The Courtship of the Vicar's Daughter Read Online Free PDF

peeking at the joint of beef in the oven, “You do, and I’ll go live with Mrs. Brent, and who would cook and clean up after you then?”
    “It’s thet sharp tongue thet keeps men from courting, girl.”
    “It’s our family’s reputation,” she shot back, hiding the effect of his hurtful words behind a bustle of cooking activity. There was one once , she thought. Orville Trumble, the owner of Gresham’s general shop, had been interested in her when she was nineteen. But having to brave a gauntlet of surly brothers and a hostile father every time he paid a call had finally gotten the best of him. Now she had heard that the shopkeeper was courting Miss Hillock, the beginners’ schoolmistress. It was not that Mercy had lost her one true love those four years ago, for their courtship had not had the chance to blossom that far. It was the thought of what might have been that was difficult to swallow.
    Don’t think about that , she told herself. It became quite easy to keep her mind occupied some minutes later when her brothers bustled into the house for their lunch. Dale and Harold were the oldest, at twenty-six and twenty-nine years of age. Oram and Fernie, fourteen and fifteen, were next in ages, then Jack and Edgar. Except for Mercy and Edgar, who had inherited their mother’s hazel eyes, the Sanders siblings were all cast from the same mold as their father, with green eyes, ruddy complexions, and strapping physiques.
    “After we eat, I want you to scrub the water trough,” her father was saying to Jack from the head of the table between bites of roast beef, boiled potatoes, and cabbage. Clicks of pewter cutlery against crockery plates provided background noises against the usual mixture of banter and complaint, sprinkled with occasional profanity.
    “Aw, Papa—” the ten-year-old started but then clamped his mouth shut after receiving a look of warning. While Willet Sanders had taught his sons by example that authority in general was to be scorned, his own rule was supreme—and correction came swiftly in the form of a blow with the back of a hand or a strapping.
    “I seen those school men out front,” Oram said while managing to chew at the same time. “You ran ’em off, didn’t you, Papa?”
    Busy with the meal in front of him, Mercy’s father grunted something in the affirmative.
    “You should ha’ called me,” Fernie said. With one deft movement he transferred cabbage juice from his chin to his sleeve. “I would’ve took the shotgun after ’em.”
    “Tried to.” He flung Mercy a wounded glance. “Now they’ll only be comin’ back to pester us.”
    “They were just trying to help Jack and Edgar,” Mercy argued, grimacing inwardly as Dale plunged a food-grimed fork into the butter crock. Long ago she’d given up trying to get her family to use a butter knife. And about the same time she’d stopped putting butter on her own bread.
    “They don’t care nothin’ about Jack and Edgar,” Harold, the oldest, declared. “They just want that spinnin’ jenny for the school yard.”
    “It’s a merry-go-round, not a spinning jenny,” Mercy corrected. “And they do care about Jack and Edgar. Why would they risk coming out here for the sake of something they’re too old to enjoy?”
    “Well, what’s the difference anyhow?”
    After the meaning of his question became clear to her, Mercy replied, “A spinning jenny is for weaving, a merry-go-round is for playing. It twirls around in a circle as children ride upon it.” At least that was what she had read in a book.
    “It does?” asked Edgar, perking up considerably. “Can it go fast?”
    “Now, don’t you go getting ideas.” His father waved a fork at him. “You’ve enough to do here without takin’ fancy notions about school.”
    “Mebbe they should put a spinnin’ jenny in the school yard instead,” Harold snickered. “Give ’em somethin’ useful to do instead of recitin’ poems.” This caused several more snickers, for