Read My Friend Walter for Free Online

Admiral for a whole afternoon oncebefore it joined up with a dozen others on a bank of nettles. After that we couldn’t be sure which was ours and we lost it.
    He was fascinated too by the farm machinery, the mower, the four-furrow plough, the baler, the hay-elevator and the corn-drill. He wanted me to explain the working of each one, and I found that difficult, for although I loved driving the tractor I had never much interested myself in how the farm machines actually worked.
    It was the tractor in particular that took his fancy. If I do nothing else remarkable in my life it will be enough to claim that I, Bess Throckmorton, taught Sir Walter Raleigh to drive a tractor. Cars he said were ‘but insects compared with the majesty of a tractor’.
    One misty morning I drove the little Massey Ferguson 125 (the only one Father would let me drive) to the little meadow below the wood where no one could see us, and Walter climbed up into the seat. I showed him what was what and off he went, his laughter ringing above the chugging and spluttering of the engine. He made figures of eight through the long grass and then rumbled away down towards the gate to the marsh field and the river beyond. I called for himto come back, for the ‘horrible Barrowbills’ might well have been fishing on the far bank, and to them or to anyone else the sight of a tractor driving itself along might be a little upsetting (not that I minded upsetting the Barrowbills, but there would be bound to be telephone calls and questions and difficult explanations). Anyway, Walter obediently turned and at full throttle bore down on me, his black cloak flying out behind him. It occurred to me for a moment he might forget what he was riding and where the brake was, that he might be expecting the 125 to rear up on its hind legs and paw the air and whinny. He was riding it just like a horse. But he stopped it in time and patted it on the chimney. It took all my persuasive powers to get him off so that I could drive it back to the sheds, but in the end he rode up beside me on the step and laughed like a boy all the way home.
    We made hay until dark that evening – all of us there. Mother turning and Father baling, and Walter and me standing them up in castles of four in case of rain. Gran kept bringing out the orange juice and the tea and the buns and grumbled about her creaky knees (she could be an old misery sometimes) and Mother kept telling me not to lift the heavy ones. ‘Bad for yourback,’ she said. ‘They’re lighter in the middle of the field. I’ll manage the wet ones along the hedges.’ But of course she need not have worried, for I had all the help I needed that evening. Hay bales had never felt so light to me.
    â€˜You’re working well Bess,’ Father called out. ‘We’ll make a farmer of you yet!’ And I glowed inside. I had a sudden longing to introduce him to my friend Walter. I wanted very much for them to like each other, but a secret is a secret and I kept it. I was hot and I was dusty and I was tired, but at that moment I was as happy as any lark. Why is it, though, that the good times never seem to last for long?
    Will returned home later that night, and came and sat on my bed and talked about the miles they had tramped, the mountains they had climbed, the secret cigarettes he had smoked, and all about Peter Munns from school who had fallen out of a tree and broken his leg, and how it served him right anyway. But, to be fair to Will, it wasn’t his coming home that spoiled everything. To be honest, I was quite pleased to have him home again. He kept everyone happy and he made everyone laugh. Even Father cheered up a bit. I don’t like to admit it but if truth be told we need Will in ourhouse. He’s the glue that sticks us all together, if you know what I mean.
    â€˜Did you go to that party with Aunt Ellie?’ he asked after he’d finished telling me all about his