Perkin the Pedlar by Eleanor Farjeon

Author:Eleanor Farjeon [Eleanor Farjeon]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Random House Children's UK
Published: 2013-11-30T00:00:00+00:00

MORE THAN ENOUGH

The Tale of Much Wenlock

WHEN I WAS walking Britain, looking for the Thirteenth Letter of my Alphabet (said Perkin the Pedlar, taking Mabel on his knee), I fell into a brown study, and when I came to myself I found that while I was dreaming I had without thinking walked out of the green fields into a town. I was in the very heart, it seemed, of a jumble of streets and alleys, shops and houses, factories and theatres; railings had taken the place of hedges, and chimneys of trees. Now a town may be all very well in its way, but it was not just then the way I wanted to be, so I tried to get out of it back to my meadows. I thought this would be easy by the simple method of walking straight on; but the town did not go straight, it twisted like a maze, and wherever I turned I only found myself lost in still more streets and alleys, shops and houses, factories and theatres, and railings and chimneys. North, west, south, or east as I might turn, it was all to no purpose. The town seemed to spread for ever in every direction. At last I stopped in despair and said to a Policeman in the middle of the road, ‘Is there much more of this?’

‘Much more of what, Pedlar?’ said the Policeman.

‘Much more of this town?’

‘I should think so!’ said the Policeman. ‘There’s just as much of its as there can be!’

‘Tell me the way out of it,’ I said; for being a Policeman he could, I hoped, tell me everything. But he shook his head.

‘That’s none too easy,’ said he. ‘I can tell you most things, Pedlar; I can tell you the way from one street to the next, I can tell you when to cross the road, and I can tell you the time, but I can’t tell you the way out of this town, though I can tell you its name.’

‘What is its name?’ I asked.

‘Once on a time it was Wenlock. But as it grew a bit here, and another bit there, throwing out a new suburb every day or so, we began to call it More Wenlock, and at last Much Wenlock, and that is its name today. One of these days it will be Too Much Wenlock. If you want to escape it before that day comes to pass, you’d better get out of it the way you came in.’

In trying to remember what way that had been, I fell into a green study, and when I came to myself, there I was in the meadows again, with never a sign of Much Wenlock in sight. All I had of it with me was its name, which was as much as I wanted, for in that I had the Thirteenth Letter of my Alphabet.

And never forget, my dear (said Perkin the Pedlar to the child on his knee), that

M is for Mabel

and

M is for Much Wenlock, in the County of Shropshire.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.