Read Online Marrying Stone by Pamela Morsi - Free Book Online Page B

nodded. The three days of hard physical labor was more than the knees of his gray and brown striped worsted trousers had ever been expected to endure.
    "Perhaps I can borrow a needle and thread," he said.
    "You can sew?" Onery asked with surprise.
    "No, not really," Roe admitted.
    "Then let Meggie tend your tears," the old man said. "She's right handy with her needlework."
    Meggie approached him, giving a studied glance to the ripped knee where the small expanse of pale flesh was exposed.
    "Those trousers weren't made for working," she commented.
    Roe agreed.
    "I'll stitch 'em up for you, but I'd best be making you some butternuts."
    "Butternuts?"
    Jesse slapped his knee. "Butternuts like mine," he said.
     
    Roe looked over at the trousers Jesse wore. The heavy dark yellow fabric was homespun and looked sturdy enough to withstand a stampede of wild boars. The homemade breeches were straight cut and wide enough in the leg to fit two men his size.
    "If you're going to be working here," Onery agreed, "then you oughter have butternuts. Ain't no need for you to be ruining your good clothes."
    Roe nodded, civility preventing him from mentioning that the trousers he wore were far from his best.
    "I don't wish to put you to any extra effort on my part, Miss Best," he said.
    Meggie raised her chin defiantly, seeing insult where none was intended. "My cloth is as good as any on the mountain," she said with some pride. "They're not city clothes, but they'll keep you from being threadbare. Jesse can cut you some galluses and show you how to attach them through the hitches with a peg and a horseshoe nail."
    Roe stared in daunted wonder.
    She continued. "I can sew up your good trousers and wash them clean for Sundays."
    "That would be very nice, Miss Best," he said. "I thank you."
    Meggie's lip stiffened to one thin line as if he'd said something indiscreet and Jesse giggled.
    "You'll have to measure the feller, Meggie," Onery said. "He ain't neither my size nor Jesse's."
    She blushed then. "I couldn't
measure
him," she answered in a scandalized whisper. "I'll just make them the same as Jesse's."
    Roe nodded and turned to look at Jesse, who was quite a bit larger than himself and whose pants hung upon him like two sacks seamed together.
    Onery began to chuckle.
    "We praise her biscuits and her pies, Her doughnuts and her cakes.
    But where's the man who sighs for pants Like Mama used to make."
    Jesse snickered at his father's joke.
    Meggie's expression turned from embarrassment to anger. "I'll measure him all right!" she said. "I'll make his butternuts to fit slicker than skin if he wants."
    Roe reached over and took Meggie's hand and her eyes widened. Since their first embarrassing encounter, she had held her distance from him and he likewise. The trousers were being offered as a token of friendship, he was sure. And he wasn't about to let her father's teasing undermine that first step toward a more amiable relationship.
    "I really do need the trousers," he said. "I hate to put you to the bother of sewing for me, but I would be very grateful."
    "It's no trouble," she answered quietly. "I'll measure you after breakfast."
    'Thank you, Meggie," he said.
    Her father and brother's laughter faded away and Meggie nodded solemnly as she turned back to the fire.
    Roe turned his attention back to breakfast. Onery began a long-winded story about the winter he'd had to make his own clothes out of hides and nearly got shot by mistake for being a bear. Again and again, Roe found his eyes and his attention returning to Meggie as she padded around the room in her bare feet.
    He felt a light tap on his shoulder and turned to Jesse beside him, who was grinning with glee. The young man pulled something long and skinny out of his shirt pocket. At first Roe thought it was a piece of rawhide, but when Jesse lay the thin brown item on the table it twisted and wiggled.
    Roe watched as Jesse held a finger to his lips to shush him. Casting a cautious glance toward