The Sweetest Thing Read Online Free PDF Page B

and neva’ be able to go ta school no more. And it ain’t Mama who did it.”
    â€œYou know who stole those knives, Parthenia?”
    Her face went blank, and then she looked fearful as she backed away from me.
    â€œI don’t know nuthin’, nuthin’ at all, Miz Mary Dobbs. I promise I don’t know nuthin’.” She turned her back and said, “I gots ta get this dinner made.”
    I didn’t ask any more questions, but as I stood beside the big iron stove, I wondered at the story I’d just heard, and I wanted to help Parthenia and her family. I had no idea how I could help, but maybe God did.
    With her back to me, Parthenia said, “So Papa and me and my brother, we do the best we can. I’m a pretty fine cook, I am. Bin heppin’ my mama since I was five.” She grunted slightly as she leaned down and lifted a heavy pot from under the stove.
    â€œHere, let me help you.” I filled the pot with water from the faucet, and then Parthenia struck a match and got the gas eye going, and before long she had a pot roast in the oven and vegetables cooking on the stove. The aroma of good food cooking in the kitchen wrapped around me, and I relished it for a moment, almost tasting it. The Chandlers’ kitchen represented bounty to me.
    When six o’clock came and still no one arrived home, Parthenia asked, “Do ya wanna see the stables?”
    I shrugged. “Why not?”
    We went out the back door, passed the garage—big enough for five cars—and walked into the stables, where we stood in the hallway looking at the horses and ponies, their fine arched necks and velvet muzzles sticking out over the wooden half doors to the stalls. Parthenia patted one. “This here’s Red. He’s my favorite.”
    â€œDo you ride him?”
    Again that shocked look, the whites of her eyes lighting up her face like two big exclamation points. “No! But sometimes I he’p Cornelius feed ’em.” As we walked through the stables, the smell of fresh hay and oats greeted me. “And ova’ there is the pig and the chickens and the cow.”
    We had just left the barn and were halfway down the hill to the lake when we heard a car engine rumbling in the driveway. “Uh-oh. We’s gotta git back to the main house, quick!” Parthenia took off at a gallop with me following behind. We rushed in the back door, letting the screen door slam shut, and hurried into the kitchen, out of breath.
    A few minutes later, the man who had driven us home from the train station came into the kitchen. He nodded to me and said, “Hello, Miz Mary Dobbs.” He had a serious expression on his face, and he was big—not just tall, but big in every way, and every inch of him seemed to be muscle. I thought I would never want to make Hosea mad. But then he knelt down, and Parthenia ran over to her father and hugged him tight around the neck, and he didn’t seem threatening at all.
    â€œIs it really true? He’s dead? And did ya haveta cut him down, Papa? Did you and Cornelius haveta do it?”
    He glanced at me with a worried expression, patted Parthenia’s braids, and said, “ Shh now, little one. You be askin’ too many questions, and they’s not appropriate for a child. Sho’ does smell good in this kitchen. Who done fixed such a delicious-smellin’ meal?”
    Parthenia beamed. “It’s me, Papa.”
    He picked her up, hugged her close, and swung her around, and then he took the roast out of the oven, sliced it, and ladled meat and potatoes and carrots onto two plates for us. “We gonna take the rest of this dinner out to the car. The Singletons gonna be needin’ as much food as they can git.”
    In five minutes he was gone.
    I spent the first evening at the Chandler house picking at the pot roast and vegetables at the little kitchen table with Parthenia. I had lost my appetite.
    Later that