Georgia Boy Read Online Free PDF

thing there, such as the woodpile at the other end of the yard, to break his fall. But before we knew what had happened, he missed the yard completely and was out of sight. He had gone through the well cover like a bullet.
    “My heavenly day!” Ma screamed. “Handsome’s gone!”
    She tottered and fell in the yard in a dead faint Pa stooped to pick her up, but he dropped her after he had raised her part way off the ground, and ran to the well to see what had become of Handsome. Everything had taken place so suddenly that there was no time to think about it then. The boards covering the well had been bashed in as if a big two-hundred-pound rock had landed on them.
    Pa and I tore across the yard to the well. When we got there and looked down inside, we could not see a thing at first. It was pitch-black down there. Pa yelled at Handsome, and the echo bounced back like a rubber ball and blasted our ears.
    “Answer me, Handsome!” Pa shouted some more. “Answer me!”
    Ma got up and staggered across the yard to where we were. She had a hard time steadying herself, and she came reeling towards us like Mr. Andy Howard on Saturday night. She was still dizzy from her faint when she reached us.
    “Poor Handsome Brown,” Ma said, clutching at the well-stand to support herself. “Poor Handsome Brown. He was the best darkey we ever had. Poor Handsome Brown.”
    Pa was busy unwinding the windlass, because he wanted to get the rope and bucket down into the well as quick as he could.
    “Shut up, Martha!” he said out of the corner of his mouth, “don’t you see how busy I am trying to get this rope and bucket down in here?”
    “Poor innocent Handsome Brown,” Ma said, brushing some tears from her eyes and not paying any attention to Pa at all. “I wish I hadn’t scolded him so much while he was alive. He was the best darkey we ever had. Poor innocent Handsome Brown.”
    “Shut your mouth, Martha!” Pa shouted at her. “Can’t you see how busy I am at what I’m doing?”
    By that time Ma had got over her fainting spell, and she was able to stand up without holding onto anything. She leaned over the well-stand and looked down inside.
    “Are you down there, Handsome?” Pa shouted into the well.
    There was no answer for a while. We leaned over as far as we could and looked down. At first there was not a thing to be seen, but slowly two big, round, white balls started shining down in the bottom. They looked as if they were a mile away. Pretty soon they got brighter and then they looked like two cat eyes on a black night when you turn a flashlight on them.
    “Can you breathe all right, Handsome?” Pa shouted down at him.
    “I can breathe all right, Mr. Morris,” Handsome said, “but my arches pain me something terrible.”
    “Fiddlesticks,” Pa said. “There’s nothing wrong with your arches. Can you see all right?”
    “I can’t see a thing,” Handsome said. “I’ve done gone and got as blind as a bat. I can’t see nothing at all.”
    “That’s because you’re in the bottom of the well,” Pa told him. “Nobody could see down there.”
    “Is that where I am?” Handsome asked. “Lordy me, Mr. Morris, is that why there’s all this water around me? I thought when I come to that I was in the bad place. I sure thought I had been knocked all the way down to there. When is you going to get me out of here, Mr. Morris?”
    “Grab hold the bucket on the rope, and I’ll have you out of there in no time,” Pa told him.
    Handsome caught the bucket and shook the rope until Pa leaned over again.
    “Mr. Morris, please, sir?” Handsome asked.
    “What do you want now?”
    “When you get me out of here, you ain’t going to make me go back up on that roof again where them goats is, is you?”
    “No,” Pa told him, turning the windlass. “Them aggravating goats can stay on top of the house until they get hungry enough to come down of their own accord.”
    We had forgotten all about the goats, we had been so