Bry’s Dream

Stories for Another Day

In a family of girls, Bry was the only boy, and he felt it very deeply. Through a series of events that there is no need to go into here, Bry had a gold coin, all of his own, to do whatever he wanted with. He kept it with him all the time, either in his pocket or under his pillow. If he was working in the garden, he kept it in a little bag on a string around his neck.

Bry and his three sisters and their mother had a cottage of their own but not much else, so they had to work hard to be able to buy food. His mother did other people’s washing, and she and the girls spent all day scrubbing and bleaching and rinsing and ironing and folding, while Bry worked in the garden, where the soil was so poor and full of rocks that it would only grow thin turnips and shrivelled cabbages.

One night Bry had a dream. In it he was sitting at the table with his sisters, Annis and Gelda and Currie, and his mother. They were all much older, and his mother was very old. Annis was no longer pretty, and Gelda had lost the dreaming look she always had in her eyes, and Currie was no longer as lively as a monkey. Bry’s gold coin was lying in the middle of the table, and they were all gazing at it. Bry was thinking how good it was that he hadn’t lost it after all this time.

Then he woke up from his dream and a cold chill seized him. He put his hand under his pillow and drew out the gold coin and stared at it. What was the use of keeping it, and never using it to bring good to anyone?

The next day and the next day he thought and thought about what he should do with his gold coin. Finally he knew exactly what he wanted to do. He went to the market and came home struggling under the weight of a large barrel.

“There!” he said, heaving it into the middle of the room.

“What did you buy?” Annis demanded. Everyone crowded around to see.

“Books!” Bry said. “A whole barrel full of books!”

“Books?” Annis said. “When you might have bought dresses, or shoes?”

“Or fish, or blankets,” his mother said sadly. “What use are books when none of you can read?”

“You can teach us, Mama,” Bry said.

Annis shook her head scornfully. “I’m not going to give myself wrinkles, screwing my eyes up to read.”

Gelda, the middle sister with the faraway look in her eyes, asked, “What’s in them?”

“I don’t know,” Bry confessed. “I went to the market to spend my gold coin, and while I was trying to decide what to buy, I found this old barrel of books that the bookseller was going to throw away, and he gave them to me for the price of the barrel.”

Currie had already pulled the lid off the barrel and was scattering books everywhere. “Eeuuyew, they’re all mouldy and covered with dust,” she said, sneezing and coughing.

Their mother looked at some of the titles of the books. “I’m afraid you’ve wasted your money on a load of rubbish,” she said, shaking her head.

But Bry was determined. He brushed and dusted and cleaned the books and set them on a shelf that he made out of wood from the barrel. Every night, even though he could hardly stay awake after his day’s work, he made his mother show him what the letters meant and how to sound out the words. It took him a whole year of puzzling and stuttering, but eventually he could read any of the books on his shelf. Then he felt more disappointed than he had ever felt.

One day he threw down the book he was reading, in disgust. “Who would want to read about any of this?” he said in disgust. “It’s nothing but petticoats and bonnets and slippers!”

Annis pricked up her ears. She picked up the book. It was full of drawings of elegant ladies in dresses and furs. She fell on it like a starving person on a loaf of bread. “What does this say? And this?” she demanded.

“It says, ‘Gown for evening, French lace and satin’,” he told her. “What a waste of time!” He went to get up, but Annis pulled him back.

“Read me what this says,” she said.

“I’m too tired to read this rubbish,” he yawned. Then he said, craftily, “But I can teach you how to read it for yourself.” And so, night after night for the next few months, he taught Annis how to read. She never wanted to read any of the other books, but this book she read over and over.

Bry began to think. He said to his sister, Gelda, “Those stars you’re always gazing at, would you like to know their names?”

Gelda spun around from the window. “They have names? Tell me!”

Bry said, “I don’t know them myself, but there is a book here about astronomy, and another one about stars and planets.”

“Why haven’t you told me this before?” Gelda gasped. “Read them to me!”

Again Bry said, “I couldn’t be bothered with all that dry stuff, but I can teach you how to read them yourself, if you like.”

Gelda couldn’t wait to learn. Every spare moment she had, she pestered Bry to teach her more and more. In just a few short weeks she was reading by herself. When she wasn’t reading, she was lying on her bed, gazing out of the window, naming the stars she could see, one by one.

Bry tried to think of a way to get Currie to learn to read too, even though she was still very little. He took a small, blue book off his shelf, and began reading aloud. “Once there was a fairy who lived inside the petals of a bluebell.” Before he had even turned the page, Currie was snuggled in his lap, pointing to the pictures and listening to every word that he read. When he reached the end and closed the book, Currie began to cry. “Read some more!” she pleaded.

Bry said, “Wouldn’t you like to be able to read all by yourself, so you can read the book any time you want to, when I’m working or asleep?”

Currie shrugged. She liked being read to, without the work of reading for herself.

“There are lots of other books you might like,” Bry said. “There’s one about castles, and one about flowers, and one about pirates…”

“Pirates!” Currie said. “Let me see!” So Currie learned how to read too.

As time went on, Annis used her favourite book to teach herself how to make her own dresses and petticoats. One day she was sitting outside, sewing in the sunshine, when a very grand carriage drove up. It stopped, and a grand lady stepped out. Annis curtsied very low.

The grand lady said, “I’m looking for a wife for my son. It’s time he got married, and you’re certainly very pretty. But I don’t want an ignorant, useless girl. Can you read and write?”

“Yes, my lady,” Annis said, curtsying again.

“Can you do anything else useful?” the lady asked.

“I can wash and iron and sew,” Annis said.

“Come along, then, you’ll do nicely,” said the lady. Annis kissed her mother goodbye, then she hopped into the carriage and it drove off.

Bry and Gelda and Currie looked at each other in amazement. Their mother wailed, “Who’s going to do all the work now?”

Bry sighed, and said, “I will,” so as well as digging and weeding in the garden, he scrubbed and washed the clothes.

Another year went by, and one day Gelda said, “I’m going away to be an astronomer. I’ve been writing to a famous astronomer, Professor Holst, and he wants me to come and work with him.” She kissed everyone goodbye, took her favourite astronomy book, and left.

Her mother wailed and sobbed. “Now who will do all the folding and the ironing?”

Bry sighed deeply. “I will,” he said, so he had to work three times as hard as before.

In no time at all, Currie said to Bry and her mother, “I’ve had enough of washing and ironing. I’m going to sea, to learn to sail and become a sea captain.” Her mother started wailing and sobbing and moaning, but Bry knew it was for the best, so he kissed Currie goodbye, and warned her to look out for pirates.

Bry’s mother pointed her finger at him. “This is all your doing, with your books and your reading,” she said.

Now another year and a day passed, and one day a very fine carriage drew up at the door and out stepped Annis, dressed in satin and lace. “Mama, I’ve come to take you to live with me,” she said. “I’m the lady of the house now, and I sleep in a soft bed and never see a washing tub from one day’s end to the next.” Her mother was so overjoyed, she couldn’t speak.

Just then another carriage drew up, and Gelda stepped out, wearing a dark cloak and a mysterious jewel on a chain around her neck. “Mama, you’ve worked so long and hard for so many years, I’ve come to take you to live with me. There’s plenty of room with the professor and me in our astronomer’s tower.”

Her mother was filled with amazement. One daughter a fine lady and one a famous astronomer! Then there was a shout and Currie came striding up the hill, wearing tall leather boots and a hat with a red feather. “Mama,” she said, “I’m the captain of my own ship, now. Come and sail the oceans with me!”

Her mother stared and stared, and didn’t know what to say. A wide grin spread over Bry’s face. All this, from one small gold coin!

His mother said, “Well, now, I’d like to see the world but I don’t fancy all the steps in a tower. Why don’t I stay half the year with you, Annis, and the other half on Currie’s ship?”

So it was decided. But Bry’s face fell. “What about me?” he said. “I can’t manage all the scrubbing and washing and folding and ironing as well as the garden all by myself.”

His sisters laughed. “You’ll become a teacher, of course,” Annis said. “You won’t need to take in other people’s washing ever again, and you can pay someone to come and work in the garden for you.”

So Currie threw all the washing out of the window and they set up desks and pencils for all the children that Bry would be teaching. “You’ll have so many students and they’ll all pay you,” Gelda said. “What will you do with all that money?”

Bry looked at his shelf of books and he began to smile and smile.