Trouble brews in the tiny country village of Fairacre when it is discovered that Farmer Miller’s Hundred Acre Field is slated for real estate development. Alarming rumors are circulating, among them the fear that the village school may close. The endearing schoolmistress Miss Read brings her inimitable blend of affection and clear-sighted candor to this report, in which a young girl finds her first love, an older woman accepts a new role in life, and the impassioned battle to save the village from being engulfed is at the forefront of every villager’s mind. 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.  Storm in the Village By Miss Read, John S. Goodall Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company Copyright © 1986 Dora Jessie Saint All rights reserved. ISBN: 978-0-618-88416-2 Contents Title Page, Contents, Copyright, Dedication, Straws in the Wind, The Two Strangers, Fairacre's Daily Round, Mrs Annett Has Doubts, Reviving the Flower Show, Rumours Fly, Trouble and Love, The Storm Breaks, Miss Jackson's Errand, The Gamekeeper's Cottage, The Vicar Does His Duty, The Flower Show, Parish Council Affairs, Miss Crabbe Descends Upon Fairacre, Fairacre Speaks Its Mind, A Day of Catastrophe, Thunder and Lightning, Dr Martin is Busy, Miss Crabbe Reappears, Joseph Coggs Leaves Home, The Public Enquiry, Calm After Storm, Mrs Coggs Fights a Battle, Miss Jackson Hears Bad News, The Problem of Miss Clare, Fairacre Waits and Wonders, The Village Hears the News, Farewell to Fairacre, About the Author, CHAPTER 1 The Two Strangers Miss Clare's thatched cottage lay comfortably behind a mixed hedge of hawthorn, privet and honeysuckle, on the outskirts of Beech Green. The village was a scattered one, unlike its neighbour Fairacre, where Miss Clare had been the infants' teacher for over forty years, only relinquishing her post when ill-health and the three-mile bicycle journey proved too much for even her indomitable courage. The cottage had been Miss Clare's home for almost sixty years. Her father had been a thatcher by trade, and the criss-cross decorations on the roof still testified to his skill, for they had been braving the weather for over twenty years, and stood out as clearly now, on the greying thatched roof, as they had on the first day of their golden glory. It was true that here and there, particularly round the squat red-brick chimney, the roof was getting a little shabby. Miss Clare often looked at it ruefully, when she went into the back garden to empty her tea-pot or to cut a cabbage, but as long as it remained weather-proof she had decided that it must stay as it was. It would cost at least two hundred pounds, she had been told, to rethatch her home; and that was out of the question. One breezy March morning, when the rooks were tumbling about the blue and white sky, high above the cottage, Miss Clare was upstairs, making her lodger's bed. A shaft of sunlight fell across the room, as Miss Clare's thin, old hands smoothed the pillow and covered it squarely with the white honeycomb quilt which had once covered her mother's bed. No one would call Miss Jackson tidy, thought Miss Clare, as she returned books from the floor to the book-shelf, and retrieved shoes from under the bed. It was one of the few things that grieved her about her young lodger. Otherwise she was thoughtful, and very, very clever with the children. Miss Clare imagined her now, as she tidied the girl's clothes, standing in front of her class of young children, as she too had done for so many years, at Fairacre School. Prayers would be over, and as it was so fine, no doubt they would be getting ready to go out into the playground for physical training. Often, during the day, Miss Clare would look at the clock and think of the children at Fairacre School. The habits of a lifetime die hard, and to have the present infants' teacher as her lodger, to hear the school news, and the gossip from the village which, secretly, meant more to her than the one in which she lived, was a source of great comfort to her. She picked a small auburn feather from the floor. A Rhode Island Red's feather, noted Miss Clare's country eye, which must have worked its way from the plump feather bed. Outside, the birds were clamorous busy with their nest building, and reconnoitring for likely places in the loose parts of the thatched roof. Miss Clare crossed to the window and let the feather float from it to the little lawn below. Before it had had time to settle, three excited sparrows threw themselves upon it, squabblin