The Tale of Hill Top Farm (13 page)

13

Miss Potter Sees Herself in a New Light

Beatrix was awakened by the kiss-kiss-kissy sound made by the water hens, who were discussing the important business of snails for lunch, the best nesting sites, and the education of young water hens. The sun, higher in the sky now, had burned the mists from Esthwaite Water and a light breeze ruffled its blue-gray surface. She sat up and rubbed her eyes. Very close by, along the shore to her right, a half-dozen brown and white cows stood knee-deep in the water, velvety-brown eyes regarding her thoughtfully beneath a luxuriant fringe of eyelashes. Away to her left, smoke rose in a delicate spiral from the chimney of Willow Cottage, and she could see someone sitting in the door yard.

With a sigh, Beatrix stood, brushed bits of grass off her woolen skirt, and tucked her sketchbook under her arm. If she could not draw, she could spend her time more productively than by sleeping—she could drop in on a neighbor and introduce herself. Besides, she was curious about Miss Crosfield’s occupation as a spinner and weaver. Beatrix herself was descended from a long line of industrious cotton spinners, calico printers, and cloth merchants, and she had often thought she would like to have a spinning wheel. Perhaps Miss Crosfield would teach her how to spin. She set off along the edge of the lake, and when she got to the drystone wall, hiked up her skirt and climbed over.

But the person sitting on the step in front of the little low cottage was not Miss Crosfield. It was a slightly built boy of ten or eleven, red-haired and barefoot, wearing a faded blue shirt and ragged trousers, held up with red hand-made braces. On one side was a pile of bright, clean spelks—thinly shaved strips of oak—and a half-finished swill basket, of the sort that Lakeland people used to carry animal feed, harvest vegetables, or fetch coal.

But the boy seemed, for the moment, to have abandoned his basket-making. With a piece of half-burnt coal, he was sketching a black-and-white cat, asleep on the sun-warmed flagstones of the path. He looked up from the bit of rough paper on his lap as Beatrix came up the path, and she saw that his eyes were wide-spaced and gray, his pale face liberally dusted with sandy freckles.

“Hello,” Beatrix said. “I’m Miss Potter, your new neighbor at Hill Top Farm.”

“If you’ve come to see my aunt,” the boy said, going back to his sketching, “you’ve missed her. She’s gone to Hawkshead to sell a piece of cloth. I’m Jeremy,” he added, rubbing out a line with one finger.

“Jeremy!” Beatrix exclaimed. “Now, there’s an interesting coincidence.”

“A coincidence?” The boy lifted his eyes and regarded her curiously. “Why?”

“Because,” she said, gathering her skirt and sitting down on the stone step beside him. “I’m making a book about a frog named Jeremy. Mr. Jeremy Fisher.” She leaned over to look at his sketch. “That’s a first-rate cat,” she said. “I especially like the way you’ve drawn his ears.”

“
Her
ears,” Jeremy amended. “Her name is Baffles.” At the sound of her name, Baffles stirred, opened one green eye, and closed it again. The boy nudged her with his toe. “Roll over, Baffles,” he commanded, and Baffles, her eyes still closed, obligingly flopped from one side to the other.

“How clever of her,” Beatrix said admiringly. “I have never been able to persuade cats to do tricks. They don’t seem to like obeying orders. Rabbits,” she added, “are quite another matter.”

“You have rabbits?” the boy asked.

“Oh, I’ve had all kinds of animals,” Beatrix replied. “Mice and hedgehogs and squirrels and owls and frogs and lizards. I use them as models for my drawings, you see. But it’s the rabbits who do the very best tricks.” She smiled reminiscently. “I once had a dear fellow named Peter, an absolutely splendid Belgian rabbit. He would hop over my hand for bits of biscuit, and jump through a hoop, and do all manner of amusing things.”

Baffles sat up and yawned widely, and Beatrix laughed. “But I see we are boring Baffles. Cats don’t think very highly of rabbits.”

The boy was eyeing the sketch book under her arm. “I don’t suppose you’ve got any drawings of rabbits with you?”

“I’m afraid not,” Beatrix said. “I’ve been working on Jeremy.” She opened her book to the page of frog sketches she had shown Norman.

Jeremy studied them silently. “These are good,” he said at last, in a tone of honest appraisal. “I didn’t suppose a lady would know what a frog really looks like.”

“I once had a green frog named Punch,” Beatrix said reflectively. “Most of these are sketches of him. He lived with me for five or six years, and went everywhere with me in a bamboo cage. He liked to eat live grasshoppers.” She smiled. “There’ll be a grasshopper in the story. Roast grasshopper, I think. Mr. Fisher has invited a few dinner guests, you see, quite like a country gentleman. He plans to have fish, but he has to settle for grasshopper.”

“If I were a frog,” Jeremy said decidedly, “I should like somebody to catch grasshoppers, to save me the trouble. But I should
not
like to live in a bamboo cage, or have my grasshoppers roasted.”

Beatrix closed her sketchbook. “You’d rather be a frog along Esthwaite Water, I’m sure. But that would mean you’d have to find your own grasshoppers, and worry about being snapped up by a heron or a pike. There are advantages either way.” She paused and looked at him speculatively. “This is rather an impertinent question, Jeremy, but I wonder if you know where I might find a frog to sketch. I always do much better when I have a real creature in front of me.”

“Of course I know where there are frogs,” Jeremy said, as if it really
were
an impertinent question. “There’s a whacking great colony of them above the stone bridge over Cunsey Beck. The frogs live in the reeds, and swim and catch bugs. There’s one fine, fat fellow who likes to sit on the bank in the afternoon sun.” He gave Beatrix a sidelong glance. “It’s rather a hidden place, though, and you’re not likely to find it by yourself. Would you like me to take you there?”

“I would indeed, very much!” Beatrix exclaimed, delighted. “I am truly in need of a frog.” She stopped suddenly, with a glance at the half-finished swill. “But shouldn’t you finish your basket? And why aren’t you in school, if you don’t mind my asking?”

“I can work on the basket later,” the boy said shortly. “And I’m not going back to school.” He pushed his red hair out of his eyes, leaving a smear of charcoal on his forehead. “Not
ever
.”

“I see,” Beatrix said. “I would have given anything if my parents had allowed me to go to school. My brother did, of course, and had all sorts of interesting adventures. But I was taught at home by governesses.” Baffles began to curl herself around Beatrix’s ankles. “Now, though,” she went on absently, reaching down to stroke the cat’s soft fur, “I often think that if I’d gone to school, some of my originality might have got rubbed off. Teachers do rather seem to want pupils to do everything their way, and I’m quite sure I wouldn’t have liked that. I am rather independent I’m afraid.”

There was a silence, as Jeremy considered this. “Well?” he asked at last. “Don’t you want to know why
I’m
not going back to school?”

“Why?” Beatrix asked.

“Because,” Jeremy said sadly, “there’s a beastly big bully named Harold. He pushed me off the coal-pile and hurt my arm.” He extended his pale arm and Beatrix saw a long, reddened scratch.

“I see,” Beatrix said, shaking her head at the sight. “
How
odious. I quite agree with you, Jeremy. If I were you, I would never
ever
go back to school again—at least until I felt brave enough to face down that horrid bully.”

Jeremy frowned at that. “I’m brave, of course, but—”

“No matter.” Beatrix stood up. “We can’t be brave all the time. I know I’m not, at any rate. Mostly, I’m a coward.” She sighed, thinking that if she had been brave enough to stand up to her parents, she and Norman might have had a longer time of happiness together, before the end.

“Really?” Jeremy looked interested. “I didn’t think grown-ups could be cowards.”

“Of course they can. It happens all the time.” Beatrix summoned a smile. “Well, since you don’t seem to have anything else to do just now, let’s go along and find the frogs. You can have a page or two of my sketchbook for your own pictures, if you like,” she added. “I’ve also an extra drawing pencil. Charcoal does very well for cats, but a pencil is better for drawing frogs.”

“Hurrah!” Jeremy cried exultantly. “Hold on, and I’ll leave a note for Aunt Jane; She’ll worry if she comes home and finds me gone.”

He went inside, and Beatrix followed him into the pleasant, low-beamed kitchen. In one corner stood a tall grandfather clock with a border of flowers around its face and the moon’s phases turning inside a gold circle at the top. Over the fire, a black chimney-shelf held pewter mugs, a copper kettle, and two china candlesticks stuck with half-burned candles. A woven rag rug covered the floor. A large wooden spinning wheel sat beside the fireplace, its bobbin filled with fine gray yarn, and a heavy wooden jack loom, on which a length of gray tweed was being woven, took up an entire wall. It was a poor place, yes, but there was something brave about it, Beatrix thought, something brave and hopeful.

In a few minutes, Beatrix and Jeremy were on their way to the stone bridge over Cunsey Beck. The frogs lived upstream, near the lake, in their own private marshy cove. The banks were rimmed with bracken and shrubby willows and the shallow water was thick with reeds and fragrant water mint. It was an enchanted spot, Beatrix thought, and perfect for frogs. There really were quite a number of them—swimming, snapping at dragon flies, hopping along the bank. One was, as Jeremy had said, an especially handsome fellow, who sat by himself a little apart, blinking with lazy contentment in the October sunshine. He seemed entirely oblivious to the barefoot boy and the lady who made a place to sit in the bracken and draw pictures.

They talked as they worked, and Beatrix discovered that Jeremy had been to school in Oxford; that he had lived with his aunt since his mother died of influenza the year before (his father having died before he was born); that he was often sick but didn’t like to talk about it; and that he meant to be an artist when he grew up, an ambition that had attracted a certain amount of unfortunate attention at Sawrey School, where the village boys (who aimed to be ferrymen, black-smiths, or farmers, like their fathers) found it amusing.

Jeremy’s aunt, he said, felt it would be quite wonderful if he could be an artist, although she did sometimes remind him that it might be difficult to sell enough work to buy food and lodging, and that he might have to do other things just to keep body and soul together. This was a challenge that she herself understood, since being a spinner and a weaver was something like being an artist, only in wool. But these days, people did not like to pay the price for hand-woven wool, when the machine-made stuff was much cheaper. It was a very good thing, Jeremy added prudently, that he could make swill baskets, and that their hens laid so many eggs, the cow gave so much milk, and the bees made so much honey that they could sell what they didn’t use and bring in a few extra shillings a week. It was obvious, Beatrix thought, that money was hard to come by in the Crosfield family. But that didn’t seem to have daunted their creative energies or their willingness to work.

“Well, what do you think?” Beatrix asked, after a time, and showed her drawings to Jeremy.

“Oh, topping!” Jeremy exclaimed, leaning over to look. “Those are ever so good, Miss Potter! I rather like that one,” he added, pointing. “The fat, funny one with the cravat and spats. He looks terribly smug and pleased with himself. He seems to fancy himself an important country gentleman, with foxes in his fields and trout in his stream, when he’s really only an insignificant green frog on a muddy bank.” He giggled happily.

“I like that sketch, too,” Beatrix said, looking down at her work and then at the complacent frog on the bank, feeling that she had at last met the real Mr. Jeremy Fisher—pompous, self-important, just a little conceited—and that meeting him in the company of Master Jeremy Crosfield, who obviously knew his frogs, made Mr. Fisher seem an even more interesting character than she had at first imagined.

“To tell the truth,” she went on, “I was feeling rather dumpy this morning, before I met you. I was afraid I might never be able to draw another frog—but now I’m sure I shall. At least, as long as I can come here and draw Mr. Fisher.” She smiled. “Now, show me what you’ve drawn.”

“My frogs aren’t as good as yours,” the boy said without rancor, “but I like them. I haven’t drawn frogs before, but now I think I shall draw lots of them.”

“Oh, yes,” Beatrix said earnestly, as she looked at Jeremy’s work, thinking that it showed a great deal of promise. “You
must
!”

Jeremy regarded her. “Your frog—he’s really named Jeremy? And he’s really going to be in a book?”

“Yes, to both,” Beatrix said, more confidently now. This morning, she had wondered whether she could begin again, and now she knew she would. It had felt very good to draw the frogs, and it felt even better to have an appreciative child look at her work. She was glad she had come.

But Jeremy’s thoughts were taking another, more practical direction. “And will people give you money for the pictures?”

A pragmatic question deserved a pragmatic answer. “The book will be sold for a shilling,” Beatrix replied, “if it’s paper-bound. If it’s cloth-bound, one and six. Of that, the publisher will pay a certain royalty to me.”

Jeremy thought about this for a minute. “It must feel very good to be able to sell your pictures.”

“It does, of course,” Beatrix said, thinking that she ought to give Jeremy several of her books. “Having my own money makes me sure that I can take care of myself. But I think I should draw even if the work didn’t sell. There are things, sometimes, that make my fingers itch to make pictures of them.”

“Oh, yes!” Jeremy said, and smiled broadly. “I feel that way about cats.” He jumped up. “Come back to the cottage with me and I’ll show you my cat pictures. And I’ll put on the kettle and we can have a cup of tea.”