Read Online Steeplechase by Jane Langton - Free Book Online

grain merchant, a harness maker, a grocer, and a butcher, but now it was as up-and-coming as the Milldam in Concord. Sidewalks lined the street, and in the Hubbard Block, a gentleman’s haberdasher was doing a thriving business. The Nashoba Mercantile Bank occupied quarters between the post office and the law offices of Peabody and Brown. A livery stable supplied horses, carts, and buggies for hire, and a dry-goods store was stocked with a delightful assortment of sewing materials for the women of Nashoba—bolts of poplin, broadcloth, and French cassimere, as well as velvets, silks, and every sort of ruching, fringe, and braid. Regrettably, there was also a tavern at the end of the street, the Rising Sun.
    With a creak of her stays, Ingeborg turned sideways and craned her neck the other way. From here, she could see children emerging from the district school, escaping from Euclid’s Elements and the baggage trains of Julius Caesar. But the ornament of the village was housed in the Wheeler Block, the Nashoba Social Library. Not only did the library possess a thousand books; it also boasted a cabinet of minerals, the gift of Ingeborg Biddle. The most constant borrower of reading matter was Ingeborg herself—that is, after one other person.
    â€œI suppose, Maria,” Ingeborg had said to the librarian, “that I am the worst offender in emptying your shelves of books. Forgive me, dear.”
    â€œOh, no, rest easy, Mrs. Biddle. You’re not nearly so bad as Mrs. Gideon.”
    Ingeborg winced, remembering the insult. But it wasn’t the views to east and west that were of interest to her now. Swiveling once again on her Bibles, she looked south to the house in which Julia Gideon was said to be reading even more books than Ingeborg Biddle. It did not occur to Ingeborg that within the tattered Bibles crushed beneath her stays was the Book of Psalms with its blessing on “the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful.”
    Scornful indeed was her seat, but this morning her observation seemed futile. It was laundry day in the Gideon household. Their backyard was a cloud of billowing sheets. Did that nightshirt belong to the monster?
    Ingeborg hitched forward on her pyramid of Old and New Testaments. Who were those people pulling up in front of the house in a high-seated gig? Oh, of course, it was Dr. Clock. The woman beside him must be his wife, Ida. The small boy jumping down from her lap was surely too old to be the fruit of this marriage. He must be the child of her first husband, the deserter. How kind of the doctor to raise the boy as his own!
    Ingeborg watched as Dr. Clock was welcomed into the house by Josiah’s daughter. Then she was surprised to see that instead of inviting the doctor’s wife and little stepson into the house, Isabelle ran out to join them. Ingeborg watched as Isabelle kissed Ida, hugged the little boy, and patted the horse’s nose.
    Patiently, Ingeborg waited for the end of the doctor’s visit. At last, he came hurrying out of the house and mounted the gig. At once, the horse started up with a sprightly bounce, nearly tossing the little boy over the side. The doctor grabbed him by the strap of his overalls, flicked his whip, and immediately horse and wagon were off and away, rattling down the turnpike on the way home to Concord.
    Surely now the women of the Gideon household would be free to do something about the tossing sheets in the backyard. Ingeborg stared impatiently. Why on earth didn’t someone take them in? By now, they must certainly be bone-dry. The enormous chestnut tree shaded the front of the house, but the sheets in the backyard flapped in the sunshine.
    Ingeborg was tired of her vigil. Frustration made her bold. What if she were to walk down the hill and wander behind the house as though looking for her fluffy gray pussy? Why ever not!
    Carefully, she picked up her skirts and made her