A Song for Nettie Johnson Read Online Free PDF

tomato, Heinz celery, another Heinz tomato because it’s your favourite.”
    “Oh you,” Nettie sighs.
    “Heinz cream of chicken,” he continues. Then he holds the last can high in the air and swirls it in circles above their heads.
    “And finally...another tomato!”
    Nettie gazes at the row of cans on the ground. “One for every day of the week! You are something wonderful.”
    The sun is low in the sky. Dry grass in the warehouse yard rustles softly, brown stems swaying this way and that.
    Peter is sitting on the hard ground, his back resting against the warehouse wall, his face turned upward, catching as much of a fading sun as he can. Andrew and Elizabeth sit under a leafless maple. They’ve run most of the way from the quarry and they’re tired. Rusty wheels lean against the grey fence.
    “Let’s play Eli and Nettie,” Peter says. He jerks his head toward Elizabeth. “I’ll be Eli, you be Nettie.”
    “And who will I be?” Andrew says. “A rock?”
    “No. A wolf howling at the moon.”
    Peter slides down onto his stomach. “I’ll slither like a snake and hiss at you. Then you hiss back and we’ll crawl around and then I’ll bump into you.”
    “Then what?” Elizabeth asks.
    “Then you climb on top of me like Nettie did, and Andrew will howl like a wolf and we’ll roll on the grass.”
    Andrew crouches beside a rock, raises his head to the sky. “Wooooo woooo,” he wails.
    Peter slides his lanky body toward Elizabeth. Makes serpentine curves of his movements.
    “S-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s,” he hisses.
    Elizabeth sits up. “That’s not what they did.”
    “Well, what then?”
    “They slid around more and went up and down and they hissed louder and they bumped and spit and she rolled right on top of him.”
    She crawls to Peter, hissing and snarling, and leaps on his back, straddles him with her legs, her face close to his neck, her tongue darting in and out of her mouth. She bites his ear and Peter yelps.
    “Pretend, Elizabeth. I said pretend,”
    “It’s more fun if you really do it,” Elizabeth says.
    Peter knocks her off.
    Andrew wails at the fading sun.
    Hilda Munson is standing on the sidewalk in front of the warehouse, staring up at the tin door and wondering which way to turn. Right to the preacher’s house? Left to her own house? Forward into the warehouse yard? She’ll have to tell somebody about this. But who? The preacher? His wife? The committee? Who will she tell? Who will she tell first?
    She did not mean to hear what she heard, to see what she saw. She’d meant only to walk north from her house to the Lund house, passing the warehouse on her way, not intending to stop at all. Not intending to creep around the side of the building, staying as close to the wall as possible, or to come upon this scene.
    At home, she’d changed from her house dress to her best dress, the blue polka dot with the white collar, had combed her hair with the pale green comb, examined her face in the pale green mirror that matched, gifts from Sam years ago when he was young and loved her shyly. She’d put on a white sweater, then gathered up the sheets of music from the piano and walked out the front door. She was on the sidewalk heading toward the parsonage when she heard strange sounds, animal noises, coming from behind the warehouse, and then the voices of children. She stopped, listened, walked into the warehouse yard, stopped again, yes, children’s voices, and hissing sounds. She crept around to the backyard. There she saw a tangle in the weeds, a struggling, and a boy, angry, jumping up from the ground. Her skin tingled, her heart beat faster. What was this? She sensed something dark and moist and pungent, something from deep in the earth, smelling of evil. Then they saw her, and they stood, stiff and straight in front of her.
    Peter said, “Oh, Mrs. Munson,” and brushed dry leaves from his shirt and pants.
    Hilda said nothing, just stared at the boy.
    “There’s no school,” said