Read Online Child of the Mountains by Marilyn Sue Shank - Free Book Online Page A

off the paper and held up the train. “Wow! A train!” he said. “Lyddie, did you make this for me?”
    “Yes,” I whispered. I couldn’t hold back a few of them tears, and they rolled down my cheeks. “I’m sorry, BJ. I didn’t know somebody’d bring you a fancy store-bought one.”
    BJ giggled. I looked hard at him. “Did you forget we ain’t got no electricity, Lyddie? I’m going to have to take it to Uncle William’s house to play with it.”
    I had plumb forgot about that.
    BJ took the magic penny from his pocket and put it in his left hand. Then he picked up the train with his right hand and held both of them up to the window so the sun shined on them. “This is my magic train,” he said. “When I hold my magic penny, this train will be the one that takes me anywhere I want to go.” He put the penny back in his pocket.
    Then he commenced to pushing my train around the floor. “See, Lyddie? It don’t even need no track. It can go anywhere. It can even flyyyyyyyyy!” he said as he rolled it over the couch and pushed it through the air. He picked up the train whistle with his other hand. Over and over he said, “Clickety clack, clickety clack, going down the track.” Then he blew the whistle.
Whoo whoo!
    Me and Mama joined in:
    “Clickety-clack, clickety-clack, going down the track
.
Whoo whoo!
    Clickety-clack, clickety-clack, going down the track
.
Whoo whoo!”
    Gran pulled out a couple of spoons from the silverware drawer and bounced them in her fingers to sound like a train. I runned and got the mountain man and made him dance on my lap. Mama grabbed her dulcimer and started playing a tune. She sang:
    “I’m going to get me a ticket, a ticket, a ticket
    On engine number seven, on seven, on seven
.
    My gold and silver ticket, it’s one way, it’s one way, it’s one way
    To take me straight to Heaven, to Heaven, to Heaven.”
    We had us the best Christmas ever that day. BJ did take the electric train to Uncle William’s and they played with it a few times. But it was my train BJ took to the hospital. When I saw him for the last time at the funeral parlor, I laid the train beside him.

9

It’s about giving and getting
.
    W EDNESDAY , D ECEMBER 2, 1953
    Cora Lee walked into Mr. Hinkle’s class today with two dresses over her arm. I tried to figure out what in the world she’d need them for. She had this evil grin on her face, the kind where the grin looks happy, but the eyes look mean.
    She walked all biggety right up to my desk in front of everbody—excepten Mr. Hinkle. The bell hadn’t rung yet, and he stood out on the porch talking to a parent.
    “Lydia, my mother said I should give these here dresses to you,” Cora Lee said in a real loud voice. “They’re out of style now, so I don’t wear them. Your mother’s in jail, so we decided you probably need them more than anybody else.”
    My face got real hot. I wanted to do what Anne of Green Gables would do. I bet she would have grabbed them dresses and shoved them in Cora Lee’s face. She would have said, “I don’t want your dresses. If I washed them fifty times, I’d never get your stinky smell out of them.” I didn’t say nothing, though. I grabbed me a book out of my desk and started up reading. I pretended like she weren’t even there.
    Mr. Hinkle walked in the room just then. Cora Lee throwed them dresses on my desk and runned to her seat. I tossed them on the floor.
    “Whose clothes are those?” Mr. Hinkle asked, pointing to the heap on the floor.
    “I gave those dresses to Lydia, Mr. Hinkle,” Cora Lee said with her eyes all sad and her mouth puckered up. “But she won’t take them. She threw them down.”
    “Did Lydia ask you to bring her some dresses?” Mr. Hinkle asked.
    “No, but I know she needs them because of her mother being in jail and all.”
    “Lydia looks fine to me, Cora Lee. She’s neat and clean. I think that dress she has on is pretty. I suggest you take those dresses and put them in your