A Girl from Yamhill Read Online Free PDF

sudden silence was insulting. I was not a pitcher, and I did not have big ears.
    On the way home, we might meet Aunt Maud, my real aunt, who was famous for once riding a bicycle downhill over a cow lying in the road because she was too insecure to steer around it. Or “Grandma” Russell, who climbed up on her roof and repaired her shingles, even though she was well into her eighties. “That’s a pioneer for you,” Yamhill said. Or Quong Hop, who had come from China to build railroads and had stayed on. Now he owned a confectionery store and lived in a little house near us where I was never allowed to swing on the gate.
    Sometimes we made a detour to pay a call on a very old man Mother said I must never forget. Why, Mamma?
    â€œBecause he is your Great-uncle Jasper, who crossed the Plains in a covered wagon when he was three years old.”
    Oh, was that all? I thought he was interesting because he always wore a white nightcap.
    Everything and everybody in Yamhill was interesting. The trouble was I wanted to swear, peek under the saloon door, stare a bear in the eye, and swing on gates. I “absolutely, positively” wanted to do these things. Mother never seriously scolded on these outings and always returned refreshed and full of amusing stories for Father.
    In addition to all her rules for deportment, Mother gave me guidelines for life. “Never be afraid,” she often said.
    So I was not afraid. When a cat had a fit and began to climb the wall, Mother did not know what to do. I plucked the animal off the wall, dumped it out the back door, and could not understand why Mother was first amazed at my courage and then frightened “half to death.” The cat might have clawed or bit me. “But it didn’t,” I pointed out. Mother sighed.
    When Father was going to slaughter a hog for our ham and bacon, Mother said I had better not watch. Naturally, this made me want to watch. As soon as Mother went out to the barnyard, I climbed the stairs to try to watch from an upstairs bedroom window. Because the window was too high, I pulled up a chair so I could look out. What I saw was much more interesting than asquealing hog. Below the mansard roof was a ledge about a foot wide, just right for me to walk on. I climbed out the window onto the ledge. Higher than the woodshed, almost as high as the horse chestnut tree, I began to walk around the house. I had not gone far before Mother saw me and came running until she stood directly below me. “Beverly!” she said quietly and urgently. “Stand perfectly still. Don’t move.” Then she shouted for my father.
    Puzzled, I obeyed, as I always obeyed on the farm. Father also came running, saw me, disappeared into the house, and was heard taking the stairs two at a time before he leaned out the window. “Hang on to the shingles and back up slowly, one step at a time,” he directed as Mother stood frozen beneath me. I couldn’t see what all the to-do was about, but I did as he directed until Father reached out, grabbed me, and hauled me in through the window.
    â€œWhat the Sam Hill did you think you were doing?” he demanded.
    â€œWalking around the house,” I said.
    â€œNext time do it on the ground.” Father never wasted words.
    Mother, white and shaken, had rushed in to join us. “Beverly, you must never, never go out there again. You could have fallen and killed yourself.”
    â€œI wasn’t going to fall,” I said, and I was sure I wasn’t.
    One day we took the train to Salem, where Father was going to play his baritone horn in the Yamhill band at the state fair. The gentle tyrants, the cows my father loved so much, usually prevented us from going far from home.
    I was not interested in the exhibits of farm animals, but I was interested in the Ferris wheel. Mother agreed to take me for a ride and paid for tickets; then we climbed into the gently swaying seat and fastened a bar