The Twelfth Child Read Online Free PDF

of 1923, when a number of the Valley’s farmers moved off to places where there was work in factories and a man could make a decent living, the Lannigan family dug deeper into the parched earth. Livonia had a vegetable garden that for years had been plentiful, but this particular summer the string beans withered on the vine, the blackberries didn’t grow at all and the yams were small as hen’s eggs. William’s patience was shorter than ever and at times even young Will’s lack of attention would be enough to set him off. “Damn it, boy, you’re gonna grow up stupider than a mule!” he’d shout and then tear into a God-awful rage over some piddling thing such as the proper way to pitch a forkful of hay. 
    “Fussing at the children won’t make the crops grow better,” Livonia would say but she could just as well have saved her breath.
    It happened that summer, on a Tuesday morning when the air was so thick and heavy it clogged a person’s nose just to breathe, the awful animosity between Abigail Anne and her papa got to be full blown. It was the same Tuesday two milk cows were laboring to birth calves. William had been out in the barn since suppertime the day before. One of the heifers had slid down the chute like greased lightning and was already suckling on its mama but William’s best milker had a breech calf damned and determined not to make its way into the world. Right after breakfast, Livonia sent young Will to the barn, “Give your papa a hand,” she’d told him; but when the second cow took to bellowing like her guts was being torn out of her, the boy got sick and came scurrying back to the house with his face green as early meadow grass. 
    “Please don’t make me go back, Mama,” he said. “That cow’s suffering something awful. She’s gonna die. I can’t just stand there and watch.”
    “You’re not supposed to watch. You’re supposed to help.”
    “I can’t.  I just plain can’t.”  
    “I can, Mama!” Abigail Anne piped up. 
    “You’ll do no such thing,” Livonia told her. “You stay in this house and leave your papa alone. He’s got troubles enough this morning.”
    “But, I know how! I seen a book on birthing calves.”
    “Book or no book, you leave your papa alone!”
    For a few minutes it seemed as if Abigail had settled down and forgotten the notion of birthing a calf but as soon as Livonia’s back was turned, the girl slipped out the screen door and made her way down to the barn. “I come to help you, Papa,” she said. William had both arms up inside the cow trying to turn the breech calf and didn’t so much as nod. “Papa,” Abigail repeated, “didn’t you hear? I come to help. I know about birthing.” She moved toward the stall.
    “Get out of here, girl. Get back to the house.”
    “No.  I come to help. I’m not scared of the cow. See.” She stepped closer.
    “You get your skinny little ass out of here, Abigail Anne; else you’ll get the switching of your life.”
    Abigail didn’t back off, just stood her ground and stayed right where she was. “I can help as much as Will,” she said. 
    William didn’t even answer; he just kept pushing at the guts of that poor cow. A short time later he pulled a dead calf free of the bawling mother then he turned to Abigail Anne and whacked her across the face—full force with the back of his hand. “No snip of a girl’s gonna sass me!” he roared. “Now, get outta here and stay outta here!” 
    His hand had come down so hard that Abigail Anne went sprawling clean across the barn and already had three red welts rising up on her right cheek. “I hate you, Papa!” she screamed, then turned and ran from the barn fast as those little legs could carry her. 
    Much as it might be something she’d never admit, Abigail Anne could be every bit as willful as her father. Halfway back to the house she spotted Malvania in the pen and, defiant as a headstrong bull, she scooted under the gate and climbed up on the