Walker's Wedding Read Online Free PDF

girl will be home in time for suppa—don’t you fret none.”
    â€œYes, you’re right. She’ll come home when she realizes no one loves her like family.”
    â€œYes, sir. No one loves her more than us…she know that.”

    Fit to be tied, Lowell paced the study floor. “Two days! My daughter has been missing for two days!” He looked as though he’d aged a good ten years in those two days.
    â€œâ€™Member your heart, sir.” Abe poured sassafras tea, wiping away a drip with a snow-white cloth before returning the pot to the silver tray.
    â€œHeart, my foot.” Lowell drew on his stogie and puffs of blue smoke hazed the room. “She’ll be the death of me yet.”
    Abe fanned cigar smoke away from his nostrils. “Yes, sir.”
    Pausing before the window, Lowell watched the falling rain, his shoulders slumped with weariness. “Where is she, Abe? If anything has happened to her, I’ll never forgive myself.”
    Setting a steaming cup on the desk, Abe said quietly, “You know the child’stendency to worry a soul to death afore she decides to come home, Mr. Livingston. She’ll be back when she’s ready and not a minute sooner. There no use frettin’ yourself sick.”
    â€œBut two days. Two days and not a word. Are you certain you’ve checked with all of her friends? Is she with that giggly Liddy Snow? I wouldn’t put it past those girls to try and pull the wool over my eyes. It wouldn’t be the first time.”
    Abe fussed with the cream pitcher and sugar bowl. “Done checked with her, the Montgomery girl, sir, and everybody else Sarah knows. Ain’t no one seen her in the past few days, but I feel in my bones she just fine, sir. Try to drink a little of this tea. Gettin’ wore out ain’t gonna help nothin.’”
    Lowell drew on the cigar, waving Abe’s efforts aside. He couldn’t eat or drink with Sarah running around the countryside doing who knew what. Had she followed that German fellow she’d talked about the week before? He searched for a name but came up empty handed. Or had she gone off with that dockworker again? After a while the candidates blurred together, a seemingly endless stream of handsome young swains who hadn’t given a thought to marriage, only to what they could get from Sarah’s innocence.
    â€œThe spring cotillion…Wadsy’s been sewing her dress for months. If she misses that cotillion…”
    â€œNo, she surely won’t miss the cotillion, sir. But if she do, that just means she ain’t got all her meanness out yet.”
    â€œIf she’s not back in time for that ball next week, Abe, I’m calling in Pinkerton and his detectives.”
    Abe glanced away. “Yes, sir. You did that the last time.”
    â€œAnd they found her, didn’t they? Had to go all the way to Philly to do it, but, by gum, they found her, selling flowers on a street corner like a regular hoyden. Her mama would sit up in her grave and shout if she knew that.”
    â€œYes, sir. Miss Laverne shorely would.”
    Smoke boiled around the portly figure. “Never saw the like—You said the dockworker she was about to run off with hadn’t seen her?”
    â€œDat’s what he say, Mr. Livingston, sir. Say he hasn’t laid an eye on her since the mornin’ afore she disappeared.”
    â€œAnd you believe him?”
    â€œYes, sir. He tell me he had no idea she was your daughter or else he wouldn’t have touched her with a ten-foot pole.”
    â€œTouched her!”
    â€œNo sir, he did not touch her, he say that fore sure. Jest meant he wouldn’t have had fanciful thoughts about her.”
    Turning away from the window, Lowell snubbed out his cigar. “You’re right. All this worrying and not eating is making me sick. Have Will fry me up a couple of fatback sandwiches, and I’ll have some of those