I was very tired, and soon after I was lying in the cool sweet sheets thinking about my new home, and watching the dimly-seen window; and then it seemed to be all light and to look over Old Brownsmith’s garden, where Shock was pelting at me with pellets of clay thrown from the end of a switch. And all the time he came nearer and nearer till the pellets went right over my shoulder, and they grew bigger till they were peaches that he kept sticking on the end of the switch, and as he threw them they broke with a noise that was like the word Push!
I wanted to stop him, but I could not till he threw one peach with all his might, and the switch caught me across the back, and I retaliated by taking it away and thrashing him.
Then I woke with a start, and found I had been dreaming. I lay for a few minutes after that in the darkness thinking that I would learn all I could about fruit-growing as fast as possible, so as to know everything, and get back to Old Brownsmith; and then all at once I found myself sitting up in bed listening, with the sun shining in at one side of my blind, while I was wondering where I was and how I had come there.
Chapter Twenty Three.
I Begin Work.
Boys like sleep in the morning, but the desire to cuddle up for a few minutes more and to go back to dreamland is not there on the first morning at a new home or at a fresh school.
On that particular morning I did not feel in the least sleepy, only uncomfortably nervous; and, hearing voices through the wall, I jumped up and dressed quickly, to find on going down that Mr Solomon was in the kitchen putting on his thick boots.
“Just coming to call you,” he said, nodding. “Harpus five. Hah! change coming,” he cried, stamping his feet in his boots; “rain—rain. Come along.”