Distant Dreams Read Online Free PDF

Carolina was chosen to ride the train?”
    “Do say!”
    “It’s true enough,” Margaret said with such a look of astonishment that Joseph nearly burst out laughing. “I can hardly believe it. I fretted that I would never be able to hold my head up in society again, that I’d be censured, even ridiculed by my friends. Instead I find that they are quite—how shall I say it?—quite delighted by the circumstance.”
    “You didn’t tell them about her ruined gloves, did you?” Joseph asked with good-natured mockery.
    Margaret couldn’t restrain her smile. “I suppose I owe Carolina an apology for reacting so harshly.”
    “I suppose you might be right, Mrs. Adams.”
    Margaret glanced up and said with affection, “She is your daughter, through and through.”
    “Ah, the wanderlust . . . ?”
    “That and more. I would swear there runs gypsy in the blood of both of you.”
    “Mrs. Adams!” Joseph exclaimed with a laugh. “Please do not seek to ruin our good name even in the privacy of a hired coach.”
    They chuckled together and Margaret snuggled closer to her husband, saying no more. She didn’t need to. Joseph easily realized how very accurate her observations were. Too often he’d seen that same distant look in his daughter’s eyes that reflected his own desires, that same eagerness to learn and the drive to be constantly at one new thing or another.
    “She should have been a son,” he muttered.
    “What did you say, dear?” Margaret asked.
    “Nothing,” Joseph replied. “Nothing at all.”

5
    Granny
    Carolina tiptoed into the darkened room and held her breath at the smell. The slave quarters of Oakbridge were hardly different than slave quarters anywhere else—thin plank-board structures with a single room to house several people. They were whitewashed once a year, which was probably the only thing that kept some of them standing. Carolina tried not to notice the contrast between the grand white Georgian mansion and the shanty-style huts, but it was like trying to ignore the difference between night and day. She could not understand how it could be this way. Her papa was a kindhearted man who treated his “people” with respect. She supposed it was just so much the way things were that it was easy for them to go ignored.
    And Carolina now ignored the squalor for entirely different reasons. Since returning from the capital yesterday, she had been anxious to share her experiences with one she knew would truly understand.
    “Granny, are you here?” It took a moment for Carolina’s eyes to adjust to the dark, but she heard a soft rustling in a corner of the room.
    Buried beneath the covers of a handmade rope bed, an ancient black face peered up at her. “That be yo lil’ missy?” the old woman asked.
    “It’s me, Granny,” Carolina replied with a loud exhale. “Granny, wouldn’t you like me to open the window a bit and maybe leave the door open for some fresh air?” The smell of unwashed bodies, urine, and smudge pots assailed Carolina’s more delicate constitution.
    “Sakes no, child!” Granny croaked in a rough old voice. She then pulled her withered arm from under the patchwork quilt and motioned Carolina forward. “Ain’t takin’ no chances on catchin’ de fever. Come sit and tell Granny what yo saw in de big city.” The woman’s West Indies accent mingled a combination of British reserve and island warmth.
    “It was truly wonderful,” Carolina said as she sat on a three-legged stool that had been left at the bedside for just such talks. “I wish you could have seen it.”
    As Carolina’s eyes adjusted to the dim light, she saw the old woman smile broadly, revealing a set of crooked yellow teeth with a couple of gaps where teeth should have been. As nearly as anyone could calculate or remember, Granny was at least one hundred years old, though some claimed her to be more. Time had taken its toll in those years, and the old woman, once a hard worker and faithful slave,