A Land More Kind Than Home by Wiley Cash Read Free Book Online Page A

road, I’d found Mama and Stump sitting on the porch steps like they were waiting on me. They were both holding small wooden boxes that looked like cages with handles on them, and when I got close enough to hear what she was telling Stump I heard the handle squeaking where Mama swung her box back and forth in front of her. She looked up and smiled when she saw me.
    â€œThere you are,” she said. “How was school?”
    â€œWhat are y’all doing out here?” I asked.
    â€œWaiting on you,” she said.
    â€œWhat for?”
    â€œBecause I figured you might want to go out and catch a few salamanders for y’all’s room.” I dropped my book bag by her feet on the bottom step, and I looked at the wooden box where she held it in front of her. She held it out to me, and I took it by the handle.
    â€œYou serious?” I asked.
    â€œWell,” she said, “y’all been wanting some, and I figured you might as well have them if you can take care of them. We’ll have to find something to put them in, but this’ll do for now. I’ll take your book bag inside, and you can go on down to the creek if you promise to keep that shirt and those pants clean.”
    â€œI will,” I said. I looked at the box in my hand. “Where did you get these?”
    â€œFrom a friend,” she said. “He’s letting me borrow them just so y’all can use them. But we can’t keep them, okay?”
    â€œOkay,” I said.
    She picked up my book bag and stood up from the steps and turned to go into the house, but she stopped and looked back at me and Stump. “See if you can catch five salamanders,” she said. “I think that would be plenty for us to have. So see if you can catch five.” I looked at Stump like I couldn’t believe what she’d just said, and I swung my cage by its handle and bumped it against his like I was making a toast.
    â€œYou ready?” I asked. He jumped up from the porch, and we started across the yard toward the creek at the bottom of the hill.
    But we didn’t catch any salamanders. We couldn’t even find a single one. It was probably the only time I’d ever gone off looking for salamanders that I couldn’t find them, and when we walked back up the hill toward the house all we had in those little boxes was a few sticks and some blades of grass that reminded me of the terrarium we had in my classroom at school.
    My pants were soaked up past my knees and I carried my shoes with my socks stuffed down inside. I was afraid that Mama was going to be mad at me for getting so dirty, especially after I’d told her I wouldn’t. Stump had left his shoes on while he was walking through the creek, and I could hear water sloshing around in them and they squeaked when he walked. I knew Mama wasn’t going to like that either.
    We came up alongside the house, and I stopped beside the rain barrel. It sat up off the ground on some concrete blocks, and the gutter ran down into it from the roof. I squatted down and turned the spigot. I heard bubbles come up inside the barrel when the spigot opened and the water started pouring out.
    â€œWash off your hands,” I said to Stump. “We’d better wash our shoes too. Mama’s going to be mad if we bring all this mud in the house.”
    He sat his box down in the grass by the rain barrel, and he held his hands under the water and rubbed them together to get the dirt off.
    â€œStick your shoes under there too,” I said. He picked up one of his shoes and held it under the water, and I found a stick and used it to scratch the mud off the sides of his shoe. Then he held the other one under there and I did the same thing. Stump turned off the spigot, and when he did we heard them inside the house. I looked up at the window where Mama and Daddy’s bedroom was, and me and Stump stayed kneeled down there in the grass and listened to them. They were