Christmas at Rose Hill Farm Read Online Free PDF Page B

her fingers in front of Bess to demonstrate.
    â€œI’m not mute,” Bess whispered. “I’m just a little shy.”
    Maggie’s coffee brown eyes went wide. “Land sakes, why didn’t you say so?”
    Well, Maggie Zook, besides my being struck dumb by Billy’s beautiful blue eyes, you haven’t given me a spare inch to fit in a word. Bess had to rummage for her response, piecing it together one word at a time like beads on a string. Before she could get the sentence out, Maggie’s attention had swung to the kitchen door.
    Mammi’s eleven-year-old rooster had figured out how to open the kitchen door by flying up to whack the loose handle with a wing, then sticking his clawed foot in the opening. Bess would’ve thought Mammi would singe that rooster’s tail feathers and toss him out the door, but instead she scooped him up under her arm and petted him like a cat, without missing a beat of her conversation with Billy. “I asked you here because I want you to figure something out for me.” She peered at him with mortal seriousness.
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œI want you to learn how to graft roses.”
    â€œWhat for?”
    She worked a thoughtful finger over her chins. “I’m working on a plan, that’s why. I need more roses and I need them fast.”
    â€œWhat’s the hurry?”
    â€œI’m not going to live forever, you know.” She patted her heart again.
    Hours spent shadowing her grandmother these last few weeks had instructed Bess about a good many of her mannerisms and curious way of thinking. She could tell exactly what Mammi was up to. Lamenting about her imminent death was Mammi’s way of stirring action out of a reluctant body. Usually Bess’s.
    But Billy was a fumbling fifteen-year-old, oblivious to thewiles of a clever woman and, being a boy, was slow to catch on. “Well, then, just go buy roses.”
    Mammi’s eyes closed to a pair of dangerous slits. Bess figured her grandmother might pick up a broom and swat him home for that. Even she knew the answer to that after being at Rose Hill Farm for three weeks now. Mammi thought modern roses that were sold in nurseries were cheap imitations of the real thing. She had roses from her mother and grandmother and great-grandmother and so on and so on that she wanted to protect for generations.
    Mammi must have decided to pardon Billy for his appalling ignorance. “No need to buy anything. I have everything I need. Problem is, I don’t know how to graft.”
    â€œBut I don’t either,” Billy said.
    â€œNo, but you can learn.”
    â€œBut . . . how?” He appeared mystified.
    â€œGo to the library,” Mammi said wearily. Her patience, never in great supply, was running thin. “Ask around. Experiment. Figure it out. Using your brain once in a great while wouldn’t be such a cats-after-me.”
    Maggie pushed her glasses up on the bridge of her nose. “Why is a cat after you?”
    â€œShe means catastrophe,” Billy said, annoyed. “And I use my brain all the time.”
    And that’s just what he did. Within a few years, Billy had learned how to grow roses from cuttings and graft so capably that the horse pastures of Rose Hill Farm were converted to thriving fields of roses. Mammi’s heritage rose business was under way.
    â€”——
    But that was then and this was now. Billy sat stiff on the buggy seat, eyes fastened to the road straight ahead. Bess noticed hishands grip the buggy seat as if it were holding him together. At the last second, she decided to turn Frieda down a different road than the one that passed by his father’s farm and she saw Billy’s hands ease up their grip.
    Aha . . . that’s what was making him act so particularly tetchy. She cast a glance at him, wondering how much of his abrupt disappearance had to do with his no-account older brothers. Billy was the