Halley Read Online Free PDF

people keep a pet that makes all the runs with ’em. Mostly it’s dogs but she said Tom’d heard tell of one railroad cat .”
    “And the railroad bosses allow it?”
    Gid laughed. “I spect the higher ups don’t even know about it. So if Tom takes a shine to ’im, old Buck would get to travel the country right there in the train cab, and he’d eat whatever the workers eat. He’d have his living made . Can you beat that?”
    Halley let out a happy sigh. At least the family dog might get a happy ending. “Thank you, Gid,” she said and ran to get the milk.
    Breakfast was skimpy—biscuits, gravy, and coffee or milk for everyone. In addition to this, Gid and Pa Franklin each had an egg and two thin slices of fried salt pork.
    “We’re working,” Pa Franklin explained when he saw Robbie’s eyes on his plate. “When you’re doing a man’s work, you’ll get fed like a man.”
    Robbie did not complain. His spirits were high since Halley had passed on the possible good news about Buck. Though she had warned against counting on it, Robbie had soon convinced himself that Buck was born to be a railroad dog.
    As he ate, Pa Franklin laid out the day’s work. “We’re going to pull corn in the south field,” he said to Gid, “and we’ve got to fix that buggy wheel too.”
    “Good,” said Gid. “I’ll need it fixed for Saturday by dinner, when I aim to quit work.”
    “I ain’t fixing that buggy so’s you can loafer all over the country while work here goes undone.”
    “I’m twenty, Pa. Plenty old enough to court girls.”
    “Run with sorry girls, you mean, like that Hawkins girl. Ain’t no decent girls hanging around them dances you go to. You going to have to build you a shed back behind the house and do your own cooking and washing if’n you fool around and catch a bad disease.”
    Robbie put down his fork. “What’s a bad disease?”
    “Eat and keep quiet,” Kate said.
    “We seen Luke Calvin and his family yesterday in Belton,” Pa Franklin said after a while.
    “Him and all them fine-looking daughters of his’n,” said Ma Franklin. “That Clarice is pretty as a picture.”
    Gid rolled his eyes. “Do tell.”
    “Luke says Old Man Samson is about to have his first cotton come in,” Pa Franklin continued. “Kate, I told Luke that you and the young’uns would hire on along with me.”
    “Very well, Pa,” said Kate.
    Pa Franklin turned stern eyes on Halley and Robbie. “Ever’body’s got to earn their keep. These are hard times.”
    “Especially in this house,” said Gid.
    Pa Franklin looked at Kate. “Bernice Mitman can help you get on at the mill. You go see her, and she’d learn you what she knows about being a weaver.”
    “Yes, sir,” Kate said.
    Halley’s heart sank. Mama working in that dangerous place!
    Catching his father’s eye averted, Gid sandwiched a slice of his pork into a biscuit and slipped it onto Robbie’s plate. He put a finger to his lips and grinned.
    Ma Franklin was watching the entire time and Halley feared she’d tell, but she remained silent.
    Pa Franklin took a drink of coffee and frowned at Kate. “You must’ve made this coffee. It’s weak as cat piss.”
    “Mama don’t allow us to use that word,” Robbie said, turning to his mother for support.
    “Not a thing wrong with calling a thing what it is,” Pa Franklin said. “And quit talking with your mouth full.”
    “I was trying to be saving with coffee,” Kate said. “It’s thirty-eight cents a pound.”
    “Save somewhere else,” he replied. “I can’t abide weak coffee.”
    There was a silence for a few minutes, and then Ma Franklin smiled across the table at Gid. “Since you’re bound and determined to loafer on Saturday, I tell you where you can go in that buggy. Miz Calvin told us yesterday that her high faluting sister in Atlanta sent a big box of hand-me-downs, and she said Kate’s young’uns could help their selves. You could go over there and set a spell and then fetch