Read Online Arly by Robert Newton Peck - Free Book Online Page A

don’t guess it is. But maybe it’s sort of a shame all them little birds got to get gunned.”
    The small man spoke up. “You’re right, son.”
    â€œShut up, Joshua,” the big gent spoke. “Besides, I took me a notice of how you’re usual eager to pocket the money.”
    In turn, the two plume hunters climbed out of their sculler. As they done so, their heavy boots stepped on the pile of birds. Even thought they were all dead, it was more than hurtful to watch.
    â€œYou want to earn a dime, boy?”
    I nodded.
    â€œThere a livery stable in town?”
    â€œYes.”
    The big man flipped me a dime, but I dropped it. Bending over to fetch it from the mud, I heard the bigger gent laughing at me.
    â€œYou hightail yourself to the livery stable and gitsomebody to snake back here pronto with a mule and a buckboard wagon. Hear? It’s still light enough to go back into them dead rivers and kill us another load.”
    Inside my hand, I could feel the dime. And it would do handy. But I couldn’t make my feet go. If I fetched the wagon in a hurry, maybe a lot more birds would die.
    â€œGit going!” the big man yelled.
    The edges of his dime was biting into my hand, because I was squeezing it so hard and wanting it even harder.
    I tossed him the dime and ran.

Chapter 13
    I couldn’t eat.
    All I could do was keep seeing that boatload of dead color, all them little silent birds. So I boiled some cabbage for Papa and made up a story, a lie, saying I’d already ate before he’d climbed off the picker wagon.
    â€œI’m wore out, Arly,” he said, then folded down to his tick and sound like he was instant asleep. His breathing wheezed in and out.
    After soaping his plate and our cookpot, I went outside our shack, around back where the sand was soft, to scratch a few letters in the dirt. I made all the letters that Miss Hoe learn us. Ever single one, and did them over and over, spelling the little words. Most words come right easy on account there be only three letters inside each one. Shack was a leadpipe cinch to spell.
    S
-
H
-
C
.
    Yet as I studied the letters I’d fingered into the sand, the word didn’t look right, on account I’d forgot to place a
A
in it. Words usual had a
A
in the middle, like
rat
and
cat
and
hat
. I sighed. Education sure could be thorny. In school, being wrong had a way of cutting my brain, the like way a stem of a fan palm could cut ahand. It was hurtsome. But the bleeding was all inside me where only I could feel the misery of it.
    Even though I was staring down at my letters I’d drawed in the dirt, my mind kept on seeing the dead birds.
    It was near dark, and evenings were usual a happy time for me, because Papa was resting in shade and not stooping in the heat to endless rows of vegetables. But I couldn’t turn myself too joyous. It wouldn’t be right to allow a happy feeling on a day when so many of God’s ideas all got scatter-gunned into a pile of feathery death. Just for hats.
    â€œArly?”
    It weren’t necessary for me to look up to learn who’d spoke my name. Her voice I already knowed like it was near a song. But I did look up to see her.
    Essie May Cooter come strolling my way, wearing her skimpy dress in a manner like she wanted to wish it bigger, as if she feared everybody in jailtown was looking at her, and laughing. Or thinking worse. She stood sort of hiding inside her dress.
    â€œHowdy,” I said.
    â€œSure is hot. What you doing out here?”
    â€œPracticing my letters, the way Miss Hoe said we probable ought, so’s we would remember.”
    Essie leaned against the trunk of a custard apple, looking up at the still-light sky, hauling in a deep breath and then letting it loose really slow. “I talked to Miss Angel today. She let me try on her bonnet.”
    That I knowed, because I’d seen it all happen. But no words about it would come out my mouth.