Zeke and Ned Read Online Free PDF Page A

women. He preferred to walk up and grab them, a tactic that had so far won him three feisty wives and the favors of Polly Beck—a woman who was feisty, if she was anything.
    Ned, though, was clearly not up to the bold approach. He was walking unsteadily, not from the whiskey but from the thought of having to propose to Jewel.
    â€œWhy, Ned—I believe you’re shy,” Zeke said, a wide smile on his face.
    Ned heard a wild gobbling sound. It was as if a flock of wild turkeys had suddenly run inside Zeke’s big house. It startled him, but when he heard the wild giggling of the triplets, he remembered that Tuxie had been sent inside to gobble for them.
    â€œListen to that,” Zeke said. “Old Tuxie missed his calling. He’d have done better as a turkey!”

4
    N ED C HRISTIE SAT THROUGH A MEAL OF PORK CHOPS AND GREEN beans without saying a word.
    Once or twice, he raised his eyes to Jewel, but he immediately lowered them again. He felt he had no small words in him—just the big words he had to say to Jewel, and he had to protect the big words until the time was right. He did not even compliment Becca on the cooking, so anxious was he to hold on to the big words.
    Jewel knew Ned wanted to take power over her. She felt a fluttering deep inside at the thought, but not so strongly as it had felt when she saw him riding up with Zeke and Tuxie Miller. She thought she was ready to accept it, if Ned really wanted her. Her sister Liza did not even notice. She had always been the wordy sister, and she yapped all through the meal.
    Becca
did
notice. When Jewel looked at her mother for reassurance, Becca turned her eyes away, or went to the pots to dish up morefood. She would not look at the daughter she was about to lose. Becca knew the ways of men and women; knew that Jewel was of an age to marry; and had known for some time that a man would soon be coming for her daughter. Now that man was here at her table. He was a handsome man, too, and from what she had seen and heard, well able to provide for a wife. Still, it made her lonely to think that her girl would be going away. She herself was not well, and Jewel’s quiet good spirit had been a help to her on days when she had the megrims so badly that she could hardly do her work. Jewel was a worker, unlike Liza, who was mostly talk. Liza fussed and frittered, talking a blue streak all the time.
    Becca rarely cried, especially not in sight of Zeke. He could not tolerate a weepy woman. At the first sign of tears, he would jump on his horse and leave, often for a week or more. He expected his womenfolk to be smiling when he returned, too. Becca looked at Jewel, and looked at Ned; she knew the time had come when her daughter would be going. Twice she had to leave the table to hide behind the big chimney, to wipe her eyes with her apron so as not to disturb her husband, who was eating with a good appetite—though not so good an appetite as Tuxie Miller’s. Tuxie was renowned throughout the Going Snake District for his prodigious appetite. On this occasion, he ate ten fried eggs, twelve pork chops, and most of the bucket of green beans Liza and Jewel had snapped.
    Zeke, who liked Tuxie, was nonetheless a little sobered by the man’s intake.
    â€œI don’t think he’s gonna leave us a thing,” he remarked, more in awe than in anger. “He’s et most of that pig, and the whole bean patch.”
    â€œThrowing up makes you empty,” Tuxie remarked, without apology. He was hoping Becca Proctor would send one of the girls out to the henhouse for a few more eggs. He seldom got such a good feed at his own house. Dale, his wife, had borne him nine babies, and she was a lot more interested in making more babies than she was in cooking up vittles. The last time Tuxie had pork chops in such quantity was when he killed a wild pig, but that stroke of luck was a good three years back.
    â€œI can’t figure out where he’s