Halley Read Online Free PDF Page A

Ralph has pulled the wagon up to the far room. He can’t unload by hisself.”
    “Coming,” Gid answered. To Halley, he said, “Won’t hurt to ask Bootsie. It’s a good excuse to go see her.”
    With that Halley had to be satisfied.

3. The Calvins
    Halley, Robbie, and Kate were soon settled into the far room. The room had been empty since the older Franklin children had moved away. Robbie’s small cot was in one corner, and Halley shared a full-size bed with her mother. What few of their household possessions Pa Franklin had not sold were in the room, but it seemed bare and ugly when Halley opened her eyes the morning after their first night under the Franklin roof.
    At first, she did not know what had wakened her. Then she realized that a kerosene lamp was lit in one corner of the room, and Kate was kneeling nearby, praying softly. It scared Halley to see her mother so absorbed in trying to get to heaven, when Halley and Robbie needed her so much in this world.
    Even as she watched, Kate stood and smoothed her dress and apron. “Halley,” she called. “Gid has probably finished milking. Hurry and take the fresh milk to the spring and bring last night’s for breakfast.”
    Kate shook Robbie. “Out of bed. Your job is to fill the wood box. Step lively, both of you. I don’t want Pa saying we’re not pulling our weight.”
    “He’ll say that anyway,” Halley answered.
    Halley got up. Stepping out of the lamplight, into the shadows, she shucked her gown, found her clothes from yesterday and pulled them on. She was in a hurry to catch Gid while he was alone in the barn. He had left with Buck right after supper last night, and, much to Pa Franklin’s chagrin, had not returned at bedtime.
    Pulling her box of books from under the bed, Halley felt underneath the stacks until she found the diary from Dimple. From her bosom, she pulled the ribbon with the key on the end and unlocked the clasp. Running her hand into the partially opened box, she felt the folded bills and coins that, with Claude and Clyde’s money gift, added up to seventy dollars and seventy-five cents. If Kate knew about the money from Jim’s brothers, Pa Franklin would know, and if he knew, he would take it. Halley didn’t intend that to happen. That money, plus her ginseng earnings, was all the Owenby family had.
    Halley’s fingers found three quarters among the coins. Closing the box, she locked it and put the quarters in her pocket. The key she returned to her bosom. She made sure to put the diary underneath a stack of books before sliding the box back under the bed.
    “What you doing?” asked Robbie in a sleepy voice.
    “Just putting my night clothes away,” she said and laid her folded nightgown on top of the books. “You better get up now.”
    Gid was tossing hay down to the mules when Halley entered the barn a few minutes later. It was still so dark that she could hardly see him moving about up in the loft. She could smell the musty, dusty smell of hay, though, and hear the swishy thunks it made when it landed in the feed bins. Gid was whistling—a good sign, she thought.
    “Morning, Gid,” Halley called. “Did you see Bootsie last night?”
    “Sure did.”
    “What did she say?”
    “Said I was the sweetest boy she knowed.”
    Halley grunted impatiently. “You know what I mean! What did she say about . . .” She paused to look around quickly, and saw Goliath skulking behind her with suspicious eyes. “What did she say about Buck?”
    “Said no.”
    “I’ve got a little money to go toward feed if you think that’d change her mind,” Halley quickly offered, fingering the quarters in her pocket.
    “Let me finish,” said Gid. “Bootsie’s sister come out on the porch and seen Buck do his tricks. She took on about the way he could set up and beg. Then she said her husband Tom’s been looking for a railroad dog ever since his old one died.”
    “Railroad dog?” Halley had never heard of such.
    “Some of the railroad