| Once
upon a time on a street in a big city there were two
houses back to back.
One house was old and dilapidated, very hot in summer
and very cold in winter. The other was newer and well-built,
very
cool in summer and very warm in winter.
Our story
begins in the better house, but we will come
back later to the dilapidated
one so don't forget about it.
In this better house there lived a very
nice old couple whose
names were Humphrey and Henrietta Pickering. They
had
been married over thirty years and had one son whose name
was Richard.
Mr and Mrs Pickering were a very
agreeable old couple
but they were always worrying. They worried about
their
son Richard who taught history at a university. Every week
Richard sent them an allowance, so they worried that he
might lose
his job and not be able to send them an allowance.
They worried about
Richard getting married and then not
being able to afford to send them
an allowance. They worried
about Richard not being able to get married
because he had
to send them an allowance. They worried when it rained
because they were afraid they might catch cold. They also
worried
when it was hot because they were afraid they might
catch sunstroke.
Sometimes they worried because they had
nothing to worry about.
One day when Henrietta and Humphrey came back from
their regular walk around the nearby park they found a
large white
envelope in their letter-box. When they opened
it they saw a cheque for
two hundred pounds, made out to
them by a big stockbroker in the city.
There was also a letter.
The letter said that the stocks which Mr and
Mrs Pickering
had bought a long, long time ago had suddenly become very
valuable. The stockbroker wrote that he would now be send-
ing them
two hundred pounds every week and expressed his
hope that the stocks
would remain valuable for ever. 
'Do you think it's a good cheque?' Humphrey asked,
his
voice barely a whisper.
'There's
one way to find out,' Henrietta said, looking
around to see if anyone
could see or hear them.
'How?' Humphrey asked.
'By cashing it,' Henrietta replied. Then in a low
whisper,
spoken near his ear, she said, 'Humphrey, get the money in
ten-pound notes.'
'Why ten-pound notes?'
Humphrey asked.
'You'll see,' said Henrietta.
So Humphrey went.
The cheque was good and Humphrey
received twenty
crisp ten-pound notes. When he came home Henrietta led
him into their neat little kitchen. There, on the kitchen wall,
just above the gas-cooker, was a hole which Henrietta had
made with her
bread knife.
'I want to know the money is near
us,' she explained. 'I
want to feel it around us. I made this hole in
the wall so we
can put the money into it each week. We'll cover the hole
with a calendar. The wall will be our bank. No one will
know.'
'That is a wonderful idea,' said Humphrey.
Henrietta
stuffed the twenty ten-pound notes into the hole
in the kitchen wall,
and hung a calendar over the hole. Then
she took Humphrey's hand and
they walked into their living
room where they sat down, smiling at each
other and sighing
happily.
Next week
the cheque for two hundred pounds arrived.
Humphrey cashed it and Henrietta
put the twenty ten-pound
notes into the hole in the wall.
Next
week the same.
And the following week the same.
Before long Henrietta and Humphrey forgot they had
ever
worried about a thing. During their walks around the park
they noticed two trees they had never noticed before. They
heard music
they had never heard before. And most of the
neighbours seemed to be
very neighbourly, which was some-
thing else they had never noticed before.
They didn't worry
when it rained and they didn't worry when the sun shone
and
sometimes
they giggled thinking how silly they had been to
worry so much before.
They never bought anything with the money they put
into the hole because they didn't need anything. Once
Henrietta
did buy herself a new pair of knitting needles, and
Humphrey bought himself
a new clay pipe, but they bought
that with the allowance their son Richard
still sent them
every week. They never touched the ten-pound notes piling
up in their kitchen wall.
And each week
the cheque continued to come. Humphrey
cashed it. Henrietta stuffed the
notes into the wall. The money
grew and grew. The months passed like
that happily, and
each evening before going to bed they would pray, 'God
bless all stockbrokers.'
chapter
2
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