Read Online Preacher's Boy by Katherine Paterson - Free Book Online Page A

the giggle.
    "Guess I gotcha," she said when she saw I was looking straight at her.
    "What are you doing trespassing in my cabin?" I asked the question with as much dignity as I could muster while spitting out leaves, brushing off my clothes, and getting to my feet.
    "
Your
cabin? It ain't been nobody's cabin for a coon's age until me and Paw took possession." Scrawny as her body was, her mouth was as sassy as an overfed cat.
    "Me and Willie claimed it years ago," I countered. Two makes "years." I wasn't lying. Besides, the tres-passers couldn't have been here more than a few days at most.
    "If it's yourn, why ain't you living in it?" she asked. "You left, and me and Paw come in and took over." She eyed me belligerently. "And don't think for one minute we're planning on leaving"—she paused and looked over at the snorer—"until we is good and ready."
    "I ain't never seen you around these parts," I said. It seemed fit to match my language to hers.
    "Yeah?" she said, meaning
So what?
    "That one your pa?" I asked, pointing to the snorer.
    "Jest what business is that of yourn?"
    "I told you," I said. "It's my cabin—me and Willie's. We come on it first."
    "Prove it."
    "Wal, it's got our stuff in it," I said.
    "Yeah?"
    I realized then that any apples or butternuts the animals had left would have been consumed by this pair of tramps. Likewise the corn silks. Extra fishing poles were, likely as not, part of that gray ash in the old fireplace by now. Our old shirts, dime novels, and pipes were nowhere in sight. There was no evidence I could point out, even if she'd allowed some of it to link Willie or me to this claim.
    I sighed. "Wal, it
is
ours."
    The snoring in front of the hearth turned into a series of snorts, a raspy cough, the loud clearing of catarrh from a clogged throat. The bundle sat up and shuddered. "Vile!" it bellowed. "Whar's my medsin?"
    Neither the girl nor I moved. The bundle turned itself around with some difficulty and stared, taking in me and the girl at the same moment. "Whozat?"
    "Git up, Paw," she said quietly. "Viztor come calling."
    Visitor? I was the landlord. I was a little wary of the snorer once he was upright, but if I didn't put my foot down immediately, there was no telling how long they'd stay. "It's mine," I said. My voice squeaked, so I boomed out the next sentence like a bass drum. "By rights, I'm owner of this cabin."
    The man began shuddering to his feet.
    "It's all right, Paw. It's no more his 'an ours." She gave me a glance. "He's nothing but a little kid talking big."
    The man looked me over head to toe as if measuring how big a threat I might be. I squinched my eyes to
keep from blinking. He was head, shoulders, and half a chest taller than me.
    To my enormous relief and small satisfaction, he broke the gaze. "We was here first," he said to the girl in what was not quite a whine.
    "Yeah, Paw," she said. She put one hand on her narrow hip. "We ¡my here and we where. You can jest rest easy on that."
    He lurched toward us. I stepped out of the way. I couldn't help it. Then I realized it was the doorway he was heading for, not me. I did another quick sidestep.
    "Jest got up," he muttered. "Got to—"
    She sort of shoved him out the doorway before he could finish his sentence. So there was some delicacy about her—something girllike. She watched, silent, her back to me, as he stumbled toward the trees to take care of his morning business. I was sure she didn't want me staring, so I walked in toward the hearth, pretending I was looking for something. I was embarrassed for her now, more than sorry for her. The smell of his quilt was a mixture of alcohol and vomit and filth. A drunken old fool for a father. When she turned around again to see what I was up to inside the cabin, I tried to muster up a bit of bravado. "Wal, Vile," I said.
    "Violet to you," she barked. But I could tell no one in her memory had ever used her proper name. She was just trying to make herself seem a