because
she feared they would tear their clothes and catch cold and get dirty heads
going the mile and a half to and from the school in the mother village. So
vacant cottages in the market town were inspected and often it seemed that the
next week or the next month they would be leaving Lark Rise for ever; but, again,
each time something would happen to prevent the removal, and, gradually, a new
idea arose. To gain time, their father would teach the two eldest children to
read and write, so that, if approached by the School Attendance Office, their mother
could say they were leaving the hamlet shortly and, in the meantime, were being
taught at home.
So their father brought home two copies of Mavor's First
Reader and taught them the alphabet; but just as Laura was beginning on words
of one syllable, he was sent away to work on a distant job, only coming home at
week-ends. Laura, left at the 'C-a-t s-i-t-s on the m-a-t' stage, had then to
carry her book round after her mother as she went about her housework, asking:
'Please, Mother, what does h-o-u-s-e spell?' or 'W-a-l-k, Mother, what is
that?' Often when her mother was too busy or too irritated to attend to her,
she would sit and gaze on a page that might as well have been printed in Hebrew
for all she could make of it, frowning and poring over the print as though she
would wring out the meaning by force of concentration.
After weeks of this, there came a day when, quite suddenly,
as it seemed to her, the printed characters took on a meaning. There were still
many words, even in the first pages of that simple primer, she could not decipher;
but she could skip those and yet make sense of the whole. 'I'm reading! I'm reading!'
she cried aloud. 'Oh, Mother! Oh, Edmund! I'm reading!'
There were not many books in the house, although in this
respect the family was better off than its neighbours; for, in addition to
'Father's books', mostly unreadable as yet, and Mother's Bible and Pilgrim's
Progress , there were a few children's books which the Johnstones had turned
out from their nursery when they left the neighbourhood. So, in time, she was
able to read Grimms' Fairy Tales , Gulliver's Travels , The
Daisy Chain , and Mrs. Molesworth's Cuckoo Clock and Carrots .
As she was seldom seen without an open book in her hand, it
was not long before the neighbours knew she could read. They did not approve of
this at all. None of their children had learned to read before they went to school,
and then only under compulsion, and they thought that Laura, by doing so, had
stolen a march on them. So they attacked her mother about it, her father conveniently
being away. 'He'd no business to teach the child himself,' they said. 'Schools
be the places for teaching, and you'll likely get wrong for him doing it when
governess finds out.' Others, more kindly disposed, said Laura was trying her
eyes and begged her mother to put an end to her studies; but, as fast as one
book was hidden away from her, she found another, for anything in print drew
her eyes as a magnet draws steel.
Edmund did not learn to read quite so early; but when he did,
he learned more thoroughly. No skipping unknown words for him and guessing what
they meant by the context; he mastered every page before he turned over, and
his mother was more patient with his inquiries, for Edmund was her darling.
If the two children could have gone on as they were doing,
and have had access to suitable books as they advanced, they would probably
have learnt more than they did during their brief schooldays. But that happy time
of discovery did not last. A woman, the frequent absences from school of whose
child had brought the dreaded Attendance Officer to her door, informed him of
the end house scandal, and he went there and threatened Laura's mother with all
manner of penalties if Laura was not in school at nine o'clock the next Monday
morning.
So there was to be no Oxford or Cambridge for Edmund. No
school other than the National School for
she feared they would tear their clothes and catch cold and get dirty heads
going the mile and a half to and from the school in the mother village. So
vacant cottages in the market town were inspected and often it seemed that the
next week or the next month they would be leaving Lark Rise for ever; but, again,
each time something would happen to prevent the removal, and, gradually, a new
idea arose. To gain time, their father would teach the two eldest children to
read and write, so that, if approached by the School Attendance Office, their mother
could say they were leaving the hamlet shortly and, in the meantime, were being
taught at home.
So their father brought home two copies of Mavor's First
Reader and taught them the alphabet; but just as Laura was beginning on words
of one syllable, he was sent away to work on a distant job, only coming home at
week-ends. Laura, left at the 'C-a-t s-i-t-s on the m-a-t' stage, had then to
carry her book round after her mother as she went about her housework, asking:
'Please, Mother, what does h-o-u-s-e spell?' or 'W-a-l-k, Mother, what is
that?' Often when her mother was too busy or too irritated to attend to her,
she would sit and gaze on a page that might as well have been printed in Hebrew
for all she could make of it, frowning and poring over the print as though she
would wring out the meaning by force of concentration.
After weeks of this, there came a day when, quite suddenly,
as it seemed to her, the printed characters took on a meaning. There were still
many words, even in the first pages of that simple primer, she could not decipher;
but she could skip those and yet make sense of the whole. 'I'm reading! I'm reading!'
she cried aloud. 'Oh, Mother! Oh, Edmund! I'm reading!'
There were not many books in the house, although in this
respect the family was better off than its neighbours; for, in addition to
'Father's books', mostly unreadable as yet, and Mother's Bible and Pilgrim's
Progress , there were a few children's books which the Johnstones had turned
out from their nursery when they left the neighbourhood. So, in time, she was
able to read Grimms' Fairy Tales , Gulliver's Travels , The
Daisy Chain , and Mrs. Molesworth's Cuckoo Clock and Carrots .
As she was seldom seen without an open book in her hand, it
was not long before the neighbours knew she could read. They did not approve of
this at all. None of their children had learned to read before they went to school,
and then only under compulsion, and they thought that Laura, by doing so, had
stolen a march on them. So they attacked her mother about it, her father conveniently
being away. 'He'd no business to teach the child himself,' they said. 'Schools
be the places for teaching, and you'll likely get wrong for him doing it when
governess finds out.' Others, more kindly disposed, said Laura was trying her
eyes and begged her mother to put an end to her studies; but, as fast as one
book was hidden away from her, she found another, for anything in print drew
her eyes as a magnet draws steel.
Edmund did not learn to read quite so early; but when he did,
he learned more thoroughly. No skipping unknown words for him and guessing what
they meant by the context; he mastered every page before he turned over, and
his mother was more patient with his inquiries, for Edmund was her darling.
If the two children could have gone on as they were doing,
and have had access to suitable books as they advanced, they would probably
have learnt more than they did during their brief schooldays. But that happy time
of discovery did not last. A woman, the frequent absences from school of whose
child had brought the dreaded Attendance Officer to her door, informed him of
the end house scandal, and he went there and threatened Laura's mother with all
manner of penalties if Laura was not in school at nine o'clock the next Monday
morning.
So there was to be no Oxford or Cambridge for Edmund. No
school other than the National School for
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