The Family Greene Read Online Free PDF

mind to
me.
    We talked. He left no spaces, no silences.
    He was the son of a Quaker preacher. His mother had died when he was eleven. He was curiosity driven. He loved reading—Locke's
An Essay Concerning Human Understanding,
Ferguson's
Essay on the History of Civil Society,
not to mention Roman history—but he did not lord it over me.
    "Why, until a certain age, my only education was the Bible," he said. "I had to beg my pa for a tutor."
    "And do you spend most of your time at books, then?" I asked.
    "I wrestle iron into anchors. I stoke furnaces. I plow fields. And now, with the help of some of my brothers, I'm building myself a house in Coventry. But I still live in the family home in Potowomut. And I've often seen you, Caty, when you ride your horse by my house."
    I stared at him. "You
saw
me? Did you know who I was?"
    "Of course. I'd been here in this house to your uncle's meetings many times, though you'd never spoken to me. I thought you didn't like me. Or thought me a pipe-smoking old man who cared nothing about anything but politics."
    "You're not an old man. And no, it wasn't that."
    "What was it, then? Why did you never so much as give me a glance?"
    So he'd noticed! And he'd cared! And here I'd thought all along that he hadn't even known I'd existed. I felt my face flush, knowing I had to say some words, make some sense, or come off like a complete idiot.
    "I heard from my cousin Sammy Ward that you had a broken heart. I was afraid to talk to you."
    His face went sad of a sudden, but just for a moment. "His sister Nancy. I'm over that now."
    "Since when?"
    "Since tonight, when I got to know you."
    I gulped. What did one say to that? I wished Sarah were here. She'd know. But I found then that I knew, too.
    "But you are so much older," I protested. "Why would you even be interested in me?"
    "I warn you, Caty, I am. And tonight I intend to ask your uncle if I may begin to come round and see you on a regular basis. We both have time to get to know each other. I can wait. Are you agreeable to that?"
    I said I was. Then he said he thought we ought to go back into the house. He must keep his word to my aunt and uncle. For, after all, he had promised to be nothing less than honorable. Could I abide with that, he wanted to know?
    I told him yes, I could. He took my arm and guided me back into the house. And his touch thrilled me, even though it was honorable.

CHAPTER SIX
    N EVER DID the word
honorable
translate into so much fun for me, and pain, as over the next few years of courtship.
    It had taken me a while to get accustomed to the fact that the handsome young man who came a-knocking at Uncle Greene's front door was knocking for me.
    Of course, he still came for Whig meetings and I would wait in the parlor, distractedly doing needlework while the meetings went on, praying for them to be over, while Aunt Catharine scolded that I should not appear so anxious.
    "Be a little less interested," she would whisper. "Go upstairs to your room. Let him wait for you!"
    "Wait for me?"
Is she daft?
"Why should I act disinterested? Don't you remember how it was when you and Uncle Greene were courting? How the minute your eyes met across a room you were together? Couldn't you feel each other's hands? And faces, side by side?"
    "And what would you know of faces, side by side?" she would ask. "I hope he is behaving with you. I hope you are behaving as you are supposed to be."
    I would sit there and think of Nathanael's broad shoulders when he took his jacket off, of his strong hands, of the way his face felt when he needed a shave. I would close my eyes and thank God for having made men the way he made them because He, God, had been so clever about it. The way He'd know what we women would want and need.
    ***
    O NE DAY , Nathanael and I had ridden over to the house he was building in Coventry. It overlooked the Pawtuxet River. Along the river a family was picnicking. Of a sudden we heard a scream from the mother. A little boy had