The Silver Curlew By Eleanor Farjeon

Chapter 1

Mother Codling and Her Family

Mother Codling lived in a windmill in Norfolk near the sea. Her husband the miller had been dead for a number of years, during which Mother Codling had kept the mill and her family going. The sails went round, and the corn was ground, and the little Codlings were clothed and fed. The mill-stones turned the red-gold grains of wheat into fine white flour, while time turned Mother Codling's children from babies into little girls and boys; and the fine white flour was changed in the oven to pump loaves of bread, while the girls and boys were changed by the passing years into healthy young men and women. There were six of them, four boys and two girls. Abe, Sid, Dave and Hal Codling worked in the fields, ploughing and harrowing, sowing and reaping, all round the year. They were good strong lads with enormous appetites, who said little and thought less. So much for Abe, Sid, Dave and Hal. �@Doll Codling was a blooming wench of eighteen, as buxom as a cabbage-rose, and as sweet. She had a skin like strawberries and cream, hair like a wheatfield in August and big blue eyes, soft and shining like the summer sea. As well as good looks, she had a good temper and a good heart; indeed, she had only one fault. Doll Codling was as lazy as a sloth, that spends its life hanging upside-down on a tree. Not that Doll did so, or even wanted to. What she liked doing was to sit with her hands in her lap, dreaming about what would happen next. As the next thing that happens is always breakfast, or dinner, or tea, or supper: breakfast-dinner-tea-and-supper was what she dreamed about. That's Doll. Poll was quite another cup of tea. She was the youngest of the Codlings, not yet grown up, being just twelve years old. She was brown as nut, bright as button, sharp as a kitten. She had never stopped asking 'Why?' This is a habit all children grow into, and some grow out of; Poll Codling was one of those who didn't. She wanted to know, and was restless till she had found the answer; which, as soon as she had found it, started a new question running like a hare. As nobody yet has caught up with the last answer to the last question, Poll was always chasing her hare, and always would be. And that's Poll. As for Mother Codling, she was at least half as big again as your mother, with a body like a sack of flour, arms like roly-poly puddings and hands like Norfolk dumplings. She was as busy as Doll was idle, which is to say all the time; and she had as few ideas in her mind as Abe, Sid, Dave and Hal put together, which is to say next-to-none; but she had a tongue that could clack when it �c�c�c