Jacob Have I Loved Read Online Free PDF Page A

willing every eye to meet his. There were a few polite coughs from the shadowy darkness behind him. It was time. In just a few seconds it would begin. I didn’t dare to shift my gaze from Mr. Rice’s face to Caroline’s head, two rows behind and to the right of me in the back row, but my stomach knotted for her.
    Mr. Rice’s hands went down, and from the center of the back row Caroline’s voice came suddenly like a single beam of light across the darkness.
    I wonder as I wander out under the sky
    Why Jesus the Savior did come for to die
    For poor on’ry people like you and like I
    I wonder as I wander—out under the sky.
    It was a lonely, lonely sound, but so clear, so beautiful that I tightened my arms against my sides to keep from shaking, perhaps shattering. Then we were all singing, better than we had all night, better than we ever had, suddenly judged, damned, and purged in Caroline’s light.
    She sang once more by herself, repeating the words of the first verse so quietly that I knew surely I would shatter when she went up effortlessly, sweetly, and, oh, so softly, to the high G, holding it just a few seconds longer than humanly possible and then returning to the last few notes and to silence.
    A sharp report of applause suddenly rattled the room like gunfire. I jumped, first startled by the sound and then angered. I looked from the dark noisy blur to Mr. Rice, but he was already turning to take a bow. He motioned Caroline to step down and come forward, which she did. And when she turned to go back to her place, I was disgusted to see her dimpled and smiling. She was pleased with herself. It was the same expression she wore when she had thoroughly trounced me in checkers.
    When we left the gymnasium, the stars were so bright, they pulled me up into the sky like powerful magnets. I walked, my head back, my own nearlyflat chest pressed up against the bosom of heaven, dizzied by the winking brilliance of the night. “I wonder as I wander…”
    Perhaps I would have drowned in wonder if Caroline, walking ahead with my parents, had not turned and called my name sharply. “Wheeze, you better watch out walking that way,” she said. “You’re likely to break your neck.” She had now moved beyond my parents in the narrow street and was walking backward, the better, I suppose, to observe me.
    â€œBetter watch out yourself,” I snapped, annoyed and embarrassed to be so yanked away from the stars. I realized suddenly how cold the wind had become. She laughed merrily and, still walking backward, doubled her speed. She was not likely to run into anything. She never stumbled or bumped into things. That, she seemed to be saying, was what I did—often enough for both of us.
    Grandma was prone to arthritis and did not go out on a winter’s night, even to prayer meeting. So once home, we had to tell her all about the concert. Caroline did most of the talking, singing a snatch of this or that to remind Grandma of a carol she claimed never to have heard before.
    â€œDid you sing the Holy Night one again?”
    â€œNo, Grandma, remember, I told you Betty Jean Boyd was doing that this year.”
    â€œWhy was that? She can’t half sing like you can.”
    â€œCaroline sang a different one this year, Mother.” My mother was making cocoa for us and calling in a word here and there from the kitchen. “Betty Jean sounded very sweet.”
    Caroline gave me a look and snorted out loud. I knew she was expecting me to contradict Momma, but I wasn’t going to. If Caroline wanted to be snobbish about Betty Jean, she could do it on her own.
    Caroline had begun to imitate Betty Jean’s singing of “O Holy Night.” It was almost perfect, just a fraction flatter and shakier than Betty Jean’s voice had been, the o’s and ah’s parodies of Betty Jean’s pretentious ones. She ended the performance with a mournful shriek more than