Gib and the Gray Ghost Read Online Free PDF

the dead. However, he was considerably relieved when Missus Julia changed the subject by asking about Black Silk.
    “What did she do when she saw you, Gib?” she asked. “Do you think she remembered you?”
    Gib nodded hard, swallowed a mouthful of pancake, and said, “Oh yes, ma’am, she did for sure. She even left off eating her hay to come over to see me. And she made that little whispery nicker like she always does when she’s happy about something.”
    After that the conversation was about horses for quite a spell, with Livy doing a lot of the talking. Livy had a lot to say about how nobody would let her drive the team. Seemed she was pretty unhappy about not being able to go to Longford School anymore because Hy didn’t think she could handle a high-spirited team like Comet and Caesar all by herself. But then Hy broke in to say, “No, siree, that warn’t it at all, Miss Livy, and you know it warn’t. I don’t ’spect you’d have any trouble with them old bays. All I said was a little gal like you got no business driving any team out across open prairie all by her lonesome.”
    But then Missus Julia said, “But that’s not going to be a problem anymore now that Gib’s here. He’ll undoubtedly be going to Longford too, and I’m sure he’ll have no trouble with Comet and Caesar.”
    Gib stared at Missus Julia, wondering if she meant he’d be attending the Longford School too. That seemed like her meaning, but before he could ask to be sure Livy said, “Oh, good. Gib will drive. And he can drive the Model T too.”
    Gib had almost forgotten about the Model T, which, it seemed, had been sitting uselessly in its garage ever since Mr. Thornton’s death. Livy sounded excited as she went on, “Gib could learn how to drive the Model T, and then he can be my chauffeur. How’d you like to be a chauffeur, Gibson?”
    Everybody laughed and Gib was saying that he thought he knew a lot more about driving horses than motorcars when Miss Hooper interrupted. “Look at that,” she said, pointing to the window. “What did I tell you? It’s started already.”
    They all looked to where a sleety mixture of snow and ice was sweeping across the kitchen window. “Well, that settles it,” Miss Hooper said. “Looks like nobody’s going to be driving to Longford by any means whatsoever. At least not anytime soon.” She sighed. “Which probably means that yours truly is going to be playing the role of reluctant schoolmarm for quite a while longer.”
    So the blizzard had arrived. Not as bitterly cold as a midwinter blizzard perhaps, but as Hy said, just as wild and woolly, with howling wind and heavy snowfall, and plenty of bone-aching chill. Which meant no Longford School for either Livy or Gib, and no chance to saddle Silky up and ride her out across the prairie. No riding, but plenty of time for grooming and stall cleaning, not only for Silky but the other horses as well.
    And, starting on Monday morning, a few hours for Gib and Livy in the library in what Miss Hooper called the Rocking M Institution of Higher Learning. And a lot more time than Gib needed for considering whether he was still only an orphan farm-out, or maybe something more.
    Not that he’d really asked. He certainly hadn’t asked Missus Julia, who’d never treated him like an orphan nobody, but who wasn’t the kind of person you could just up and talk to about personal things. Particularly not now, when she was a new widow, looking pale and delicate in her lacy black dresses.
    Gib had always been tempted to stare at Missus Julia, ever since the first time he’d seen her being wheeled into the kitchen in her high-backed chair. He didn’t know why for sure. For a time it had been knowing that Silky was hers, and that she’d once been one of the best horsewomen in the whole state. And then, later on, there had been finding out that Julia Thornton had known his own mother, Maggie Whittaker. But, perhaps most important, was when he’d learned