An Honest Heart Read Online Free PDF

removal to the North Parade section of Oxford. He could not risk his heart—or his reputation—like that again.
    The young man finally stopped in front of a row house of a different sort altogether from those on North Parade—low and stone, with a steeply pitched, gabled roof. Neal had to duck to keep from hitting his head on the lintel upon entering.
    At the sights, sounds, and smells that greeted him, all thoughts but for the woman in front of him and her condition fled his mind.
    The breech birth was difficult and dangerous at moments, but Neal welcomed the screaming, wrinkled little girl near dawn. He stayed long enough to ensure the health and welfare of both mother and daughter before taking his leave. Two steps out the door, he realized he had no idea how to get back to his dwelling. The father of the new baby roused his son where he slept on the floor outside his mother’s room to show Neal home.
    “Before you leave, Doc.” The father reentered the house.
    Neal waited what seemed a long time, stifling his yawns and wanting to be at home in bed.
    The man came back out with a writhing burlap sack. “We got no coins, but I hope this will suffice for your efforts.”
    Neal took the bag, making sure he held the top tightly closed. “Thank you. I am certain this will be more than sufficient.” He hoped it was something useful, and not something he’d have to rid himself of secretly.
    The boy took him as far as the end of North Parade. Neal shifted the sack into the hand with his medical bag and fished in his pocket. He flipped a copper pence to the lad, whose eyes widened with delight when he snatched it out of the air. “That’s between you and me.” Neal winked at him. “No one else need know about it.”
    “Thanks, Doc. If you ever need someone to carry or fetch for ya, Johnny Longrieve’s the lad for you.” The boy clenched the coin between his canines—to check its authenticity, Neal supposed—then took off at a run back down the alley.
    Neal shook his head and trudged up the street toward home.
    Home. An apartment of two floors consisting of five rooms above the apothecary’s shop. But the furnishings were decent and the rent low enough to be suitable for someone of his station.
    How could he call it home when no one waited there for him? Home was the farm in the country where Grandmamma tended her garden and provided midwifing services to anyone within the range of the old draft horse she rode.
    He circled around to the back of the contiguous row of buildings and climbed the steps to the door of his abode. Before another day passed, he needed to secure a horse. The stable behind the shop was large enough for three, and the apothecary only had the one he rode in from his home each day, leaving plenty of room for Neal to keep a horse.
    The bag dangling from his hand squawked. Ah, yes. His payment.
    Setting his kit on the table in the middle of the room that served for kitchen and dining, Neal crouched down close to the floor and untied the string from around the top of the bag. Two small chickens protested their confinement—one white, the other a mottled gray-brown. Hens and, he hoped, layers. He’d enjoy having his own source for eggs.
    He looked around the room. “What am I going to do with the two of you?” He’d need to build a small coop. But until then . . . he couldn’t keep them in the burlap sack. Carefully, he turned the bag on its side, then started tugging at the stitched end to encourage the hens to climb out.
    When they realized what he meant for them to do, they jumped out amongst much flapping and squawking and flying feathers.
    Using three of the four chairs from the table, a couple of old blankets, and some twine, he created an enclosure for the birds. As he laid parcel paper and newspaper in several layers over the floor in the small area, the two chickens ventured into the room that Neal planned to use as a sitting room.
    They gave him quite a chase, even in the small