Roseflower Creek Read Online Free PDF Page A

fine-knitted sweater.
        "Drop one stitch, child, and the rest unravels."
        She sure was right. Ray dropped more than one stitch, and a lot of lives unraveled.

Chapter Four

    MeeMaw always said if you hate something long enough, it'll come back and bite ya'. So I know it was real bad of me to hate Darla Faye Brewster like I did. I was asking for it for sure, but I just couldn't help myself. Darla's daddy was the foreman at the Scottsdale Cotton Mill. Chester Britt was her brother, only they had different last names 'cause they had different daddies. Chester's daddy run off like mine did when he was little, and later on his mama married Noble Brewster and they had Darla.
        Nobody had much money around our parts. Most folks was 'bout as poor as the ones come before 'em. But Noble Brewster, he weren't as poor as the rest of us, him being the boss man at the mill and all. Darla Faye even had a shiny new red bicycle she got for Christmas one year. And when she banged it all up, well her daddy just got her another one.
        That weren't why I hated her, though. I thought it was real nice of her daddy when he give her that bike. She looked real fine riding it to school, I even told her so. But all she did was stick out her tongue like I said something awful to her. Fancy that. I was trying to be nice and let her know I didn't hold no grudge against her for what she done to me when I was just a little kid starting out in school.
        We was in first grade together, see. I wasn't real happy about going. I didn't have me any of that confidence, yet. I got me some when I met Carolee and then I got some more when I met Lexie, but that was later. So when I first started school I was real scared. I cried something awful to MeeMaw to let me back in the house 'cause Mama pushed me out on the back porch and locked the door.
        "Go on now, Lori Jean," she said. "You gotta go to school. That's the law." I was six. I sure didn't understand anyone making a law to scare the daylights out of little kids. I stayed on that porch, crying and crying. Mama come out once to tell me I'd be late.
        "Lori Jean, you get goin'. You'll be late your first day. They got a punishment for that!" she said.
        I reckon she thought that might help me get moving. She weren't a mean mama or nothing. But all that did was send the terror that was stuck in my throat clear down to my stomach, where it all come up along with the grits I had for breakfast.
        MeeMaw come outside then. She cleaned me up with a washcloth.
        "Lori Jean, honey," she said. "All you gotta do is follow them rules the teacher sets out and you'll do just fine." I trusted MeeMaw. She never told me any lies before, so I couldn't see no reason for her starting in just then. I went down that long dirt road and made my way to school.
        That year we had first, second, and third graders in our class all in one room. Mz. Pence was our teacher. She was real nice. I liked her right off. If I'da known she'd be so nice I might not of been scared a'tall. I might not of throwed my breakfast up even.
        Things was looking pretty good that first week. We got sectioned off into reading groups; those that could and those that couldn't. 'Course I couldn't, not having been to school a'fore. I was a Yellowbird. There was another group of birds that couldn't read, neither. They was Robins. The rest, they was Bluebirds. They were the big kids. They'd already been to school for a long time a'fore us. They bossed us around when Mz. Pence wasn't looking.
        Truth is, they strutted around like they was somebody and we weren't nobody. And we hadn't harmed anybody and was trying to please everybody. Add to that, we was fixin' to learn those letters that make up them words on the board we couldn't read. It was real hard. It was about all a body could stand.
        Even so, things was going along pretty good. I remembered what MeeMaw told me about