The Ghosts of Stone Hollow by Zilpha Keatley Snyder

Author:Zilpha Keatley Snyder [Snyder, Zilpha Keatley]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-4532-7200-8
Publisher: Open Road
Published: 2012-10-23T01:45:00+00:00

chapter ten

BECAUSE OF BEING LATE the Sunday before, Amy might not have been allowed to go walking again so soon, except for a strange coincidence. It happened that that particular Sunday afternoon there was a special countywide meeting of ladies who belonged to missionary circles, and Amy’s aunt and mother were both planning to go. The meeting was to be held in the town of Lambertville, almost forty miles away. With the coming and going, it would take almost all afternoon. Amy knew that she would be expected to keep her father company, but in the rush to get ready—the milk strained and bottled, the eggs gathered, and Sunday dinner ready so Amy would only have to warm it up—no one got around to saying so. No one actually mentioned that Amy was supposed to stay at home—no one had to.

After church Amy waved good-bye to her mother and Aunt Abigail as they climbed into one of the two cars that were going to Lambertville, carrying eight or nine missionary circle ladies, all with basket lunches to be eaten at the big Lambertville church’s social hall As soon as the cars were out of sight, Amy ran for home.

When she pounded up the porch stairs and banged through the front door, her father looked around and smiled and went on reading the Sunday paper. He was sitting in the bay window in the parlor with his back to Amy, and he didn’t turn his wheelchair around and ask for a kiss the way he usually did when Amy came home from anywhere. She should have guessed then, perhaps, but she didn’t really. It didn’t occur to her until they were at the table, and she happened to lean close to her father to put a hot pad under the corn bread. Then for the first time she knew that he had had a visitor while everyone was away at church. It was at that moment she smelled it, the same sweet-sour smell that was always present after Old Ike’s visits on Thursday afternoons.

For a few worried minutes Amy wondered if Ike was going to start visiting every Sunday, as well as every Thursday, but then she understood. After the Thursday visits there was always time for her father to take a long nap, while on most Sunday mornings, church was followed by Sunday dinner with the whole family together at the dining room table. This Sunday was different in a way that did not happen often, so a Sunday visit from Old Ike probably wouldn’t happen again for a long time.

Amy smiled with relief and, looking up, caught her father’s eye. He grinned back and winked the way he always did when she helped him out of his chair and onto his bed for his Thursday afternoon nap. The wink said that he knew that she knew, and he also knew that she would never tell. She looked away quickly and went on eating her warmed-up fried chicken and cold potato salad.

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