Winterbound Read Online Free PDF Page B

two sillies, and the people had to pull you out with horses! He talks of it yet.”
    So the snooty man was Uncle Maurice. Well, served him right; he shouldn’t try to bring expensive cars up back roads in the spring.
    â€œWell, it wasn’t so bad today. And the town should do something towards that, another year. I’ll have to speak about it,” Charles decided.
    â€œI like country roads, they’ll be splendid for riding. Charles, we ought to have saddle horses here! There’s the barn to keep them in.” It was the easy happy voice of a girl who had never had to worry or wonder where money came from, and Garry felt her first little twinge of jealousy, for riding was one thing she had always longed to do. “I wonder what sort of people live around here?”
    â€œI don’t know and I don’t care. You can find that out for yourself.” Charles sounded cheerfully indifferent. “I expect to be too busy to bother about them. There’s a family down the road.”
    â€œYou mean the small house you have rented—the contadini house?” This was Gina’s precise voice. “That will be so close to us, here! Tell me, what sort of people are they?”
    â€œI don’t know. Roberts rented it to them. There’s a bunch of kids, I believe. Some family from the city that wanted a cheap place.”
    Listeners hear no good of themselves, Garry reflected, edging none the less a little nearer to the landing.
    â€œCheap city people . . . but that sounds detestable. You should never have left it to him, Charles. I wouldprefer that they were really contadini —what you would call peasants.”
    Cheap city people! If anyone were detestable, Garry thought, it was this Gina woman. But Charles’s voice broke in:
    â€œI would do nothing of the sort, and if you go talking of peasants around here, my dear sister-in-law, people will probably think you mean something to shoot.”
    The younger girl giggled, but Gina returned calmly: “At least you can get rid of them quite easily; you have only to say that you need the house.”
    Garry’s ears were burning but it was her own fault, she told herself grimly; if she didn’t like what she heard it was just too bad. But that “cheap city people” still rankled. If only they would go outside again, and give her a chance to escape!
    â€œJane, where is Suzanne? She has run off again. Go and call her; we must go, Charles, it is hours to drive! But I just want to look at the upstairs once more.”
    â€œThat settles it,” said Garry to herself. “Might have known I wouldn’t get a break. Wants to make sure where they’re going to put the tiled bathrooms in, I suppose. How about just stepping out and saying I’d dropped in to look over the house? But I’d never get away with it; not with that Gina woman. Better beat it, quick!”
    But where? Suddenly she remembered the woodshedell. There must be a room somewhere at that end. Her feet crunched loudly on some fallen plaster, but it was too late to worry about that as she sped on tiptoe, making for the far end of the house. By luck she found what she had hoped for, a small room with a window giving on the woodshed roof. The window was nailed, but insecurely; in a moment she had wrenched it loose, pushed up the sash as noiselessly as she could, and slipped through.
    As she dangled for an instant, her legs over the edge of the shingles, she heard a peculiar and smothered sound below. A small snubby face, with bat ears and bulging scandalized eyes, stared up at her, undoubtedly the missing Suzanne. There was a moment of suspense; then the yelp that had been visibly gathering died in Suzanne’s throat. Evidently the sight of Garry’s overalled legs, hanging as it were from heaven, struck terror to her small-dog soul. She gulped and fled.
    Garry let herself drop, snatched her basket, and dodged through the overgrown