This Side of Jordan Read Online Free PDF Page B

other side of this bridge.”
    Life was strange, Alvin thought, as a sort of weary exhilaration came over him. He had walked three miles to the derby and that was a long haul when he lived on the farm, but last week his only true ambition had been to go fishing Saturday morning with Frenchy, maybe lie on a summer hammock afterward by a hackberry grove near the creek. So he said to this fellow he hadn’t even known an hour ago, “I guess I’ll take that pie.”
    Chester put the Packard back into gear. “You sure you’re not going to pull out of it? It’s pretty easy to get bitter if somebody goes back on you.”
    â€œNo, sir.”
    â€œYou’re a brick, kid.”
    â€œThanks.”

HADLEYVILLE, MISSOURI
    W HEN ALVIN PENDERGAST WAS THIRTEEN , two years before the consumption, he and Cousin Frenchy sneaked a ride one Saturday night on a melon truck driving south to market in Macomb. They figured on traveling a while before jumping off in the next county and hitching a ride back on Sunday. It was summer and the night was warm, so they just lay back and counted stars and gabbed about girls and fishing until they got sleepy and nodded off for a few hours. When they woke up, they found themselves parked behind a blacksmith shop next to a backhouse and a chicken coop full of squawking hens and a pack of children collecting eggs for breakfast. Alvin and Frenchy crawled down off the melon truck and walked out in front of the store to have a look-see, take the “lay of the land” as Frenchy put it. Not that there was all that much to see: a long dirt street, all the buildings on one side, shade trees and huge blackberry bushes on the other. Men sitting in chairs out front of the stores. Wagons parked at the curb. Horses reined to hitching posts. No automobiles anywhere. One sign on a post draped in trumpet vines across the road leading into town told them where they were: Hiram, Ky. Pop. 132. If they hadn’t just recently gorged themselves on melon, they’d have been in trouble because neither possessed more than sixteen cents in his pockets. Alvin had a peculiar feeling, walking down the middle of Hiram’s main street with Frenchy, trying to ignore the thought burning in his brain that he might never see home in Illinois again—an awfully black thought for a thirteen-year-old. Men stared at them from the storefronts clear down to the end of the road leading out of town. Alvin didn’t see any women at all. The heels of the shoes Frenchy wore kicked up a trail of dust behind him, disturbing swarms of black flies off the horse apples in the dirt. Past a livery stable, the road bent left and went up a hill lined with more blackberry bushes. The boys followed it, hoping to find a county highway and another truck driving north to Illinois. Coming down the slope toward them was a preacher dressed all in black and carrying a leatherbound Bible. Back in Illinois, Alvin’s mother attended church every Sunday, but his father never went, claiming the Lord knew how he felt about Him and didn’t require a weekly recitation of those affections. Sunday School was where Alvin learned all about slingshots and miracles, which he preferred to sitting with the adults where everybody talked about loving the gospel while they farted all morning. Church was fine so long as it didn’t last more than a couple hours and Momma cooked dinner afterward, but this particular Sunday in Hiram was different. The preacher had a little boy alongside dressed just the same as he was: black frock coat and suit, wide-brimmed hat, leatherbound Bible and comfort shoes. He had eyes like a crow and a face white as a spook. Man and boy shared the same gait, a purposeful stride that brought them straight down the road to Alvin and Frenchy. Probably they’d have walked right on by had Frenchy not whistled at the boy once they passed. Both preacher and disciple came about together just a few yards