Glory Read Online Free PDF

gold and leave her with nothing to her name.She wouldn’t have the slightest means to start a new life. She didn’t know how to do anything but hunt and fish, and from the looks of things in Squatter’s Bend, there wasn’t much call for the like.
    Mary coughed, and Patience leaned over to gently arrange the shawl more snugly around her thin shoulders. “Put your handkerchief over your mouth, Mary,” she said softly. “The dust will make your cough worse.”
    Mary nodded and complied. Glory could see the two girls were fond of each other.
    Harper squirmed on the seat. “Shouldn’t we get out of the wagon? Mr. Lincoln might be a while, and I’d surely like to stretch my legs.”
    “Me, too,” Ruth agreed.
    The girls climbed out and Glory followed, her gaze drinking in the frantic bustle that didn’t stop. Up the street, fire billowed from the blacksmith’s pit, and the even rhythm of his hammer as he pounded the hot iron into shape echoed up and down the rutted street. Poppy had done what shoeing was necessary at the shanty; she’d tried her hand once but hadn’t been good at it.
    Glory edged closer to Mary, her bewilderment overwhelming at the moment.
    “Don’t be afraid,” Mary whispered, clutching the hankie over her mouth. “Towns are always noisy places.”
    Glory didn’t want the others to know how frightening the town was to her. She wasn’t a baby—she could hold her own. “Ain’t afraid. Just like to be near you.” To prove it, shejoined hands with Mary. Only seemed proper, seeing how nice they’d been to her.
    Holding hands, two by two, the six young women ventured down the sidewalk, Glory gripping Mary’s hand tensely. The girls paused in front of a dress shop to admire the array of pretty store-bought dresses and other goods in the window.
    “Ain’t those pretty,” Harper breathed, and Glory thought maybe she’d forgotten her usual fierceness in the excitement.
    “I had a red dress once,” Ruth said softly. “It wasn’t near as pretty as this one, but I liked it, and it fit better than most.” She sighed. “I loved that dress.”
    Glory didn’t want to mention that she’d never owned a dress in her life. Dresses like her new friends wore seemed to be the thing most young women wore instead of trousers. Another thing she learned from being in town.
    “What happened to your red dress?” Lily asked Ruth.
    “Wore out,” Ruth replied wistfully. “Wore it until one day when I washed it, it fell clean apart.”
    A murmur of sympathy passed among the girls.
    “How come you couldn’t get another one?” Glory asked.
    “When you live in an orphanage, you get what other people don’t want,” Patience explained. “Sometimes folks pass on things that are better than others. Occasionally a dress or coat that still has a few wearings left in it will be donated, but not often. An orphanage depends on the goodness of others, except folks couldn’t afford much goodness at the one we came from.”
    “We learned to take what we got, make the most of it, and be grateful,” Ruth added.
    Glory studied the shiny material displayed on a form in the window and wondered how women could stand to wear such things. Why, getting through the brush with all that material dragging behind would be nigh to impossible. And the wind would whip up that skirt right smart-like.
    “Never had a dress,” Glory murmured, almost before she knew she was saying it.
    “Never had a dress?” Lily moved to stand beside Ruth, upwind of Glory.
    “No.”
    “Not ever?” Harper frowned. “How come? I thought every girl had a dress.”
    “Not me. Never had much use for one.”
    The women on the wagons who had come by the cabin wore faded dresses that more often than not hung loose on them, the hems sometimes ragged. None wore anything like what she saw in the window or even like those the women in this town wore. This dress was a pure wonderment. All that frilly lace and rows of ruffles would choke a