next task has been meted out to me, but I must admit I do not care for it.
'Decorate the pole,' he said. 'Attach the ribbons. You can supervise.'
That is how I come to be standing here, in the rain, watching Azariah Barbery shin up the birch trunk that the men erected on the village green on Sunday.
Azariah has a white ribbon held between his teeth, and hammer and nails borrowed from the smithy in the leather belt around his waist. He is a monkey of a boy, and well suited to this task.
I do wish that, one year, the men would remember that the ribbons must be attached to the top of the pole before they erect it. But then this task has given the Barberys a purpose for many a year. Azariah has done it for the past four years, and his older brothers did it before him, all of them so light and flexible that they would really be best suited to life in a jungle.
Looking at him somehow manage to hold on with his legs while he hammers in the first nail, I remember his brothers quite clearly. Noah was the eldest, Hezekiah the next, and Obediah followed. I never spoke a word to any of them myself, being only a small, shy girl peeping at them from behind my mother's skirts if we passed in the street, or saw them in church. They always garnered a frown from Reverend Mountcastle, not because they misbehaved, but because they were integrally linked to the May Day celebrations, which is no good Christian festival. The fact that three brothers with such biblical names were cavorting with pagan spirits could hardly place them high in his affections. But now they are all dead, the brothers, and it is too sad to think on any longer.
So I tear my mind away, and look at Jeremiah Crowe instead, who is always inseparable from Azariah. He is staring up at the top of the pole with wet eyes, while Daniel Redmore stands beside him, his eyes only on me.
The hammering stops, and the end of the white ribbon flutters down to the ground. 'Throw me the next one, then,' shouts Azariah. Jeremiah, with his hands full of colourful ribbons bound into balls for the ease of throwing, obliges. He has a good arm, but Azariah misses the catch. They giggle, and Daniel stoops to retrieve it from where it has fallen on the grass.
It is pleasant to be out here on the green, in full view of The Three Crowns and the smithy, while the rest of the world works on. The other children are in school, and no doubt envious of our special task, but suspecting nothing as they learn about Polo's descriptions of the province of Karazan. The truth, now I consider it, is that this is another mission that asks nothing of me and that I would have willingly undertaken anyway. The horseshoes and the maypole – Mr Tiller wants this to be a magnificent May Day, and so do I. It is, after all, my favourite time of year in the village.
Daniel throws the yellow ribbon again and this time Azariah catches it in one hand, and begins to attach it.
'Leave it loose,' I call up to him. 'It needs to be able to move on the nail.'
'Hark at her,' says Azariah, to the other boys.
'She's practising to be May Queen,' says Jeremiah. 'As if that will ever happen.'
This is an insult, but I rise above it. The May Queen for Westerbridge is always the prettiest girl who has turned 16 years of age, and that is Phyllis Clemens this year, with golden hair and a pale speckled complexion, as if she is dusted in flour, befitting the baker's daughter. She left school a year ago, and now makes buns in the back of the shop and serves out front sometimes. We were, when we were very young, friends. But then I discovered I wanted to converse about more than proving dough, although she can talk on the subject very prettily and I have no jealousy on that score.
'I'm no Phyllis Clemens,' I tell them both, 'and that suits me, thank you very much.'
'I heard my father say to your father that Mr Tiller had been talking to Reverend Mountcastle about who would be May Queen this year,' says Daniel.
Jeremiah throws the red
'Decorate the pole,' he said. 'Attach the ribbons. You can supervise.'
That is how I come to be standing here, in the rain, watching Azariah Barbery shin up the birch trunk that the men erected on the village green on Sunday.
Azariah has a white ribbon held between his teeth, and hammer and nails borrowed from the smithy in the leather belt around his waist. He is a monkey of a boy, and well suited to this task.
I do wish that, one year, the men would remember that the ribbons must be attached to the top of the pole before they erect it. But then this task has given the Barberys a purpose for many a year. Azariah has done it for the past four years, and his older brothers did it before him, all of them so light and flexible that they would really be best suited to life in a jungle.
Looking at him somehow manage to hold on with his legs while he hammers in the first nail, I remember his brothers quite clearly. Noah was the eldest, Hezekiah the next, and Obediah followed. I never spoke a word to any of them myself, being only a small, shy girl peeping at them from behind my mother's skirts if we passed in the street, or saw them in church. They always garnered a frown from Reverend Mountcastle, not because they misbehaved, but because they were integrally linked to the May Day celebrations, which is no good Christian festival. The fact that three brothers with such biblical names were cavorting with pagan spirits could hardly place them high in his affections. But now they are all dead, the brothers, and it is too sad to think on any longer.
So I tear my mind away, and look at Jeremiah Crowe instead, who is always inseparable from Azariah. He is staring up at the top of the pole with wet eyes, while Daniel Redmore stands beside him, his eyes only on me.
The hammering stops, and the end of the white ribbon flutters down to the ground. 'Throw me the next one, then,' shouts Azariah. Jeremiah, with his hands full of colourful ribbons bound into balls for the ease of throwing, obliges. He has a good arm, but Azariah misses the catch. They giggle, and Daniel stoops to retrieve it from where it has fallen on the grass.
It is pleasant to be out here on the green, in full view of The Three Crowns and the smithy, while the rest of the world works on. The other children are in school, and no doubt envious of our special task, but suspecting nothing as they learn about Polo's descriptions of the province of Karazan. The truth, now I consider it, is that this is another mission that asks nothing of me and that I would have willingly undertaken anyway. The horseshoes and the maypole – Mr Tiller wants this to be a magnificent May Day, and so do I. It is, after all, my favourite time of year in the village.
Daniel throws the yellow ribbon again and this time Azariah catches it in one hand, and begins to attach it.
'Leave it loose,' I call up to him. 'It needs to be able to move on the nail.'
'Hark at her,' says Azariah, to the other boys.
'She's practising to be May Queen,' says Jeremiah. 'As if that will ever happen.'
This is an insult, but I rise above it. The May Queen for Westerbridge is always the prettiest girl who has turned 16 years of age, and that is Phyllis Clemens this year, with golden hair and a pale speckled complexion, as if she is dusted in flour, befitting the baker's daughter. She left school a year ago, and now makes buns in the back of the shop and serves out front sometimes. We were, when we were very young, friends. But then I discovered I wanted to converse about more than proving dough, although she can talk on the subject very prettily and I have no jealousy on that score.
'I'm no Phyllis Clemens,' I tell them both, 'and that suits me, thank you very much.'
'I heard my father say to your father that Mr Tiller had been talking to Reverend Mountcastle about who would be May Queen this year,' says Daniel.
Jeremiah throws the red
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