Read Online Blackbird House by Alice Hoffman - Free Book Online Page A

voices of his neighbors, and the song of the few blackfish left alive.   The men had taken saws into the bay to set to work; even the smallest children were out there helping, racing over the muck with buckets and carts.   Here was enough oil to last all year; the slim time grown fat with death.   Larkin might have earned some extra money if he’d pitched in, but it wouldn’t be enough for his plans.   It wouldn’t be three hundred dollars.   The next day, instead of going to work, he went down to the town hall.   He had never missed a day of work before, unless he had a fever; he figured that when Morton wondered where he was, never in a lifetime would he guess that Larkin was discussing buying that old farm he liked to look at so much.
    He signed a promissory note that very day, although what he was promising he didn’t yet have.   That evening he bathed in a tub of hot water, and he scrubbed his hands until they were raw.   They were still red, and perhaps they always would be, so he put on his gloves before he went out.   He told Mrs.   Dill he was off to the tavern, though he was headed in the other direction, guided by a moon that was still fat and so white it hurt a man’s eyes to see its light, especially a man like Larkin, who could only see so far.
    He managed to find the barn, half blind or not.   It was a squat, unappealing structure, set so close to the marsh that at full-moon high tide water rushed underneath the building, lulling the skinny cows and the one mule to sleep.   None of these creatures made a sound when Larkin let himself in, or as he climbed up the steps to Lucinda Parker’s lodgings.   She was sitting by the window, from which she could see the silver splash of the high tide.   She was so used to a man coming into her room uninvited she didn’t even blink.   The baby was in a basket that had been used for chicken feed; there were little sunflower seeds and suet sticking to his arms and legs.   He threw his fists into the air when Larkin leaned over the basket.   The baby looked stronger tonight.   The kind of hardy boy any man would want for a son.
    “You’ve been feeding him well.”
    “I haven’t got much of a choice.   I’ve got milk dripping so that I have to bind myself when I go out.”
    She didn’t tell Larkin that she’d been letting her milk dry up, painful as that was, offering the baby a rag soaked with cow’s milk rather than her own breast.
    Larkin placed the basket on the floor; he bent and let the baby try to catch his finger.
    “I signed a note for the farm across the bay.   I’m taking the steamer
    into Boston tomorrow to collect the money”
    Lucinda snorted.   She had reason to be nervous.   What if Reedy came tonight and found out about the baby?   She was supposed to get rid of it, but here it was still in the basket.   What if Reedy hit her in front of this boy, Larkin?
    What if he hit the boy instead?   Lucinda knew how to use a rifle; her brother had taught her before he’d run off, leaving her to fend for herself.   If she’d had a rifle still, she’d be happy to shoot William Reedy dead without a second thought if he came after them.
    “Who’d be foolish enough to give you money?”   Lucinda grabbed the basket and moved it back beside the bed.   When the baby cried at night, she had no choice but to feed him, just to silence him, even if she did feel his heart beat against hers.
    Larkin told her about the substitute brokers in Boston, and how he planned to sign himself over to serve the Union in exchange for another fellow’s freedom; how he’d return on the steamer to pay off the farm so that Lucinda and the baby could move in.
    Lucinda went to her bureau and took out everything she owned.   A shawl, a prayer book, two skirts, the milk-soaked rags for the baby to suck on when it fussed.
    “You don’t think I’m letting you out of my sight, do you?”   she said when Larkin seemed puzzled.   “We’re coming with