Mrs. Pringle of Fairacre by Miss Read

house.'
    But no one was listening to her reminiscences. Forks and spoons were busy pushing the pudding this way and that, and on the rim of each plate a pile of assorted shirt buttons grew larger.
    'Someone,'
said Mrs Pringle with a face like thunder, 'has been playing tricks on us, and I know just who it is!'
    At that moment, a particularly loud yell of half-tipsy laughter could be heard through the wall.
    Mrs Pringle rose majestically and went to open the last precious tin of pineapple chunks to augment the despoiled Christmas pudding.
    Boxing Day had hardly passed before the sequel to the Battle of the Buttons was known to all Fairacre. But Mrs Jarman denied any knowledge of it.

    It was Mrs Willet who told me this tale. She and many other Fairacre folk had happy memories of the evacuees, and the relationship was kept fresh by an annual reunion in our village hall each summer.
    Soon after I had settled in Fairacre, I was invited to help in getting preparations ready for the visitors. As you can imagine, I looked out for Mrs Jarman, and there she was, a little sharp-faced woman with unnaturally blonde hair and lots of make-up. Her shrill laugh rang out over the general hubbub, and I saw Mrs Pringle sail by with face averted. Mrs Jarman made some comment which was greeted with half-scandalised tittering from the cronies around her. Could it have been some quip about shirt buttons, I wondered?
    I could quite understand the affection which had grown up between our country women and their town guests during the dark days of war. Mrs Jarman epitomised the cockney effervescence which had survived the blitz, and defied threats and even death itself.
    Mrs Willet and I walked home together when the party was over and our visitors had boarded their coaches.
    Mrs Willet spoke wistfully. 'I always liked those Londoners. They were a real larky lot!'

    I had just arrived home, and was sitting on the couch with my
feet up, wondering if I had the strength to switch on the kettle after my labours, when Amy arrived looking as chic as ever.
    'You look terrible,' she said in that downright tone old friends use when making wounding remarks. 'Honestly, you look ten years older than when I saw you last.'
    'So would you,' I retorted, 'if you had spent the day coping with evacuees.'
    'Good grief! Don't say another war's started!'
    'No, just a hang-over from the last,' and I went on to explain.
    'I expect you'd like a cup of tea,' I added, suddenly remembering my duties as hostess, and wondering if I could ever move from the couch.
    'Well ...' began Amy, and then stopped as I began to laugh. 'What's the joke?'
    'Do you remember a wartime cartoon in
Punch
? The hostess is saying: "If you
do
take milk in your tea, it is absolutely no bother for me to get out my bike and cycle three miles to the farm." Well, I feel a bit like that.'
    'I'll put on the kettle,' said Amy kindly, and went to do so.
    I stirred myself to follow her after a few minutes, and found her peering into three tins, each containing tea.
    'Which do I use? You really should have these labelled, you know.'
    'Well, I know which is which, so it would be a waste of time and labels. That blue one has Earl Grey, the red one holds Indian, and the black one has Darjeeling in it - I think, but I'm not sure, so I hardly ever use it. Anyway it takes ages to get to the right colour.'
    'You really are hopelessly disorganised,' said Amy, spooning Indian tea into the teapot. 'I'll write you three labels myself when we've had this.'
    'Wicked waste of paper,' I told her, 'cutting down all those forests to make labels.'
    We carried our mugs into the sitting room and smiled at each other over the steam.
    'How's James?' I asked.
    'Off to Amsterdam at the end of the week.'
    'He might bring you back some diamonds,' I said.
    'An Edam cheese, more likely,' responded Amy. 'He can eat it by the pound, but I find it too rubbery.'
    She began to look about her in an enquiring way. 'Have you got a mat, or a tile,