The Nearly Complete Works, Volume 1 by Donald Harington

Author:Donald Harington [Harington, Donald]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Fiction
ISBN: 9781611094367
Publisher: AmazonEncore
Published: 2012-11-20T05:00:00+00:00

Meanwhile, in the kitchen of the Ingledew house, Sirena Stapleton walked boldly up to the table where the four brothers were sitting and boldly asked, “Which one of you is named John?” All four of them avoided her eyes, but the one named John managed to put his index finger on his Adam’s apple.

“I gotta talk to you,” she said to him.

“I caint,” he said ruefully. “I aint able.”

“You’re a man, aint ye?” she protested.

“That’s why I caint,” he observed.

She grabbed his arm and pulled him to his feet and dragged him out of the kitchen and across the breezeway into the privacy of the other wing of the dogtrot, where she informed him, “I’m in the family way.”

“Yeah, but you’re leavin, aint ye?”

“I mean, I’m knocked up.”

“Huh?”

“I’m with child,” she said, patting her abdomen.

“Do tell? Wal, I’ll lend my shotgun to yore brother, and he’ll make the feller marry ye, if ye want.”

“The feller was you.”

“Huh? Why, I never!”

She explained. John was blushing furiously, and as she described what had transpired, he nearly burst with embarrassment. How could she say such things to him? Worse, how could a girl have done such a thing to him? It sure was a good thing he had been asleep, or else he would have been powerfully mortified. He daydreamed all the time about laying with this pretty redhead Sirena, but the thought that he had actually done it, or that she had done it to him without his knowing it, made him want to go and dig a deep hole and jump in it and cover himself up. He wished she would hush up. He wished she would let him alone and not even look at him again, but he knew that a feller has to live up to his responsibilities, and if he was the baby’s father then he would just have to be the baby’s father.

It was a double wedding. Brother Stapleton granted his sister’s hand in marriage to John Ingledew, then he asked Isaac Ingledew for Perlina’s hand. Isaac, being taciturn, managed to nod. There being no ministers in Stay More other than himself, he officiated at his own nuptials and those of his sister and brother-in-law. The day of the wedding was full springtime; it would not be cold for another year. The weddings were duly attended by all the other Ingledews but no one else, because the deacons forbade it. The deacons were going to be in for a surprise.

Perlina never did tell a soul about her husband’s shortcoming, which wasn’t so short that she didn’t conceive and bear a large family over the years. Since Long Jack Stapleton was now living his own love story, he didn’t feel any need whatever to preach the love stories of the Bible, although he still had the power to speak word pictures more graphic than movies, and when he promised the deacons never to show any “undecent” pictures anymore they reluctantly let him use the meeting house again, and

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.