Georgia Boy Read Online Free PDF Page A

sat down on the woodpile and watched Handsome. Handsome had gone as far as the top of the kitchen roof, and he was sprawled on the ridge plate hugging the shingles. He looked awfully small up there.
    “Don’t you dare let one of those goats get hurt, or fall off,” Pa shouted at him. “And take care that those little kids don’t get caught in a stampede and get shoved off to the ground. I’ll skin you alive if anything happens to those goats.”
    “I hear every word you say, Mr. Morris,” Handsome shouted down. “I declare, I never saw such a slippery place before. But I’m doing the best I can. Every time I move I’m scared I’m about to fall off on that hard ground. I’m scared to breathe, Mr. Morris.”
    He waited, killing time, to hear if Pa was going to say anything more. After a while, he found out that Pa was not going to answer him, and he inched himself along the ridge plate towards the main roof. When he got to the top of the pitch, he gave one more look down at the ground. He shut his eyes when he saw it and did not look down at us again.
    “Take care those goats don’t get hurt,” Pa shouted.
    “Yes, sir, Mr. Morris,” Handsome said, sounding far off. “I’m taking the best care I can.”
    He got to the edge of the main roof and climbed on it. From there to the top where the ridge plate was looked as far again as Handsome had already climbed. He inched his way up the sloping side until his fingers got a grip on the ridge plate. It was easy enough for him to climb the rest of the way to the top. When he got up there, he threw one leg across and sat astride the ridge plate, hugging it for all he was worth.
    The goats had gone down to the far end of the roof, getting out of Handsome’s way. In order to chase the goats down, he would have to slide himself along the ridge plate to where they were and make them turn around and come back to the kitchen roof, where they could jump to the porch and woodshed, and finally to the woodpile.
    Handsome had got halfway across when it looked as if the billy had taken it into his head to come back of his own accord. When the billy started, all the goats came, the big one in front, the medium-sized ones in the middle, and the little kids behind. Handsome saw them coming, especially the billy, because the billy lowered his head until his horns stuck up in the air like lightning-rods.
    “Wait a minute!” Handsome yelled at the big goat. “Wait there a minute, I said!”
    The goat kept on towards him. When he got four or five feet from Handsome, he stopped, chewed half a dozen strokes and looked Handsome in the eye.
    While Handsome and the billy goat were up there staring each other in the eye, Ma came running out into the yard to see if the goats had been chased off the roof.
    Just then the billy gave a lunge, and went flying at Handsome with his head tucked down and hooves flying out behind. Handsome saw the goat coming at him in time to duck, but the trouble was that there was not any place he could go except flatter on his stomach. Handsome dug into the shingles with his fingers and held on for all he was worth.
    “Look out, Handsome!” Pa yelled when he saw what was happening.
    Pa jumped to his feet and started waving his arms at the goat. None of that did any good, though, because the goat flew into Handsome headlong with all his might. For an instant it was hard to tell what was going to happen, because after the billy had butted Handsome, both of them sort of stopped short, like two boards coming together in mid-air.
    “Hold on, Handsome!” Pa yelled up there at him.
    The next thing we knew, Handsome was coming down the slope of the roof, backward, on the seat of his pants. He slid about halfway down, and then he started spinning around like a top. We had no more than seen that when he left the roof and was coming down into the yard. The first thing we thought of was where Handsome was going to land. The yard was hard and sandy, and there was not a