Feelings are running high in the Cotswold village of Thrush Green. The rector’s plan for the neglected churchyard doesn’t meet with universal approval; there is a clash of personalities at the local school; and someone has returned to the village after an absence of fifty years. Miss Read (1913-2012) was the pseudonym of Mrs. Dora Saint, a former schoolteacher beloved for her novels of English rural life, especially those set in the fictional villages of Thrush Green and Fairacre. The first of these, Village School , was published in 1955, and Miss Read continued to write until her retirement in 1996. In the 1998, she was awarded an MBE, or Member of the Order of the British Empire, for her services to literature.  Battles at Thrush Green By Miss Read, J. S. Goodall Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company Copyright © 1975 Miss Read All rights reserved. ISBN: 978-0-618-88441-4 Contents Title Page, Table of Contents, Frontispiece, Copyright, Epigraph, Part One, 1 Albert Piggott Is Overworked, 2 Miss Fogerty Is Upset, 3 Dotty Harmer's Legacy, 4 Driving Trouble, 5 Skirmishes at the Village School, 6 Doctor Bailey's Last Battle, Part Two, 7 The Rector Is Inspired, 8 Dotty Causes Concern, 9 Objections, 10 Problems at Thrush Green, 11 Winnie Bailey's Private Fears, 12 The Summons, 13 A Question of Schools, 14 Dotty's Despair, Part Three, 15 The Sad Affair of the Bedjacket, 16 Getting Justice Done, 17 The Rector in Action, 18 A Cold Spell, 19 Dotty in Court, 20 Peace Returns, About the Author, CHAPTER 1 1 Albert Piggott Is Overworked AT a quarter to eight one fine September morning, Harold Shoosmith leant from his bedroom window and surveyed the shining face of Thrush Green. The rising sun threw grotesquely elongated shadows across the grass. The statue of Nathaniel Patten cast one a dozen times its own length, with the head and shoulders at right angles to the rest, where it was thrown against the white palings next door to "The Two Pheasants." The shabby iron railings round the churchyard made cross-hatchings on the green, and the avenue of chestnut trees, directly in front of Harold's window, formed a shady tunnel with a striped floor of sunshine and shadow. The view filled Harold Shoosmith with deep contentment. This was the place for retirement! After years in Africa, moving from one post to another, each hotter and more humid than the last, he had come home to roost at Thrush Green, the birthplace of Nathaniel Patten, whose missionary work he had so much admired, and whose memorial he had been instrumental in establishing. But no living figures were apparent on this bright morning, with the exception of the Youngs' old spaniel Flo, who was ambling about examining the trees in the avenue in a perfunctory fashion. Nevertheless, the sound of distant whistling alerted Harold. Someone in the wings was about to enter the empty stage, and very soon the stout figure of Willie Bond, one of Thrush Green's postmen, emerged from the lane, which leads to Nod and Nidden, and propped his bicycle against the hedge. Tightening the belt of his dressing gown, Harold Shoosmith descended the stairs to greet his first caller. 'You gotter mushroom as big as a nouse in your 'edge,' announced Willie, handing in half a dozen letters. 'Let's see,' said Harold, following him down the path. Sure enough, at the foot of his hawthorn hedge, stood a splendid specimen, as big as a saucer, but young and beautiful. Two or three fine pieces of grass criss-crossed its satin top where it had pushed its way into the world and, underneath, the gills were rosy pink and unbroken. 'Do fine for your breakfast,' said Willy, putting one foot on the pedal of his bicycle. 'Too much for me,' said Harold. 'Why don't you take it? After all, you found it.' Willie shook his head. 'Never touches 'em. Them old things are funny. My auntie, down the mill, she died after havin' a dish of them for breakfast.' 'Surely she must have eaten toadstools by mistake?' 'Maybe. But she died anyway.' He mounted his machine and began to weave away. 'Mind you,' he called back, 'she'd had dropsy for five years, but we always reckon it was the mushrooms what done for her in the end.' Harold bent and retrieved the mushroom. The fragrance, as it left the ground, made him wonder, for one brief moment, if he could bother to cook some of it with a couple of rashers for his breakfast, as Willie had advised. But he decided against it and, returning to the kitchen, set about making his usual coffee-and-toast repast, using the upturned mushroom as decoration for the breakfast table. His morning mail was unremarkable. Two bills, one receipt, a bulky and unsolicited package from 'Reader's Digest' which must have cost a pretty penny to produce and was destined for the wastepaper basket unread, and a postcard from his old friend and neighbour Frank Hurst and his wife Phil, posted in Italy two weeks before, and extolling the be