Read Online Listen Here by Sandra L. Ballard - Free Book Online Page A

was heavy and tired from the work she did in the corn rows and some great weight that had pulled against her back and pressed against her heart, the smell of the corn had sickened her nigh unto death it seemed and she had hated the corn and the earth and cried out against them. She bent low over Rebel's flying shoulders and felt a shame and a wonder at the memory, and joy in the lightness of her body and the goodness of the world made her wish to ask forgiveness of something for that faint memory of hatred and pain.
    They crossed the pasture and she saw the dark woodland sloping away over the hill down into a narrow valley and up another hill, and past that hill she could see nothing, for it was higher than all the other hills, so high it was like a mountain with its crest hidden in shifting shimmering fog. That, she knew, was where she must go, and by the length of Rebel's flying shadow she knew that she had not been long on the road and would be there on time.
    They leaped another fence and plunged into a wood where the wind sang loud in the leafing trees with no sobbing as in the pines, and drops of dew, heavy as rain, fell from the leaves onto her face and hair. Rebel leaped a moss-grown log and leaped through a moonlit glade, cleared a low limestone crag, and plunged again into the deeper darkness of close-growing trees. He went less swiftly now and above the slower beat of his heavy hoofs she heard the roar of a creek and trembled with hungry eagerness for the battle with swift white water coiling in darkness and moonlight.
    Heavier drops of dew fell on her face and she impatiently flung them back and glanced up to search out the mountain, for it was dark here and she feared she had lost her way. But it was there, higher and brighter and more beautiful, like the Big Rock Candy Mountain it was a sin to sing about because the singing made you want to dance. She sent Rebel crackling through a prickly grove of holly bush. The ground was soft and the horse's feet sank deep and made no sound, and it was then she heard their calling, louder and more insistent. She checked the horse and paused to think. Their call puzzled her, and she wondered that they could have followed all this way and carried the crying child. She saw them then by scarcely turning.
    There was her mother with a glass of water in her hand as she stood and looked down at something that seemed to be just behind her own eyes. There was her father, and Rufe too with his muddy shoes and the overalls she had forgotten to mend. His face looked pale under the sunburn, tight and hard as if he were afraid to come farther than the door where he stood with one foot on the sill. She did not want to look at him. He seemed a man in trouble, and with the joy of the good ride still upon her she had no wish for trouble.
    She looked down and saw a hand, small and thin and brown, cupped like a fallen leaf, and as she stared at the hand she wondered at the dew. There was dew on the hand just as on the corn, great drops of it shining yellow in some light that did not come from the moon. She wondered if the dew had fallen on all things and moved her eyes slowly and saw a little mound of patchwork quilt like a hill made small by distance. Her glance which seemed heavy and tired came slowly away from the hill, drew nearer and fell upon a strip of white cotton nightgown with pearl buttons winking in the light. The buttons troubled her—they were so much like some she had once had with four eyes and sewn with coarse white thread. She puzzled over the buttons and heard rain roar on the roof boards, and thought that the next creek would be yellow instead of white.
    She heard Rebel's impatient angry neigh and the thud of his pawing feet against the ground. She heard the planks of the floor creak with the weight of heavy hesitating feet, but she did not lift her eyes. It was such a deal of trouble. She heard her mother cry in a thin hoarse croak, “Don't go away, Paw. It's we've