My Children Are More Precious Than Gold Read Online Free PDF

ne asked, “Does that hurt, Jacob?”
    Jacob winced. “Still feels tender,
Doc.”
    “ The break looks to be
mended. Just keep putten a little more weight on that leg each day.
When it hurts, rest a spell. You're not hiken down to the river any
time soon, but that time will come. Do you have any of Genon Mitt's
bamhegillie salve? The skin on yer leg is flaky and dry. Y'all need
to rub some salve on that leg for the itching.”
    “ Why, Doc, thought ya
would be again usen Genon's home remedy medicines,” teased
Jacob.
    “ That ole witch of a
midwife's all right in her place,” the doctor said brusquely, “I
wouldn't exactly call what she gives folks medicine. Usen
bamhegillie salve for a liniment works as good on horses as it does
people, Jacob, and y'all know that.”
    Nannie handed the men coffee. “Doc,
tell us what ya think about Lydia.”
    “ Nannie, she's got to mend
at her own speed just like Jacob’s leg. When the weather warms up
in the afternoons, get her out on the porch in the sunlight, but
don't let her over do. There isn’t any reason for me to make
another call unless ya send for me. I’d tell the other younguns if
I were you about Lydia's heart so they can help ya watch out for
her. If they know they will not tire her out.”
    “ We'll do that, Doc,”
Nannie agreed. “Now drink that coffee afore it gets
cold.”
    At school that morning, Bess tired in
a hurry of concentrating on arithmetic problems. She laid down the
slate and chalk on her desk. While she gazed out the sun drenched
window beside her, she felt the warmth of the golden rays, dancing
on her and the other children seated along the school room's wall
of windows. Impatiently patting her bare foot on the floor, she
wished to be outside, enjoying the day.
    The first thing to go when Spring
arrived were their shoes. The children needed to save the pair Pap
made them until there was an important reason to wear them. Usually
that reason was winter. Not that the children minded going
barefoot. That was just the way things were done on the ridge. The
children could hardly wait to get out of their stiff leather shoes
that hurt their feet.
    While they walked the two and half
miles to school that spring morning, the Bishop children had
bounced around the thought of playing hooky. They agreed the day
was much too nice to be stuck inside the school, especially with
the teacher, Mr. Steincross, whom the children had nicknamed Ole
Mr. Crosspuss.
    Before they knew it the one room
schoolhouse with a row of windows on the south side loomed in front
of them. Not one of them had the nerve to turn and
leave.
    At her desk, Bess watched out the
windows while birds fluttered from the trees to the freshly mowed
school yard, filling their beaks with fresh grass clippings to make
nests. Red blurs of two squirrels, playfully scampering around,
darted up a tree trunk as one chased the other. Bess caught the
streak of a white and gray form melting into the underbrush as a
rabbit, startled by the antics of the squirrels, disappeared from
sight.
    “ Bess! Bess
Bishop!”
    With a start, Bess looked toward the
teacher. “Yes, sir.”
    The teacher gave her a stern look.
“Pay attention to your lesson, will you please?”
    “ Yep, I will,” answered
Bess, meekly. She heard the snickers around her. Bess picked up her
slate and held it in front of her warm, blushing face.
    At the front of the room, the younger
students practiced spelling at the blackboard. Dillard raised his
hand, waving it back and forth and spoke, “Teacher, kin I be
excused to go to the outhouse?”
    “ May you,” the teacher
corrected. “It's almost time to eat lunch. Are you sure you can't
wait until then?”
    “ No, I cain’t,” Dillard
assured him. Uncrossing his legs when the teacher nodded approval,
he pattered across the room to the door. He sprinted across the
yard, and disappeared into the boy's outhouse in the far corner of
the yard.
    Suddenly a dark shadow crept over Bess
and