Paint the school red, too, p'raps. Not enough
colour about now. Too grey. Then a maypole."
"How far our people would take up that sort of thing--" began the vicar.
"I'm all for getting that good old English spirit back again," said
my uncle. "Merrymakings. Lads and lasses dancing on the village green.
Harvest home. Fairings. Yule Log--all the rest of it."
"How would old Sally Glue do for a May Queen?" asked one of the sons in
the slight pause that followed.
"Or Annie Glassbound?" said the other, with the huge virile guffaw of a
young man whose voice has only recently broken.
"Sally Glue is eighty-five," explained the vicar, "and Annie Glassbound
is well--a young lady of extremely generous proportions. And not quite
right, you know. Not quite right--here." He tapped his brow.
"Generous proportions!" said the eldest son, and the guffaws were
renewed.
"You see," said the vicar, "all the brisker girls go into service in
or near London. The life of excitement attracts them. And no doubt
the higher wages have something to do with it.
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