The Trees Read Online Free PDF Page B

down and that held him. Worth tracked in soon after with two deer-hides and a fine black fisher fox. He scowled a little to see the Indian sitting there on the floor. They talked a while in Delaware till Jary ran out of firewood.
    “I tole you many a time,” Worth growled, “not to leave your axe out under the snow.”
    Sayward took it from the bed of leaves while her father eyed her close.
    “You sleep here with Jary last night?”
    She nodded. The Delaware was watching too. His sharp black eyes ran from face to face for what he could read. He picked up the axe and ran his finger over the bit and you could see he was putting two and two together. Oh, you could see this was a joke to him, a young squaw taking an axe to bed against a stout, hearty hunter like he was. Helaughed silently, his nose and belly both shaking like bone jelly. He gave her back the axe and felt the girl’s arm and thigh.
    “He don’t know no better,” Worth said.
    The Delaware was like a big child now. He had to go over this joke till it was stale. But Worth didn’t laugh.
    “I don’t want you takin’ no more Injuns in when I’m off,” he said darkly after the company was gone.
    “I thought you liked Injuns?” Jary’s mouth was grim.
    “I kin git along with them, but you mought not,” Worth said.

CHAPTER FIVE
BREAD
    I F I had bread,” Jary complained that morning, “then I believe I could eat.”
    The young ones stared at her, avoiding each other’s eyes. They had known for a long time that their mother was tottery, with one foot in the grave. What they didn’t know was that her sense was failing. Never had she talked queer before. It was a sign her other foot was shuffling mighty close to the bury hole.
    “Look, Saird, she got bread now and ain’t teched it yit,” Wyitt said, pointing to what Jary held in her hand.
    Even Sayward had to think a minute what her mother meant. Then she recollected that it started back in Pennsylvania one of the times the meal bag had been empty. The young ones were tired of meat. They had cried for a change. They wantedjohnnycake and mush. Now Indian meal was something unhandy to get hold of in the woods, Jary told them, but if they were tired of meat, they could eat bread for a while. Bread was better than johnnycake or mush, everybody knew.
    That opened the young ones’ eyes. So they had bread! Jary called on Worth to swear to it and he nodded his head shortly. Now bread, she told them, was venison, turkey and such. Only the dark flesh of bear, coon and such was meat. Bread was lighter and went in the blood easier than meat. And from now on she wanted to hear them call things by their right names, bread bread and meat meat. Even Worth had to say bread for venison, though for a while the word stuck in his throat. And now the young ones had grown so used to seeing bread on their mother’s trencher, they thought her weak in the head to be calling for bread and standing there with an untouched turkey wing in her hand.
    What the young ones didn’t know, Sayward told herself, wouldn’t hurt them. But this was something too good for Genny to pass by. Sayward could hear her now up in the limbs of the hung elm with the younger ones still as possums around her. Genny had a knowing mind. And now she was telling them the bread their mother hankered for wasn’t turkey or venison. No, turkey and venison weren’t bread at all. Their mother had made that up. Bread was something settlement people had on theirtrenchers. It was a little like johnnycake, only bigger and better. She and Sayward had tasted it when they were little tykes on a Conestoga visit. It made her mouth water now just to mind it.
    All the others’ mouths were watering, too. They spat to the ground lushly with Genny.
    “Ginny, go on!” they told her, but all Genny could tell them was that once on a time a chit of a girl had sat up to a shaved-board table. She was pretty as a settlement lady tricked out in her white church gown and