Chapter 5 EVENING AT THE FARM
George and Anne went out to find the others in the milking-shed. There were plenty of cows there,swishing their tails. The milking was almost finished, and the twins were driving some of the cowsback to their field.
'Hallo - how did you get on?' asked Anne.
'Fine - it was fun,' said Dick. 'My cows did better than Julian's, though - I sang to them all the time,and they loved it!'
'Ass¹!' said George. 'Did you have a talk with the farmer?'
'Yes - he says he's got an old Land-Rover and he'll take us all over the farm tomorrow,' said Dick,pleased. 'And we can ride on that tractor, if Bill - that's one of his farm-hands - will let us.
He says Bill won't have Junior on the tractor at any price - so maybe there'll be ructions if he sees uson it!'
'Well, I'm all ready for a ruction, and so is Timmy,' said George grimly. 'Sooner or later I'm going totell Junior a few home-truths.'
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'We'd all like to do that,' said Julian. 'But let's hold our horses till a good moment comes - I don't wantthat nice Mrs. Philpot upset - and you know, if we caused her to lose the two Americans she mightsuffer badly - in her pocket! I bet they pay well.'
'Well - I understand all that too, Ju,' said George. 'But Timmy doesn't. He's longing² to have a go atJunior!'
'And how I share that feeling!' said Dick, rubbing Timmy's big head. 'What's the time? Shall we gofor a walk?'
'No,' said Julian. 'My legs feel stiff with cycling up so many Dorset hills today. I vote we just strollaround a bit, not go for miles.'
The Five set off together, wandering round the farm buildings. They were all very old, some of themfalling to pieces. The roofs had great Dorset tiles, made of stone, uneven³ and roughly shaped. Theywere a lovely grey, and were brilliant with lichen⁴ and moss⁵.
'Aren't they gorgeous?' said George, stopping to look at the tiles on a small out-house. 'Look at thatlichen, did you ever see such a brilliant orange? But what a pity - half of them have gone from thisroof, and someone has replaced them with horrid⁶ cheap tiles!'
'Maybe the Philpots sold them,' said Julian. 'Old tiles like that, brilliant with lichen, can fetch quite abit of money - especially from Americans. There's many a barn out in America covered with old tilesfrom this country, moss and all. A bit of old England!'

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