The Book of Ebenezer Le Page by G. B. Edwards

Author:G. B. Edwards [Edwards, G. B.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Literary, Europe, Great Britain, Biographical, Travel
ISBN: 9781590176115
Publisher: Penguin
Published: 1982-01-14T16:00:00+00:00

It was a hard winter. I got in tons of coal from the Bird Bros to try and keep my mother warm; but she was always cold. Of an evening after tea, when the lamp was lit, I would sit and read her the Births, Deaths and Marriages to cheer her up. Her poor old eyes was going. She could see to read the big print in the Bible through her magnifying-glass, but she couldn't see to read the Press. I would read out 'Elizabeth Le Cras (nee Heaume), aged 47, beloved wife of Frederick Le Cras of Le Vaugrat. Gone but not forgotten.' 'Um,' my mother would say. 'Well, now he will be able to marry that young Amelia Robin from La Ramie, and it is high time too!' I don't know about the next world; but about this world she was never far wrong, my mother. Sure enough, in a month or so there was the wedding in the Press; and, a few weeks later, the birth.

It was one night after Christmas we had the worst storm I have ever lived through. From the noise on the roof, I thought the rain was coming down solid; and there was a rumbling behind the house made me think Mont Cuet was going to fall on top of us. My mother went to bed as usual. She wasn't afraid if it was the end: she was ready. Myself, I lay awake half the night, afraid of what I would find when I went out in the morning. To my astonishment, I didn't have a pane of glass broken, and Percy's wall had kept my land from being washed away; but what I hadn't taken of what may have been the old lady's land at the top of the gully was gone and, among the mud and rubbage, I noticed a number of rough brown stones like the one the builder for my grandfather had used for the trough of the pigsty. They wasn't arranged in any special way; but a few days later I went down and had a look at those by Sandy Hook and saw how it was done. I thought it would be a pity if, when Dudley Waine came to see me the next summer, he didn't find what he was looking for.

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.