Blue Kingdom by Max Brand Read Free Book Online Page B

loose, rotting away around the nails that held them, and in part they had been clean stripped away by strong winter winds. So he went down the ladder and began carrying up bunches of shakes.
    It was stiff work. The big bundles weighed a hundred pounds and more apiece, and, as he toiled up the ladder, the hot sun made the moisture pour down his face, down his breast and back. Wood dust, too, fell down his neck and began to set up an itching, and, before he had brought up two burdens, his fingers were filled with splinters. However, he set his teeth, paused only to swear at the extraordinary heat of the roof, which had been well baked in the sun, and then set about laying the shakes.
    He put on half a dozen. It was not a simple task, nomatter how it looked. He knew that Elizabeth Furneaux would have done the thing ten times as quickly and ten times as well as he. The craft that enabled him to juggle five knives at once seemed utterly useless for the purpose of handling a hammer. He barked his own fingers twice, and the nails bent under his strokes as though they were made of wax. He began to swear slowly, softly, but with intense viciousness.
    He went down the ladder, after a time, for a drink, and walked to get it fresh and cold from the windmill. The water was like ice, with a delicious taste, and he drank deeply of it. Then he sat down on an old bench, and took off his hat. It was very pleasant here. The coolness soaked into him. Water was dripping, and the wheel high above him whirred and hummed, while the pump rod heaved busily up and down. The water it raised poured with hollow-sounding bursts into the almost emptied tank, and to this music he listened with wonderful content, thinking how delightful it was for the very wind that blows to be harnessed to the works of man. There might even be machines invented, one day, for the covering of roofs with shakes and shingles. He busied his mind for a moment with a rather formless conceiving of such an affair. His idea grew gradually dimmer—and presently he wakened to find Elizabeth Furneaux standing before him, saying: “It’s lunchtime, Carrick.”

E IGHT
    Carrick started up with a spinning brain. “Why . . . I just sort of dropped off . . . ,” he began.
    â€œYou shouldn’t have tried work today,” said Elizabeth. “You’re not fit yet. It’s much too soon after your accident.” She turned toward the house. “Come along,” she said.
    â€œWait a minute, Elizabeth,” he begged. “Turn about and look at me, will you?”
    She obeyed, and he looked searchingly into her face to try to discover scorn, and contempt, and disappointment in it. There was no shadow, however. She was as bright and as cheerful as ever.
    â€œElizabeth,” he said, “is it possible that you really aren’t disgusted with me?”
    â€œFor what?” she asked.
    â€œFor starting to do so much. I was going to cover the roof of the barn . . . all sorts of things . . . and I’ve sat down here and gone to sleep.”
    â€œYou’re tired.”
    â€œI’m mighty near always tired,” he answered, “whenthere’s any work to do. Nothing like the idea of work to keep me in bed of a morning, for instance.”
    She smiled at him and nodded, then she shook a warning finger. “Don’t try to grow a conscience,” she said, “because it’s the one crop that a Carrick Dunmore never could raise, I’m sure.”
    â€œNo,” he admitted, “I’ve got on without being bothered much by it until now. . . .” He paused.
    â€œHave you forgotten what I told you about Carrick Dunmore the First?” asked Elizabeth.
    â€œI’m remembering. He was a man.”
    â€œWho never worked. Do you remember, Carrick? When the earl first saw him, he was juggling in the street of the village. . . .”
    He started.
    â€œDon’t tell me that you’re a juggler, too!”