When two beloved primary school teachers, Miss Dorothy and Miss Agnes, decide to retire, the townspeople are aflutter, musing about the teachers’ replacements and seeking an appropriate farewell gift. 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.  The School at Thrush Green By Miss Read, John S. Goodall Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company Copyright © 1987 Miss Read All rights reserved. ISBN: 978-0-618-88442-1 Contents Title Page, Table of Contents, Frontispiece, Copyright, Dedication, Part One, 1. Rough Weather, 2. Dorothy Watson Takes Steps, 3. News Travels Fast, 4. Spring Plans, 5. Personal Problems, 6. What Shall We Give Them?, Part Two, 7. Spring at Thrush Green, 8. Cat Trouble, 9. School House for Sale, 10. The Accident, 11. Decisions, 12. Viewing the School House, 13. Bingo Gossip, Part Three, 14. Trying Times, 15. Agnes Is Upset, 16. A Trip to Barton-on-Sea, 17. Summer Heat, 18. An Intruder, 19. The Drought Breaks, 20. Last Days, CHAPTER 1 Rough Weather 'JANUARY,' said Miss Watson, 'gives me the jim-jams!' She jerked the sitting-room curtains together, shutting out the view of Thrush Green. Firelight danced on the walls of the snug room, and shone upon the face of her friend Agnes Fogerty as she placed a log carefully at the top of the blazing coals. The two ladies had lived in the school house at Thrush Green for several years, and had been colleagues for even longer. It was a happy relationship, for each middle-aged teacher felt respect and affection for the other. In most matters Dorothy Watson, as headmistress, took command. She was a forthright and outspoken woman whose energy and enthusiasm had enriched the standing of Thrush Green school. As mistress of the school house she also took precedence over her companion when it came to any domestic decisions, and Agnes Fogerty was content that it should be so. It was not that she always agreed with her headmistress's actions. Beneath her mouse-like appearance and timid ways, Agnes held strong views, but at this moment, with Dorothy's opinion of January, she entirely agreed. 'At its worst today,' she said. 'And the children are always so restless in a strong wind.' A violent gust threw a spattering of rain against the window at this point, and Miss Watson sat down in her armchair. 'Must blow itself out before morning,' she said, taking up her knitting. All day Thrush Green had been buffeted by a howling gale and lashing rain. Rivulets rushed along the gutters and cascaded down the steep hill that led to the nearby town of Lulling. The windows of the stone Cotswold houses shuddered in the onslaught. Doors were wrenched from people's grasp, umbrellas blew inside out, and the chestnut trees along one side of the green groaned and tossed their dripping branches in this wild weather. It had made life particularly exhausting for the two schoolteachers. Every time the classroom door opened, a score of papers fluttered to the floor pursued by delighted children. A vase of chestnut twigs which little Miss Fogerty was nurturing in order to show her children one day the fan-shaped young leaves and the interesting horseshoe-shaped scars where the old leaves had once been, was capsised by a sturdy infant intent on rescuing his drawing. The ensuing chaos included a broken vase, a miniature Niagara down the front of the stationery cupboard, a sodden copy of The Tale of Squirrel Nutkin from Agnes's own library, and a great deal of unnecessary mayhem which was difficult to suppress. Through the streaming windows the two teachers, in their respective classrooms, had watched the inhabitants of Thrush Green struggling to go about their daily affairs. Mr Jones, landlord of The Two Pheasants hard by, had lost his hat when he was staggering outside with a heavy crate of beer cans. He pursued it, with a surprising turn of speed, across the grass, where it came to rest against the plinth of Nathaniel Patten's statue. Molly Curdle, who lived in a cottage in the garden of the finest house on Thrush Green, home of the Youngs, wheeled out her bicycle, and little Miss Fogerty was anxious on her behalf as she wobbled away townwards. Surely it was highly dangerous to cycle in such wicked weather! But then Agnes remembered that she had heard that Molly's father, Albert Piggott, the surly sexton who lived only yards from the school, was in bed with bronchitis and perhaps Molly was off to get him some medicine. No doubt his wife Nelly could have fetched it, but perhaps she too was ailing? With such conjectures are village f