Olivia, Mourning Read Online Free PDF

Olivia said in a small voice, feeling cruel the moment she said it.
    “Don’t need ’em. I can sleep in the loft over at the livery. Or in Smithy’s back room. In someone’s barn. Wherever I be workin’.”
    “Oh.” Olivia imagined having to sleep in a pile of hay and started to get up, anxious to be home and safely away from Mourning.
    “Tonight I’m a sleep in that old barn, ’cross from Mrs. Place’s. You could bring me some food over to there, you felt like.”
    “You already ate all the food.”
    “Can’t you get no more?”
    “I don’t know,” she said, tilting her head toward a shrugged shoulder, afraid of getting in trouble. “What kind of food?”
    “Kind you eat.”
    She stared at him, her bottom lip sucking the top one. “I don’t know.” She began putting things in her basket. When she reached for the tablecloth, he stood up too.
    “Bread be good, you ain’t got nothin’ else.”
    She packed her things as quickly as she could.
    “Blanket be good, too. Get cold at night.”
    “You can have this.” She held out the tablecloth, which she had been folding. It was hers, for her picnic basket, and Mrs. Hardaway would never notice it was gone.
    He took the cloth and fingered it. “Thanks. But a blanket still be good.”
    “Okay,” Olivia said, remembering an old gray blanket in the linen closet she didn’t think anyone would miss. “But you’ve got to promise to teach me to skip stones on the river the way you do.”
    He nodded and grinned, then turned to frown at her. “And you ain’t gonna tell nobody ’bout me bein’ here?”
    “No. I won’t tell. Cross my heart.” She made a large X over her chest with her right hand. “I have to go home now.” She picked up the basket.
    “See you later,” he said.
    “Bye.”
    She started walking away, then stopped and turned around. “Mourning?”
    “What?”
    “How come you didn’t hide from me?”
    He stared at her for a few moments. “Don’t know. Just dint think I had to.”
    She hadn’t planned on going back. She couldn’t take things from home without asking permission; that would be stealing. But back in her room she couldn’t stop thinking about how cold it had been last night. Finally she got the gray blanket, threw it out her window, and ran downstairs and outside to hide it in the bushes at the back of the house. She felt terribly guilty until she remembered the time she had heard the grown-ups talking. They said the slave-catchers called the abolitionists thieves because they helped slaves get away. But Mrs. Brewster said that wasn’t stealing at all, that was a very good deed; they were helping poor black souls who were escaping from vile evil-doers. So somehow Olivia mixed it up in her mind and exonerated herself. Mourning was, after all, poor, black, and running away. So taking things to help him wouldn’t really be stealing.
    Once she began her spree of crime, she was surprised by how easy it was. She simply waited until Mrs. Hardaway was hanging laundry out back and filled her basket with apples, bread, and small amounts of smoked fish and venison. When she thought of Mourning all alone in the dark she added some candles and matches. Then she stood by the front door, waiting to hear Mrs. Hardaway come back in. When the back door banged Olivia fled with her picnic basket, ran behind the house to retrieve the blanket, and set off to find Mourning.
    Since it was still light she didn’t think he would have gone to the barn yet, so she returned to the river. The breeze had picked up and a ribbon of gold shimmered across the water. She gave a loud whistle and then began singing “Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary,” in case Mourning might be afraid to come out and see who was whistling.
    He emerged from behind a stand of bushes. She handed him the blanket and held up one of the wooden flaps of the basket to show him the food. Then she pulled out her slate, which she had added at the last minute.
    “What that for?” He