Read The Borrowers Aloft for Free Online Page A

Arrietty. But after Spiller had gone again, she liked to hear of their adventures.
    All in all, it was a happy, glorious summer for everyone concerned.
    There were scares, of course. Such as the footsteps before dawn, human footsteps but not those of the one-legged Mr. Pott, when something or someone had fumbled at their door. And the moonlight night when the fox came, stalking silently down their village street, casting his great shadow and leaving his scent behind. The owl in the oak tree was, of course, a constant source of danger. But, like most owls, he did his hunting further afield, and once the vast shape had wafted over the river and they had heard his call on the other side of the valley, it was safe to sally forth.
    Much of the borrowing was done at night before the mice got at the scraps dropped by the visitors. Homily at first had sniffed fastidiously when presented with—say, the remains of a large ham sandwich. Pod had to persuade her to look at the thing more practically—fresh bread, pure farm butter, and a clean paper bag; what had been good enough for human beings should be good enough for them. What was wrong, he asked her, with the last three grapes of a stripped bunch? You could wash them, couldn't you, in the stream? You could peel them? Or what was wrong with a caramel wrapped up in transparent paper? Half-eaten bath buns, he agreed, were a bit more difficult ... but you could extract the currants, couldn't you, collect and boil down those crusted globules of sugar?

    Soon they had evolved a routine of collecting, sorting, cleaning, and conserving. They used Miss Menzies' shop as a storehouse, with—unknown to Pod and Homily—her full cooperation. She had cheated a little on the furnishing, having (some years ago now) gone into the local town and bought a toy grocer's shop, complete with scales, bottles, cans, barrels, and glass containers. With these, she had skillfully furnished the counter and dressed up the windows. This little shop was a great attraction to visitors—it was a general shop and post office modeled on the one in the village—bow windows, thatched roof, and all. A replica of old Mrs. Purbody (slimmed down a little to flatter her) stood behind the counter inside. Miss Menzies had even reproduced the red-knitted shawl that Mrs. Purbody wore on her shoulders, both in summer and winter, and the crisp white apron below. Homily would borrow this apron when she worked on her sortings in the back of the shop but would put it back punctually in time for visitors. Sometimes she washed it out, and every morning—regular as clockwork—she would dust and sweep the shop.
    The trains made a good deal of noise. They very soon got used to this, however, and learned, in fact, to welcome it.
    When the trains began to clatter and the smoke unfurled from the cottage chimneys, it warned them of Visiting Hours. Homily had time to take off the apron, let herself out of the shop, and cross the road to her home, where she engaged herself in pleasant homely tasks until the trains stopped and all was quiet again and the garden lay dreaming and silent in the peaceful evening light.
    Mr. Pott, by this time, would have gone inside to his tea.

Chapter Eight
    "There must be something we can do," said Mrs. Platter despairingly for about the fifth time within an hour. "Look at the money we've sunk."
    "Sunk is the right word," said Mr. Platter.
    "And it isn't as though we haven't tried."
    "Oh, we've tried hard enough," said Mr. Platter. "And what annoys me about this Abel Pott is that he does it all without seeming to try at all. He doesn't seem to mind if people come or not. 'MODEL VILLAGE WITH LIVE INHABITANTS'—that's what he'll put on the notice—and then we'll be finished. Finished for good and all! Better pack it in now, that's what I say, and sell out as a going concern."
    "There must be something..." repeated Mrs. Platter stubbornly.
    They sat as before at a green table on their singularly tidy lawn.