Spencer's Mountain Read Online Free PDF Page A

either to earn their independence or to help with the support of the numerous brothers and sisters. Long ago Clay Spencer had ruled out this possibility for his own sons and daughters. “I’ll give ’em what I was too big a fool to get,” he would declare. “Them babies of mine will get a high school education.”
    Now the first installment of his dream was drawing near. Clay-Boy, the only boy in a class of thirteen seniors, was due to graduate on the first of May.
    â€œI know it’s sinful to wish for somethen that just can’t be,” said Olivia, “but it would be my heart’s craven to see that boy go on to college.”
    â€œHe’s got the brains for it,” Clay nodded.
    â€œNo use day-dreamen,” said Olivia as she rose from the table to begin preparing the children’s breakfast.
    â€œGoen to be a nice day, looks like,” said Clay. “There’s the sun comen up.”
    A ray of sun sent a pencil of light into the room where the boys slept. Clay-Boy, careful not to wake his brother Matt, who slept beside him, rose from the bed and went to the window to watch the sun come up.
    His window overlooked an orchard of crabapple trees. Clay-Boy pretended to himself that they had been planted by Johnny Appleseed, and there was no reason why they could not have been. Now in the first light of a spring morning a curtain of light fog was lifting from the orchard. Already the tender green leaves were glistening on the trees, disguising the heavy gnarled old trunks and branches with their color and shape.
    Suddenly a flock of goldfinches flew into the orchard, thousands of little golden bundles that might have been flung from the morning sun into the pale green fog-damp orchard. They would cling to the young branches, fill the air with their canary-like warblings long enough to announce the new day and then disperse to their separate chores of eating or singing or courting. Each spring they came to the orchard and some mornings they came in such number that the pale green leaves would be concealed and the trees would become a swaying mass of gold and singing.
    Clay-Boy watched the gold-green singing morning until he heard his mother’s voice calling from the foot of the stairs.
    â€œBreakfast, everybody! Breakfast!”
    Clay went to the center of the room and pulled the cord that turned on the single electric bulb hanging from the ceiling. The glare of the bulb revealed two beds in the room. The one in which Clay-Boy had slept contained his next oldest brother, Matt. In the other bed, huddled together in a single blanket-covered lump were his next three brothers,Mark, Luke, and John. Clay-Boy gave each sleeping form a nudge, then crossed the hall, went into the girls’ room and switched on the light. There, in two more beds, were Becky, Shirley and Pattie-Cake. There was another child, but he slept in a baby bed in the room with his father and mother. His name was Donnie; he had not grown old enough to have much impact on the family and was referred to mostly as the baby. When he was satisfied that the girls were awake Clay-Boy went down to the kitchen. One after another the brood followed.
    â€œLord God Almighty!” said Clay as he sat at the head of the table and looked at his assembled offspring, “I never saw so many beautiful babies in my life.”
    There were nine of them in all. Each one had red hair, but on each head the shade was a little different. Clay-Boy’s hair was the color of dry corn shucks. Mart’s was the red of the clay hills. Becky’s long curls were the pink of a sunset; Shirley’s plaits were auburn. Luke’s hair was the russet of autumn leaves. Mark’s was reddish-blond. John’s ringlets were a golden red and Pattie-Cake’s little ponytail was an orange red and the baby had so little hair it was hard to tell what shade it might become. The shade could be from dark to light, the color was