Sylvia hoped that the real major lived far enough away to be out of
hearing.
"Never keep a turkey," the elderly lady went on, addressing Sylvia. "We
didn't kill it for Christmas, because we'd grown fond of it, even
though he is like that old ruffian of a major. And ever since he's gone
on the wander. It's the springtime coming, I suppose."
The elderly lady's companion had by this time reached the gate, and
Sylvia saw that she was considerably younger, but with the same
hall-mark of old-maidishness.
"Don't worry any more about the bird, Adelaide," said the new-comer.
"It's tea-time. Depend upon it, he's crossed over to the Pluepotts'.
This time I really will wring his neck."
Sylvia prepared to move along, but the first lady asked her where she
was going, and, when she heard Green Lanes, exclaimed:
"Gemini! That's beyond Medworth, isn't it? You'd better come in and have
a cup of tea with us. I'm Miss Horne, and my friend here is Miss
Hobart."
Sunny Bank, as this particular tin house was named, not altogether
inappropriately, although it happened to be on the less sunny side of
the road, was built half-way up a steepish slope of very rough ground
from which enough flints had been extracted to pave a zigzag of
ascending paths, and to vary the contour of the slope with a miniature
mountain range of unused material without apparently smoothing the areas
of proposed cultivation.
"These paths are something dreadful, Emmie," said Miss Horne, as the
three of them scrambled up through the garden. "Never mind, we'll get
the roller out of the hedge when Mr. Pluepott comes in on Wednesday.
Miss Hobart nearly got carried away by the roller yesterday," she
explained to Sylvia.
A trellised porch outside the bungalow--such apparently was the correct
name for these habitations--afforded a view of the opposite slope, which
was sprinkled with bungalows surrounded like Sunny Bank by heaps of
stones; there were also one or two more pretentious buildings of red
brick and one or two stony gardens without a dwelling-place as yet.
"I suppose you're wondering why the name over the door isn't the same as
the one on the gate? Mr. Pluepott is always going to take it out, but he
never remembers to bring the paint. It's the name the man from whom we
bought it gave the bungalow," said Miss Hobart, crossly. Sylvia read in
gothic characters over the door Floral Nook, and agreed with the two
ladies that Sunny Bank was much more suitable.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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