Kerry Read Online Free PDF

someday. You must remember that this is a matter about which you have nothing to say!”
    Then Mrs. Kavanaugh went into her bedroom and shut the door.
    Kerry stood in front of her own door, her face white and set, staring at the door that had shut her mother away from her. It seemed like the closing of an eternity between them.
    A long time she stood there trying to think. She heard her mother going around her room, putting away her things, even humming a little tune, a bright little air she must have heard out in the world where she had been that day. The girl looked bitterly toward the undertaker’s bill lying on the floor. One thought burned within her soul. Her father’s burial must not be paid for with money furnished by Sam Morgan. There might be humiliations to come, but
that
should never happen. She knew that he would have chosen rather to be buried in the potter’s field than to have had such a thing happen. Of course, one amount of money was the same as another equal amount, but she could not stand the thought that her mother could have done such a thing—spent the burial money on herself, and then be willing to use Sam Morgan’s money in its place.
    Kerry stood there staring at her mother’s door, until she heard her mother lie down for her nap. She stood there while a great purpose grew within her, and until her limbs began to tremble and her feet ached. She must do something about it. She must prevent her mother’s paying that bill with unholy money!
    Quietly she went into her room and got her hat and coat. Cautiously she stole back through the sitting room, picking up the bill as she passed, and opened the door to the coat closet. Yes, the big brown box was still there on the shelf, the cord lying in a snarl on the closet floor. Mrs. Kavanaugh never was known to put anything away.
    Kerry lifted the lid of the box to make sure the coat was still inside. It had been too warm to wear it. Mrs. Kavanaugh had had it out only once since its arrival, and Kerry’s questions and anxiety about the price had caused her to put it out of sight again. Yes, it was there safely, lying in velvety lovely folds under the tissue paper.
    Kerry felt like a thief as she lifted the big box down from the shelf, tied the string firmly around it, carried it out into the hall, and closed the door cautiously behind her. Yet this thing was right that she was doing. It was just. Her mother had no right to take the money that her father had left for his burial and buy luxuries for herself, and then force his enemy’s money upon her husband. She would take the coat back where it was bought and beg them to return the money. If they would not do that she would sell the coat for what she could get and pay that bill. But her mother should not be allowed to do such a monstrous thing as that to her dead husband. Even though it might be only an idea, it was an idea that the loving daughter could not endure.
    Kerry’s heart was beating wildly, and there was a set to her lips that reminded one of her father, as she stepped out into the street carrying the large box.
    She trembled as she climbed into a tram car and paid her fare. She trembled more as she got out at the corner near the fur store and started toward the door. Now that she was here it seemed a preposterous thing she was about to do. Sell her beautiful little mother’s coat! Sell it without her knowledge! The habit of the years clutched at her throat and tried to detain her, but her loyal feet carried her straight inside the door, and her brave voice, though it trembled, gathered courage to ask for the proprietor.
    She was told he was busy, and she was left to wait in a dark little corner of an office. That half hour seemed a century, and she went through tortures as she schooled herself to meet a scornful proprietor, and become a humble suppliant. Over and over she repeated the words of a speech she had thought out, fearful lest she should forget; reminding herself constantly that