Pamela Morsi Read Free Page B

he’d counted on his wife both to do most of the work and to raise his children. His death last year was as much from simply giving up as it was from the weak, rheumatic heart he’d lived with from childhood.
    At age seventeen, Eulie had found herself to be in possession of very little and the head of a large household. Clara had been able to take on most of the child-care duties of Little Minnie, Ransom, though prone to complaint and quick to take umbrage, was a very hard worker. And the twins were as biddable as two children could be. But it had not been enough to keep the family together. Within months they had all been farmed out, living at different places.
    The twins had gone to live with Mrs. Patchel. The old widow, known as Miz Patch, was the finest weaver and tatter around. Lately she was bothered with aching bones, and she’d been eager to provide a home for the two nine-year-olds who could thread the loomand do needlework from daylight till dark.
    Little Minnie stayed with the Pierce family. It was Enoch Pierce’s land that Virgil Toby had been sharecropping. The bond between landlord and sharecropper was usually tenuous, requiring only an occasional conversation and an annual payment. But the Pierces had taken an active interest in the Toby children after their mother’s death. Enoch checked on them daily and often brought meat and game for the table. His wife, Judith, had been equally kind and dependable. She had taken quite a shine to Little Minnie. Evicting the Tobys had been a necessary cruelty. It was made more palatable to the Pierces by their taking the youngest to be raised in their home.
    Farmer Leight had hired on Ransom to help him. Bug seemed to be one of the few people in the world to get along well with Rans. When the farmer later offered room and board for Clara to cook and clean for him, it seemed an ideal situation. It might have stayed that way if the fellow hadn’t cast his bulging insect eyes upon Eulie’s sister.
    But that was all in the past now. Eulie was married fair and square to Moss Collier. She’d have her whole family together again under one roof.
    Unwillingly her thoughts drifted to what Rans had called shagging. She’d been raised outside for the most part and was not totally ignorant of the ways of procreation. Of course, she’d never been allowed anywhere near the pens when the hogs were bred, but she’d seen birds and squirrels pairing up.
    Eulie swallowed a little unhappily. It didn’t look like anything she’d personally like to do. Downright embarrassing, she thought. Still, she supposed thatnow that she was married she’d have to let the husband-man shag a time or two. But if Moss Collier thought she’d be allowing that every spring like some barnyard animal, she’d simply have to dissuade him of the notion.
    And if her brother Rans thought she was going to allow herself to be worried and anxious on the happiest day of her life, well, he was just as cross-hinged as a two-headed pup.

2
    M OSS didn’t return to his plowing. When he got back to the field, he’d hitched up the jenny. The dependable little she-mule was right, ready, and agreeable to pull, but when Moss stared at that rocky ground and thought about those extra six mouths to feed, he just got so mad all over again that he didn’t work a lick. He walked up and down the half-turned rows cursing a blue streak and wishing his new bride into perdition.
    She was going to be sorry. Eulie Toby and her whole worthless, hungry family were going to be sorry. With them like a millstone around his neck, why, he might never get West. And if he didn’t, they’d be sorry. The whole sorry lot of them would be sorry.
    He went over the events of the morning again and again. Even knowing what had come to pass, he still suffered from disbelief. How could a slip of a stringy-haired gal just walk up to the preacher and declare herself dishonored and point to him as the guilty party? It was as if his ability to resist