The Bride's House Read Online Free PDF Page A

you?”
    “I’m not obliged to him. Besides, he never asked.”
    “He probably thought he didn’t have to. He’ll be mighty hurt.”
    “Well, I don’t see why. I’ve never encouraged him.” Nealie poured hot water into the bucket and scoured it out. “He presumes.”
    Mrs. Travers studied the girl for a moment. “I wonder if Mr. Spaulding is all vine and no potatoes,” she said, so softly that Nealie asked her to repeat the words. But the woman held her tongue, maybe because it wasn’t her place to tell Nealie what to do. If the girl wanted a bit of fun, she wouldn’t stand in her way. It was clear that Nealie hadn’t had much of it in her life.
    *   *   *
     
    At supper later in the week, the men talked about the drilling contest and who was likely to win. There were three events that Sunday: single, double, and triple jacking. A single jacker gripped a four-pound hammer in one hand. In the other, he held a drill—a steel rod with a pointed tip—against a slab of granite. The jacker turned the drill each time he hit it, some fifty times a minute, until he’d drilled a hole deep enough for a charge of dynamite. Two men made up a double-jack team, one holding and turning the drill in the granite, while the other hit it with an eight-pound hammer. With triple jacking, two men took turns hitting the drill, which was held by a third man. The winner was the man or the team that drilled farthest into the rock in a given amount of time. A good jacker was much admired, because the mines needed efficient drillers to make the holes for the dynamite charges.
    “You going to enter?” one of the men asked Charlie Dumas.
    “Naw, it’s not much of a contest, not like the Fourth of July,” Charlie replied, looking at Nealie, who was handing around a platter of ham meat.
    “You afraid you’ll lose,” the man taunted.
    “I wouldn’t lose,” Charlie replied. “I’d just rather watch, that is, if somebody’ll watch with me.” He tried to catch Nealie’s eye, but she refused to look at him.
    “Charlie’s getting soft,” another man said. “Maybe he’s lost his touch.”
    “I’m as good as I always was. I’d just rather stand by Miss Nealie while some other miner gets up a sweat.” Charlie grinned at Nealie and said, “I’m going to put a bet on Jonce Kelly, and if he wins, I’ll treat you to dinner at the Hotel de Paris, Miss Nealie.” He pronounced the hostelry’s name Pair-is , instead of Pair-ee . “How’d you like that, Miss Nealie? I bet you never been there.”
    Nealie blushed and fled into the kitchen with the empty platter. She returned with a bowl of mashed potatoes in one hand and a pitcher of gravy in the other.
    “You’re going with me, aren’t you, Miss Nealie?” Charlie looked at her, a little uncertain.
    The girl set down the gravy so hard that it slopped onto the table. “No. I don’t reckon I am, Mr. Dumas,” she told him.
    “Aw, you’ll like the drilling contests. Won’t you go with me?” Charlie said, as the other diners stopped eating to watch the two.
    “I got plans,” Nealie said. “I got other plans.”
    Charlie stared at her. “You don’t want to go with me?” he asked, his mouth half filled with food. The other diners stared at him, and he shifted in his chair.
    “You should have asked me before. Like I said, I got plans.”
    The dining room, which had once been the tiny house’s parlor, was small, barely big enough for a table and nine chairs, and the air was always close, as if the miners around the table used it up. But it seemed even stuffier than usual, what with the window closed against the cold. Nealie wanted to flee to the kitchen to escape the curiosity of the boarders. One or two of them had hoped to court Nealie themselves, but they’d seen how it was with Charlie, and they’d kept silent. Now they listened with interest, looking from Charlie to Nealie, hoping she had quit the big man.
    “Miss Bent is going with me,” Will said