Bertie tells his secret

Bertie Hogge felt like his secret was burning a hole in his mouth, he wanted to tell it so bad. He had slyly tried to mention it to his Ma, but she had given him one of those looks and said, “You know very well we don’t talk about that, young man!”

He then tried to talk about it with Egelric. “We can call him the wolf,” he had proposed. “Whenever I see him I can tell you, ‘I seen the wolf!’ and nobody will understand but you and me!”

But Egelric had looked unhappy about that and had said, “Please don’t call him that, Bertie, please don’t.” And Egelric didn’t want to talk about it any more either.

He never did see the man around Egelric’s farm, either, which wasn’t very exciting. He started to wish he would see him, so he could tell Egelric and then maybe watch what Egelric would do that was worse than punching!

Then one day he had an idea. His Ma had brought Baby over to play with Wynnie and allow Elfleda to rest. Once his Ma was busy cooking, he took Baby into the bedroom and sat her on the floor.

Here was the person he could tell his secret to! Baby was too little to understand, and besides, Baby couldn’t talk! She couldn’t tell anyone about what he said even if she wanted to.

“Now you listen, Baby,” he whispered to her. “I got a secret, just for you and me.”

Iylaine listened intently.

“You know that mean man that makes fun of my Da? Well, he left a dead bird and some other stuff on your Da’s step, and your Da got real, real mad. And me and your Da went to the stable to find the mean man, and your Da got so mad at him he almost punched him. I seen it ’cause I hid in the barn! And your Da says, if he sees that man again, he will do worse than punch him. I hope I can see that. So now you listen, Baby, this is important. If you ever see that mean man around your farm, you tell me right away. Do you understand that?”

Baby laughed and clapped her hands.

“Good girl,” he said, taking her hand and leading her back into the other room.

“What was you doing in there with that Baby?” his Ma asked.

“Nothing! Honest!” he said. “I guess I’m going to play outside.”

“Stay out of the dirt!”

“I will, Ma!”

Once outside Bertie jumped around a bit in glee. He sure felt better now that he had gotten that secret out of his mouth!