Chapter
3
Later that night Ma had a cup of tea in the kitchen with her friend Creamy. The village milk lady often popped in to see Ma before bedtime for a cuppa and a chat - and hopefully some of Ma's cakes.
'Do you think I've done the right thing? Asked Ma opening her cake tin. 'What with me being so old.'
'Absolutely' replied Creamy scanning the tins contents unable to choose between the cherry or the chocolate cakes.
'Sounds like the poor little mite has been through a lot in her short life already. Anyway I couldn't think of a lovelier person in the whole world for her to live with than you Ma. I'm a bit jealous now. I wish it was me.'
Ma smiled. 'You are soppy Creamy. But seriously, I do hope she'll be happy here. I think Jenny needs a real home, somewhere that's permanent. Why not have both cakes dear.'
'Well if you're sure Ma' grinned Creamy 'When I've finished my tea I'll nip over home and sort out some bits and pieces for Jenny. As you know I've been given the task of collecting spare clothes for the evacuees and the village has been very generous so there should be lots that will fit her.'
Creamy looked up the ceiling full of colourful washing. 'Don't worry Ma, I've already washed and ironed them all.'
Creamy, real name Alison White, looked like a thin young version of Ma, she even had white hair as it was such a pale blonde, but hers flew all over the place. Creamy was always trying to tie it up or put it behind her ears but it always escaped and did it's own thing. Her Mother had died years before and Creamy lived alone with her father, devotedly looking after him, as he was very old and often very unwell. The rest of Creamy's time was taken up with her early morning milk round, fetching shopping for elderly neighbours, running the village hall, cleaning the church, and generally being one of those invaluable people that small villages just can't do without. Poor Creamy, with her Dad to look after she had never had time to find a boyfriend or get married like her sister Susan had.
She was soon back with a red dressing grown with a white rabbit on the pocket. A new hair brush in a packet. Nighties, socks, slippers, cardigans and all sorts of other things she thought Jenny might like. 'These should get her started.' she said. Oh and I didn't know her foot size but here's some welly boots and a fluffy scarf I knitted for my sister but I can always knit her another one her birthday's not till May.
Creamy White truly was, ' An angel waiting to grow wings.' as Ma was fond of saying.
When Jenny woke up the next morning, Ma and Ooty were already downstairs. Jenny had slept in really late. The red dressing grown was hanging on the chair next to the bed and all the new clothes, plus her own dress, which had been washed and ironed, were in a neat pile.
Jenny put the dressing gown and slippers on. Both were a bit big but she liked them. Then she tiptoed to the bathroom.
The loo at Miss Boot's had been a really old fashioned type, called a privy. It had been outside in the back yard with cobwebs and spiders in it, but here it was indoors in a pretty bathroom with stripy black and white angel fish swimming on the pink towelling curtains. On the sink was a new flannel and a new blue toothbrush with a scrap of paper that just said
'Jenny wren.' with a X next to it for a kiss.
Jenny cleaned her teeth as she gazed out of the window that looked down onto the back garden. She could see Ooty happily digging in between the clumps of spring flowers (doing his gardening as Jenny called it when he went to the loo) It all seemed like a wonderful dream especially after the nightmare months at the old boot’s house.
Dressed in her own clean yellow dress and a nice red cardie from Creamy, Jenny went downstairs. Ma wasn't indoors but she soon came bustling up the path from the front gate carrying a basket of pale grey ducks eggs and a bunch of yellow daffy's. She was singing a song to herself.
'Oh, Daffy Down Dilly has come up to town in a yellow petticoat and a green gown. Oh, Daffy Down Dilly has....'
Ma stopped singing when she saw Jenny.
'Well that's most of them gone now,' she smiled.
'And how's my Jenny Wren this morning, bright and chirpy as a chick I hope. Duck eggs and porkies in fifteen minutes. Like me new hat?'
Ma was wearing a floppy straw sun hat covered in red velvet flowers. She gave Jenny a kiss on the top of her head.
'It suits you.' grinned Jenny. 'What's gone Ma?'
'The hodmedods.' said Ma. 'The scarecrows. It's hiring day today.'
'What's a scarecrow?' asked Jenny.
Ma stopped short of the kitchen door and turned round in such surprise her hat fell over her eyes.
'Don't say you've never seen a scarecrow before?'
'I don't think so.' said Jenny.' What do you do with it?'
'Do with it?’ Ma was stunned. 'You um...You don't do anything with it, they do it all.'
'What do they do Ma?'
Ma saw that Jenny was confused.
'I know.' said Ma. 'There's a few of them still outside the gate. You go and have a look for yourself while I cook the breakfast and then I'll explain anything you want to know.'
On the grass verge, all along the rickety cottage fence, stood a row of higgledy piggledy chairs all painted in bright cheerful colours. Most of the chairs were empty, but there were still three scarecrows left sitting in the row. Jenny stared at them. They were real sized people with heads made of wood, or maybe some kind of hard vegetable, jenny wasn't sure, because they were painted pale pink with big blue eyes, long black eyelashes and smiling red mouths. Two of them were dressed as lady scarecrows wearing frilly chiffon party dresses with floppy felt hats on their heads. Their hair was a tangled mixture of straw and shredded garden string tied into bunches. The other smaller scarecrow was dressed as a boy in a brown cap, a tweed jacket and bright blue trousers covered in red and yellow spotted patches. He was wearing a red and white football scarf tied around his neck.
Each scarecrow had a paper note pinned to its chest and Jenny read the first one.
'Drippy Mommet suitable for allotments and gardens, please look under the chair.'
Jenny looked under the lady scarecrow's chair and pulled out a brown cardboard box. Inside was a pencil and another note.
'You may borrow this scarecrow if you sign your name below and promise to return it after the harvest. P.S. Please leave something in the box. Thank you.'
Then Jenny read the notes on the other two scarecrows.
'Lolly Sticks, suitable for garden work. Please look under the chair.'
'Spadger Bron suitable for peas and beans, Please look under the chair.'
Jenny felt quite excited, the scarecrows were like nothing she had ever seen before, like enormous dolls but not at all scary or scruffy like the horrible Guy Fawkes dummies you put on a bonfire. She bend down and pulled out the cardboard boxes from underneath all of the empty chairs. They were all jam packed full of gifts. Tins of fruit, bags of potatoes, old jumpers, jackets and scarves. One box was full of old hats, at least six of them, plus several knitted odd gloves. Another was full of tinned food and bags of flours whilst another contained a framed picture of a robin, a jar of scented hand cream, at least six pots of orange marmalade plus a big bag of treacle toffees.Each box also had its own note and Jenny read all of those too.
'Farmer Beef's got Tattie Bogle for 50 acre field.'
'Ta Ma, Dickie Perch is gone to Digg's farm.'
'I have taken Polly Pole home for my garden, signed Deirdra Peel.'
'Grackle Blak needed for Brownlow's farm thanks Ma... bye.'
'Dear Ma, I've taken Salty Tam to 10 acre field, with thanks Peter Bun. P.S. if you need any decorating just give me a shout.'
And so it went on as there were lots more boxes, and lots more notes, and Jenny worked her way along the row looking at them all.
‘What funny names’ she though 'I wish I'd woken up earlier to see all the other scarecrows.' And she tried to imagine what 'Beanie Pole' and 'Tater Sack' might look like.
The last chair in the r
ow was also empty, but on the seat was a tiny note with a little stone on top.
It said 'LoOk undA Cher NOo' The spelling wasn't very good.
Jenny pulled out the box and gasped.
Sitting in the box on top of some clothes and a tin of fruit cocktail was the teeniest little girl scarecrow you could ever imagine. She also had a note pinned to her chest. It said.
'Pleez Pik me'.
Jenny picked her up really carefully and saw that she was made of thin sticks of wood with a tiny painted head that was probably a hazel nut. She was perfectly adorable. Nearly big enough to be a dolls house doll...but not quite. On her head she wore a tiny straw sun hat embroidered with flowers under which her hair was made of black sewing thread tied up in two bunches which stuck out on either side with red wool bows tied to them. Over the top of her colourful patchwork dress was a crisp clean white apron. Jenny peeped underneath the tiny doll's dress and saw that her bloomers appeared to be made from a lace hanky while her little sticks legs had been neatly painted as red and white stripy stockings with black shoes on the tips. Jenny was so fascinated with the little scarecrow she didn't hear Ma come up behind her until she spoke.
'Oh Pinny Pipit you are a naughty girl. I wondered where you'd got to this morning.'
Ma held her hand out for the tiny scarecrow. Jenny looked down at the little doll's sad blue eyes and red heart shaped mouth before reluctantly handing her over.
'Ma, why is Pinny Pipit naughty I think she's really beautiful.'
Ma put Pinny in her apron pocket.
' Oh yes that's true, Pinny is beautiful.' sighed Ma. 'She's also far too small to be a working scarecrow - but she wants to have a job like all the others so she's always running away. That's why she's naughty.'
Jenny laughed 'That's silly Ma, scarecrows can't think or run away.'
'Maybe they can and maybe they can't.' grinned Ma. 'So now you know what a scarecrow is. Do you like them Jenny wren?
'I do. I like them a lot ' replied Jenny. 'Especially Pinny Pipit.'