Tales from Longpuddle. Thomas Hardy

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      Tales from Longpuddle

      TALES FROM LONGPUDDLE

      In the old days, people did not move around so much. They often lived in the same village all their lives. Everybody knew everybody, knew their parents, their children, their grandparents, and probably knew all their secrets too.

      So when John Lackland’s son returns to the village of Longpuddle after thirty years in America, he knows he will find many of the same families there. In the town he catches the Longpuddle wagon, and on the way to the village he asks the other passengers for news.

      The passengers are very happy to tell him stories. There’s a good story about Tony Kytes and all his young women – oh yes, Mr Lackland must hear that one. And what about Andrew and Jane, and the parson and the fox? The postmistress tells Mr Lackland that story, and then the schoolteacher tells him why the church band stopped playing their fiddles in the church twenty years ago. And does Mr Lackland remember Netty Sargent? He does, and so Mrs Pawle, a farmer’s wife, tells him what Netty had to do to get her uncle’s house …