Wings of a Dream Read Online Free PDF Page B

should have known. “I’ll fix hers.”
    “Not too much.” Ollie pulled the high chair close to the table and plunked her sister inside its confines. “And no molasses, just a dab of milk.”
    I nodded and went to work, but when I pulled a pitcher of milk from the evaporative cooler in the corner, I stopped.
    Milk. From a cow.
    I tried to keep the wariness from my voice. “Ollie, honey, do y’all have a cow?”
    “Yes’m. Ol’ Bob.” She took the bowl from my hand and began to feed her baby sister.
    “Bob?” Maybe she’d misunderstood my question.
    “James named her that when he was just little. He didn’t know milk cows were girls.”
    “I see.” I rubbed away the wrinkles I felt on my forehead. Was this my aunt’s home or the children’s? Had Aunt Adabelle taken them in or come to stay? I really needed some answers. Pulling a large shawl from the row of hooks on the wall by the door, I flung it over my head and shoulders. The only thing I could be certain of now was that cows had to be milked. Every day. Twice a day. I assumed someone else had been tending to that task, but if they knew I’d arrived, the job would likely be left to me. I readied myself to plunge into the muddy yard.
    “Can we come, too?” James’s eager eyes slammed into mine.
    “Miss Ada always lets us help.” Dan nodded along beside his brother.
    How could I resist? They didn’t know yet that Miss Ada had flown to heaven.
    “Ollie, take care of Janie.” I opened the folds of the heavy shawl and gathered the boys around my legs before we plunged into the curtain of rain. We splashed past the gate and the garden, moving as fast as their legs would carry them. Ol’ Bob’s bawling grew louder. I swooped Dan under my arm and carried him the last little way.
    By the time we pulled open the barn doors, our clothes hung heavy with water. The agonized plea of the cow spurred me onward. I knew how to do this. I’d been milking since I wasn’t much older than Ollie. I grabbed a pail from the wall and found a stool near the stall.
    Ol’ Bob gazed at me with grateful eyes as I pulled her teats in a steady rhythm. With each stream that hit the bucket, questions swirled in my head. What connected my aunt to this family? How had the children’s mother died? When would their father return?
    Finally, I stripped the last of Ol’ Bob’s milk, patted her rump, and stood. A large, empty barn met my gaze. Several stalls. Empty stalls. And double doors at the opposite end.
    A whinny cut through the air.
    “What’s out there?”
    James and Dan stopped their game of tag, cheeks red and chests heaving. James managed to push out his words. “Tom and Huck. They’re our mules.”
    “And Dandy,” added Dan.
    “That’s Daddy’s horse.”
    Daddy’s horse. “So this is your daddy’s farm, then?”
    James nodded. Dan joined him.
    One question answered. A thousand more to go.
    Thunder rumbled outside. I led the mules and horse into empty stalls and gathered my shawl again for the return trip through the rain. The boys’ clothes still dripped from our first excursion. Oh, well. No harm done going back through the rain, then.
    I let them run ahead, though I didn’t linger far behind. “Stop on the porch,” I called as they bolted through the gate and up the back walkway. Then I spied a blanketed horse tied to a fence post.
    I left the milk bucket on the porch and sprinted past the boys. “Strip off your wet clothes and run upstairs for dry ones,” I called as my wet shawl slapped against the board floor of the porch. I followed watery footprints exactly where I knew they’d lead—Aunt Adabelle’s bedroom.
    A man in a dark suit stood over the bed. Ollie watched from behind him, Janie quiet in her arms. I took the baby from her as the man—the doctor, I assumed from the black bag he carried—turned. Ollie threw herself at his middle. His heavy gray moustache twitched as the girl’s sobs broke the unnatural quiet.
    I blinked back tears.