Tree By Leaf Read Online Free PDF Page A

hid his face. He walked slowly, arms stiff. By the time he got to the front door, they had all gathered there, except Lou, because Lou spent Sunday nights in the village with her family.
    It was last Sunday, the Sabbath, when the manreturned. He stood there with his head down, so all they could see was the top of his broad hat. Then he lifted his face to let them see him.
    Dierdre cried out, and cried for Mother. She ran to hide behind Mother’s skirts, and scream. Nate turned abruptly and went back into the house, and they didn’t see him again that night. Clothilde just stood there.
    The face had skin that was not like human skin, not smoothly fitted over its bones. The skin was red and lumped, like a statue made out of clay by a child who didn’t know how to make anything. The far end of one eyelid drooped down, lumpy, white, and the face had no eyebrows.
    The face had dark blue eyes, eyes that looked at them all, at the place where Nate had stood, and at Dierdre clutching at Mother’s skirt, trying to climb up into Mother’s arms, at Clothilde. Mother bent down and took Dierdre into her arms. Dierdre, sobbing, hid her face in Mother’s neck, and her hands clutched at Mother’s shoulders. Mother had tears pouring down her cheeks, and she didn’t say a word.
    Clothilde wished she would run away, or hide her face and scream. Her pain and anger—they burned in her until she thought if she had a gun she would shoot it at the face, and kill him.
    The face had no expression. The mouth started to move.
    “I’m sorry,” he said, in Father’s voice.
    Sorry for what?
Clothilde’s mind asked, so bitter her mouth dried up around the question.
    He just stood there, his boots coated with dust and mud, as if he’d walked all the way from France, all the years. “I’m home.”

Chapter 3
    In the evening, after Clothilde and Lou had made the chowder, they gathered together in the parlor where, as always, Mother read the Gospels to them. They had eaten a supper of thick toasted bread, spread with butter and sprinkled with cinnamon and sugar. After the meal, while Mother gave Dierdre her bath, Lou washed the few dishes and Clothilde chopped onions and potatoes. Now the chowder was simmering on the stove and they were all sitting around the parlor while Mother read.
    Lou and Clothilde had handiwork to do, but Nate sat motionless. He was too old to whittle the way he had when he was younger. Dierdre sat on the rug with the cloth doll Mother had made for her. Lou darned stockings, mostly Clothilde’s because she seemed to get more tears in hers than anyone else. Lou’s black thread wove back and forth, over and under, mending the tear. Clothilde had been given Father’s opera cloakto carefully unmake, separating the white silk lining from the fine-woven black wool. She would have the black, for a dress if there was enough material, or a skirt. Dierdre would have the lining for a party dress, if there should be a party for her to go to, where a white silk dress would be the proper thing to wear. Clothilde cut through the tiny stitches, one by one, with the little sharp tool Mother had for ripping out hems. Nate sat on the sofa beside Mother, leaning forward, his elbows on his knees, his chin on his elbows, his eyes on the floor.
    Mother read in a smooth, light voice. When she read from the Bible it was a slower speech than when she talked because her mouth formed the syllables more carefully. She read Acts. How many times in her twelve years she had heard this, Clothilde couldn’t have said. Between Mother’s nightly readings and church on Sundays, many times. “For as I passed by, and beheld your devotions, I found an altar with this inscription, TO THE UNKNOWN GOD . Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, Him declare I unto you,” Mother read. She didn’t read dramatically, with a voice that rose and fell, making the words important. Mother read quietly.
    Clothilde’s hand worked along the seams of thevoluminous cloak.