Alan Garner by A Bag of Moonshine

Author:A Bag of Moonshine
Format: epub
Published: 2013-07-13T16:00:00+00:00

The farmer couldn’t have that; and he tells him; but Billy Bowker turns round and begins scolding like a cut purse! And the farmer tells him what he can do about that, too!

That puts the cat among the pigeons! Billy Bowker sets to, and he gives the farmer no peace, day and night, with rattling and banging about and smashing pots and things, same as any common or garden boggart might do: it’s a morning’s work, regular, to clean up after him. Then the farmer, he leaves off putting milk out for Billy, to spite him; and so it goes from bad to worse, till Billy Bowker declares that he’s to be master now, and the farmer must go work for him, for a change.

The farmer and Billy, they chunner and they chunner, calling each other all the names under the sun. At last, Billy says the farmer must do the work himself, but they’ll go shares, half and half, on all they get. By this time, there’s not hardly a cup nor a plate left in one piece, nor a stick of furniture that’s fit to be used; so the farmer gives over arguing and ploughs his field, as he’s been told, and the winter passes quiet as a tater.

When spring comes, Billy Bowker says, “Time to be doing;” and the farmer goes to his shed, and says, “What shall you have, Billy? Tops or bottoms?”

“Bottoms,” says Billy.

So the farmer carries out wheat seed, and plants it. And that summer, at harvest, he keeps the grain for himself, and he gives Billy Bowker the roots and stubble. “There you are, Billy,” he says. “That’s yours.”

Next year, the farmer says to him, “What shall you have, Billy? Tops or bottoms?”

“Tops,” says Billy, thinking: I’m not going to be bitten twice by the same dog, me!

But now the farmer plants turnips; and in the winter he makes a big clamp of them for himself, and Billy Bowker is left to make what he can of the leaves.

The next year, Billy Bowker says he’ll have none of it: not tops or bottoms; he will not. “Corn,” he says.

Billy Bowker’s Mowing Match

“You’ll plant corn. And when it’s ripe, we’ll put a line down the middle of the field, and we’ll have us a mowing match, me and you; no more of your tops or bottoms; this time, it’s winner keeps all, land and crop.”

So the farmer plants corn. But July next, he goes and has a word with the blacksmith; and the blacksmith, he makes the farmer ever so many thin iron rods; and the farmer plants them one night all over Billy Bowker’s half of the field.

Anyway; the corn’s ripe, and Billy Bowker says they must mow. So, in the morning, as soon as it’s coming light, they take their scythes, and they both go to the same end of the field, and they start mowing.

The farmer marches along his patch, up and down, up and down, as clean as nip. But

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