Blackstrap Hawco Read Online Free PDF

skin.
    There came a sound from overhead, something small hitting the bare floor, a pencil perhaps, dropping and rolling a little, and they both watched there.
    â€˜Junior,’ Emily said, thinking, He’s always up there with Uncle Ace.
    â€˜Yays.’ Isaac gathered his hat and mitts, and squeezed them in his hands. Again, he grinned. ‘I were delivering da coal…Best get ta it.’
    â€˜You’re not staying for tea?’ she chastised him.
    Isaac shook his head, his expression sinking with remorse yet struggling to remain optimistic. ‘Deliv’ries. C’nt ’av no un doin’ widout.’ He nodded resolutely. ‘C’nt bear da t’ought ’o dat, ’specially da yungin’s.’ His eyes scrunched with a sheepish expression as though he might have admitted to something too delicate for words. He laughed to make it go away.
    â€˜You’re sweet, Isaac,’ she said mournfully. And she touched his cheek with the back of her smudged fingers, transferring the mark. First checking over her shoulder, she then faced Isaac again, leaning to kiss him on the lips. ‘You’re sweet,’ a slow whisper.
    Spirits restored, Isaac grinned, despite the tone in which the compliment was spoken. Again, he laughed, this time wetly, having to wipe at his chin for he had burst forth with joy. He nodded three times, a brisk succession stiff with formality. He barely raised his eyes to her, and uttered not another word before he left.
    Junior Hawco at play and the birth of his brother, Blackstrap
    The weekend was filled with activity for Junior. Bazzing marbles with Paddy Murphy and Bren Coveyduck on the damp floor of Bren’s barn, their fingers almost numb with the cold, the quartered meat from the recently slaughtered cow hanging above them, the smell of it only vaguely noticeable in the chilly air. He’d won two new unchipped whoppers. Skating down on the pond with Bren, barrel staves tied to their boots for blades, they’d shot an ice puck back and forth with the curved tree limbs they used for hockey sticks, the puck shrinking smaller and smaller until there was nothing left of it and they fell into argument about what bit of snow was actually in play. Trading comic books with Wince Drover, the fat man who worked in the general store and, subsequently, had access to all the comic books Junior wanted. And watching the parlour window be taken out of the Critch house. Junior had stood there with Paddy and Bren as the window trim was removed, piece by piece, and laid aside. Then the large window box had been edged out and carefully set down on the ground. Junior knew what was coming next. Waiting in silence by the Critch fence, he and the other boys had turned to stare up the lane, hearing the distant jangle of bells as they caught sight of the black, horse-drawn carriage with the coffin on board. Mister Myrden up front in black, reins in hand, not looking anywhere but straight ahead. Mist blasted from the horse’s nostrils as it trod near. Silver bells jangled louder. The creak of the wheels over the hard earth sounded like death itself, impressing its trail toward them. The horse grew larger, towering over the boys, as it came to a halt a few feet before their frozen faces. Mister Myrden on the driver’s bench watching them with numb interest.
    Three of Old Missus Critch’s sons had unloaded the coffin and fit it in through the hole in the house where two other men from Bareneed received it. One son had made a comment and another son had laughed, which made something shrink inside Junior. Then the sons had raised the parlour window and nudged it back into the hole, carefully realigned the window trimmings and nailed them in place, as though nothing had ever been opened up in that house.
    Old Missus Critch had passed away. To Jacob Junior it seemed as ifshe had been old, sick, and dying for most of her life, yet she had often managed to call to