The Whipping Boy Read Online Free PDF

come up with such an opinion, still he thought it: big city.
    She looked at both Mr. Jaycox and him with almost a smile. “I hope you’re well this morning, Mr. Jaycox,” she said, and while he looked momentarily bemused by this, she glanced around the somber disorder of the room, showing no sign of fear, hiked up her skirt and actually led them out of the hotel.
    They all trailed up the hill and stood on the roofed porch of Blessing’s store. Cheerless, begrudging, greenish light began filtering through clouds that showed no sign of letting up. Near the train depot, a man in a big-wheeled hack was mired up to the axle, his mare struggling wildly under the continuously booming thunder, and Tom went over and helped him push it out. People all around the village were crawling out of damp nests. A few were trudging back and forth, carrying things up from low-lying houses and buildings.
    The young woman and Mrs. Oke, still clutching her cash box, remained on the porch watching the hopeless situation of the hotel, while others went inside and huddled around the stove. The prisoner and two deputies were soon grousing about this and that, the shorter deputy about the widow not refunding his money, the timber thief about having to do all the work.
    The taller deputy, who had a woeful, guilty look, seemed mainly concerned about breakfast. “Git no sleep, work all mornin helpin her, you’d think she’d git us somethin . . .”
    â€œ
Who
worked all morning?” the timber thief said. “Neither one of you dogberries knows
how
to work.”
    Townspeople trailed into the store a few at a time looking for help or consolation, clusters of refugees bringing more household items to the high ground, including bundles of clothes, chairs, broken-down beds, and some animals left outside—chickens, a little herd of goats, some cows. A couple of men wanted to “borrow” chicken wire from the store owner to make a temporary pen on the high ground behind the store, and he gave it to them. People talked quietly about who’d been washed out, who’d lost livestock, and where they could move things. The men made and lighted cigarettes, and the room smelled of sumac, tobacco, wet clothes, and upset nerves.
    The young woman from the hotel stood beside Mrs. Oke on the porch; a moment earlier she had come inside and looked around. Tom noticed that no one spoke to her. The deputies and the timber thief quit quarreling and watched her in a sullen, walleyed way.
    The short deputy poked Tom in the shoulder and said, with a dirty-toothed grin, “Like to git a little of that?”
    â€œI beg your pardon?” Tom said.
    â€œOh ho! Listen to that, Wayne. We have an educated one here. He’s so smart he don’t know what I’m talking about.”
    â€œTom,” Mr. Jaycox said sharply, “could you come over here, please.” He was sitting on a box back from the fire. He motioned Tom to sit next to him, then said quietly, “You probably ought to keep away from them.”
    â€œYes sir.”
    After a moment he said, “Tom, did you talk to that young woman?”
    â€œNo I didn’t, sir.”
    The salesman looked puzzled. “I don’t think I know her. I guess Mrs. Oke must have mentioned my name to her.”
    â€œYes sir.”
    â€œYou can call me Jake if you’d like.”
    â€œThank you, sir.”
    Mr. Jaycox looked around the store and sighed.
    Grim-faced, with mud to their knees, two more families from low-lying houses showed up, bringing things with them, and the store was now littered with wet furniture, wet bundles of clothes, wet and dismal people of all ages. Drips plinked down and buckets were accidentally knocked over on the floor.
    Mr. Jaycox spoke so no one but Tom could hear him. “Looks like John Blessing’s down to bartering pumpkins and sweet corn. This place is as sparse as a hillbilly’s teeth. When I sold