farm life Quotes

″‘What’s that noise?’ said Mrs Hogger, sticking her comfortable round red face out of the kitchen window. ‘Listen, there ‘tis again, did you hear it, what a racket, what a row, anybody’d think someone was being murdered, oh dearie me, whatever is it, just listen to it, will?‘”

‘You do never win nothing,’ said Mrs Hogget at tea-time, when her husband, in a very few words, had explained matters, ′ though I’ve often thought I’d like a pig, we could feed ‘un on scraps, he’d come just right for Christmas time, just think, two nice hams, two sides of bacon, pork chops, kidneys, liver, chitterling, trotters, save his blood for black pudding, there’s the phone.”

“In the farmyard, Fly the black and white collie was beginning the training of her four puppies. For some time now they had shown an instinctive interest in anything that moved, driving it away or bringing it back, turning it to left or right, in fact herding it...She set them to work on Mrs Hogget’s ducks.”

Lovely story of kindness and consideration trumping bullying and intimidation. Although clearly written in another age it is timeless, without being patronising, suitable for all children.

“You do as I do, ” said Fly, “and you’ll be all rights.” She thought or a moment. “There is one thing though, Babe, ” she said, and she looked across at the back door of the farmhouse, “if I go in there, you stay outside and wait for me, understand?” ‘Aren’t pigs allowed in there?” asked Babe. “Not live ones,” said one of the puppies, but he said it under his breath.