Deep Summer by Gwen Bristow Read Free Book Online

inches on either side of the parting. Judith started back toward the cabin, feeling little and worthless and cross at Philip for laughing at her.
    Philip caught up with her and laid his arm across her shoulders.
    “I’m hungry as a mountain lion. I hope Tibby has lots to eat.”
    “Gumbo,” said Judith, “with shrimp and rice.”
    “Perfect,” said Philip. “It’s hungry work, clearing. Look, Judith, how much they’ve done on the house today. If I could spare more of them from the fields we could move in before winter.”
    He was not walking very fast, but she found it hard to keep up with his long strides. Her skirts clung damply to her legs and the heat was making her dizzy again.
    “This time next year,” Philip was saying, “there’ll be indigo back there where they’re cutting those trees, and then a tobacco field. We ought to have it all clear in a few years. Indigo is the best crop, but we’ll have rice too, and oranges, and we might put a few acres into cotton.”
    He isn’t concerned about a single thing but his crops, she thought rebelliously. He doesn’t even notice how miserable I am. He just takes me for granted like Tibby—
    She put her head against the cabin wall and burst into tears.
    Philip stopped short. He took her in his arms. His voice when he spoke was low with troubled astonishment.
    “Judith, darling, what on earth is the trouble?”
    All her resolutions seemed to have gone down at once. She hid her face on his breast and sobbed.
    “I—I can’t help it!” she choked out. “The heat and everything—and I can’t breathe and my head hurts all the time and I’m sick all over and I think I’m going to die.”
    Philip held her close to him. She felt his kisses on her cheeks where the tears were.
    “You poor dear child,” he was saying. “It’s the first deep summer you’ve ever seen, isn’t it? Come inside.”
    “By that fire?” she protested, but apparently he did not hear her, for he drew her indoors. With a great effort Judith swallowed her sobs. Philip made her sit down on a box in the corner away from the fire.
    “Bring her some water, Tibby,” he said.
    Tibby was scooping the gumbo into big bowls and setting them on the table. “She ain’t been feelin’ so peart, young miss ain’t,” she said. She dipped a gourd into the bucket of water on the shelf. “Heah you is, honey lamb.”
    Judith tried to drink it. She had grown used to river water on the flatboat, but suddenly she thought she had never tasted anything so vile in her life. It was lukewarm and felt gritty on her tongue. The rich odor of the gumbo steamed up toward her. She felt herself get cold with loathing, and then the heat rushed over her again and her stomach turned inside of her and her head began to spin. With an abrupt movement she rushed out of the cabin. By the time Philip reached her she was down on her knees among the weeds, holding herself up with her arm around a palm-tree, retching.
    Philip helped her up and led her to the step by the cabin door, where it was shady. He sat down by her.
    “I’m so terribly sorry, Philip,” she murmured.
    Philip put his arm around her and drew her head down on his shoulder. He began asking her questions. Judith drew back and caught her breath.
    “Do you mean I’m going to have a baby, Philip?”
    “Darling,” he said gently, “didn’t you know?”
    Judith shook her head.
    After a moment she said, “I guess I don’t know anything. You must think I’m an awful fool, Philip.”
    Philip was gathering up weeds in his hand and breaking them off near the ground.
    “No,” he said, “but I think maybe I am.”
    Judith rolled up the edges of a tear the palm-fronds had made in her dress. “Philip,” she asked, “does it hurt very much?”
    He nodded. “They say it does.”
    “Tell me what it’s like, Philip.”
    He lifted his head. “I can’t, honey. I don’t know anything about it.”
    Her eyes widened with surprise that there should be