Tom and Hilda Plough to the Top
In the village on the hill it snowed every night all winter. It began after supper and it stopped before breakfast, and in between, somebody had to clear the lanes.
That somebody was Hilda, and Hilda was a bear. She was white, she was about the size of a hay cart, and she pulled the village plough. The plough had a seat on it that nobody ever sat in, because the best seat in the village was Hilda’s back. That was where Tom rode.
Tom was small and his bell was large. It was brass, nearly as big as his head, and he rang it with both hands. The bell told people the plough was coming so they could bring their cats in. When Hilda pulled the plough, the snow went up over the walls in a long white wave, and any cat on a wall got the whole wave down the back of its neck. Cats do not forget a thing like that.
Tom had one other job, and he took it extremely seriously. He kept a stick of chalk in his mitten, and every time a lane was done he drew a tick on Hilda’s harness. Eleven lanes got a tick. There was room on the harness for twelve. Every night Tom left the twelfth space empty, very neatly. It was for the top lane.
The top lane was the steepest lane in the village and the deepest, and it was always last. Halfway up, where the wind came round a wall, there was a drift as high as a gate. By the time Hilda had done the other eleven lanes she was tired and the night was nearly over. So the top lane had never been ploughed. Not once.
At the very top of it lived Mrs. Pocket. Every night, when the plough passed the bottom of her lane, there was one lit window up there with Mrs. Pocket in it, waving. For years and years the Snow Fair had begun with Mrs. Pocket ringing the plough bell in the square. She used to walk down on her own. But for three winters the drift had been higher than she could climb, and the fair had been opened by the mayor, who said, “Well,” and clapped once. Everybody agreed it was not the same.
The Snow Fair was tomorrow.
“We’re doing the top lane tonight,” Tom told Dad at the door. He had the chalk and the bell. Over his shoulder he had the coal shovel from beside the stove.
Dad looked at the shovel for a while. “Then I’ll wait up,” he said.
Hilda was standing in the lane with the plough behind her. She wore four knitted socks, one on each foot, and none of them matched, because four different knitters had made them. There was a red one so long she wore it rolled down, a yellow one with the heel in the wrong place, and a green one from the Miller house so short it only just covered her toes. The post office had made a blue one that came right up to her knee.
You might think a bear would mind wearing four different socks. Hilda thought they were the best socks in the world.
Tom climbed up on to her back and said into her ear, “Top lane tonight.”
Hilda began to hum.
Here is the thing about Hilda’s hum. It was so deep that people felt it in their boots before they heard it. And when she walked past a house humming, the icicles along the gutters rang along with her, the way a teacup rings when it is tapped with a spoon.
So off they went down Baker’s Row. Tom rang the bell, Hilda hummed, and the icicles rang along. People leaned out of doors and called, “Puss, puss! In you come!” and the cats came in, looking offended.
At the end of Baker’s Row, Tom drew a tick.
Then Well Lane. Tick. Then Church Steps, which were not steps at all under so much snow. Tick. Then the Long Lane, which was long, and the Short Lane, which was longer than it sounded. Then the lane by the duck pond. The ducks were asleep in their little house and did not need calling in. Tick, tick, tick.
Tom rang the bell, Hilda hummed, and the icicles rang along, all over the village, until there were eleven ticks on the harness and Tom’s chalk was a stub.
And there was the top lane, going up and up and up. At the very top was one lit window.
“She’s waited up,” Tom said.
Hilda hummed a little lower, the way a person says, “Right, then.” She put her head down and began to climb.
It was slow. Hilda leaned into her harness and took one step and then another. Red sock, green sock, yellow sock, blue sock, up the hill one at a time. Tom kept ringing the bell, though there were no cats on the top lane, because it seemed rude to stop.
Halfway up, the plough ran its nose into the drift and stopped.
Tom had looked at that drift every night for three winters. That was what the shovel was for.
He slid down Hilda’s side into snow up to his middle. He waded round to the front and began to dig. It was a coal shovel, not a snow shovel, so each shovelful was small. But Tom was patient, and a drift is only snow. He dug and threw, and dug and threw. Hilda waited and hummed to him the whole time, so it was a little like digging with music on. On the wall beside them, a row of icicles rang along.
When the drift was down to Tom’s knees, Hilda leaned, and the plough pushed through, and the snow went over the wall in a great white wave. The lane was open.
Tom put the shovel on the plough seat, which had never been so useful, and climbed back up. He had snow down his collar, like a cat on a wall, and he did not mind one bit.
Mrs. Pocket was standing in her doorway in a shawl. In one hand she had a mug of warm milk. In the other she had a sock.
“I heard the bell at the bottom,” she said, “and I put the milk on.”
She gave Tom the milk. It was exactly warm enough. Then she held up the sock for Hilda. It was blue, and it came right up to the knee.
“I’ve watched that blue sock go past the bottom of my lane every night for three winters,” Mrs. Pocket said. “I had plenty of time to get the colour right.”
Hilda held out the foot with the short green sock on it, and Tom pulled the new blue sock on over the top. So now Hilda had five socks on four feet, and two of them matched, and she was the best-dressed bear on any hill anywhere. She hummed so hard that the gutter on Mrs. Pocket’s cottage rang like a whole shelf of teacups.
“Thank you for coming up,” Mrs. Pocket said. “I’ve missed the fair. I think I’ve missed the bell most.”
Tom held the bell out to her with both hands. Mrs. Pocket only needed one. She swung it once, and the sound went out over all the roofs. Down in their beds, people opened their eyes and said, “That’s Mrs. Pocket,” and went back to sleep, pleased.
Then Tom drew the twelfth tick on Hilda’s harness, in the space that had been empty all winter. It took the last of the chalk.
Going down was the easy part. The plough had wooden runners underneath. Hilda sat on the plough with Tom still on her back, and the two of them went down the top lane like a sledge. Not fast, just nicely, with the bell going ding by itself at every bump and Hilda humming all the way.
By the bottom, Tom was asleep.
Hilda did not wake him. She got up very carefully and walked through the village, past a great many cats asleep indoors, to Tom’s own front door. The porch lamp was lit, and Dad was sitting on the step in his coat.
“All twelve?” Dad said.
Hilda turned so he could see the harness. Twelve ticks.
Dad lifted Tom down, bell and all, and carried him in, and Tom did not wake up even when his boots came off.
In the morning the Snow Fair was set up in the square. The mayor was standing on a box, ready to say, “Well.”
But before the mayor could say it, everybody turned round. Down the top lane, which had never once been ploughed before last night, came Mrs. Pocket in her best hat, arm in arm with a white bear in five socks. Tom walked beside them, carrying the bell.
He gave it to Mrs. Pocket. She rang it, Hilda hummed under it, and every icicle in the square rang along. The mayor clapped once, very happily, and got down off the box.
And from then on, every night all winter, there were twelve ticks on Hilda’s harness, and Mrs. Pocket never missed the Snow Fair again.