The Star Garden by Nancy E. Turner

Author:Nancy E. Turner
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9780312363161
Publisher: St. Martin's Press

May 11, 1907

“Mama?” Charlie said. “I’ve asked you four times now. Do you need anything from town? Elsa and I want to take the buggy. She’s wanting some fresh vegetables.”

“No, I don’t mind,” I said. “What’s Gilbert doing?”

“He went to get mail, but he wants to go, too. I reckon it’s a good idea, to let him ride shotgun, if you can spare us three or four days.”

“Surely that’s fine,” I said. I felt purely stupid. Too happy, too sad at once, too confused to make any sense at all. I had discovered—the way women do—that there was no child to come from lying with Udell on the banks of the Cienega. My eyes were on Charlie hitching the rig, but my heart was blanketed with warm sunshine of that afternoon ten days ago, the light that surrounded every living thing, the joy that drew me to a man. And Udell has been only tender and gentlemanly ever since, so that nary a notion has crossed my mind that I have lessened in his esteem. He worries the opposite, he has said, feeling it was a great fault in his character to have let it happen.

How could I blame him? There surely wasn’t any cry of “no” from me. But no baby. How I covet to hold a baby. How empty not to expect that miracle. Yet, an expectation of other joy has come in its place. I plan to ride to Udell’s place this afternoon when I’ve finished my chores.

Gilbert brought in a small stack of paper envelopes. I asked him what they were and he only hollered from the hallway, “I don’t know. I have got to take a bath!” and disappeared. Well, his going must be about the mysterious girl, I speculated.

My sons left with Elsa. Chess was out in the barn, Granny worked on her quilt. The house was quiet. I put the mail under a bowl on the table to wait for later.

About an hour after the boys left, the dogs started barking. Then I heard hoofbeats, coming at a fine pace but not a full run. I stepped outside to see Mary Pearl riding up on her three-year-old stallion. She slipped off his bare back before he’d stopped, and looped reins at my porch rail, hurrying to me. The girl grabbed my shoulders and hugged me. “Mama will scold me if she knows I’m here, so I have to ask you to keep quiet again. If you won’t, or can’t, say so now and I’ll leave.”

I said, “Glad to see you, Mary Pearl. Is it a sin now, for you to talk to me?”

“Are you going to tell?”

“No.”

“Then I’ll stay. Aunt Sarah, Mama is driving me to distraction, she’s so peeved at me for going to school. I have thought and thought until my head aches, and I finally figured a way to settle it. She is giving me lectures until you’d think I was only born to get married to the first man that came along.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.