M.C. Higgins, the Great by Virginia Hamilton Read Free Book Online Page A

The kids were all right. Squinting, he could see they were lying on the shore, drying darker and darker in the sun.
    M.C. went inside the house. A moment later he was back with a pitcher of cold water out of the icebox. Lewis took up his canteen and M.C. filled it.
    “Here,” he said to the dude. “Now just a little. I had that pitcher right next to what little piece of ice is left. It’s awful cold.”
    “All right,” Lewis said, his voice a hoarse whisper. He turned up the canteen, pressing it on his parched lips. He took a small swig and then another.
    “Lordy,” he whispered. And then he drank. When he had finally finished, M.C. filled the canteen again and screwed the top on tight.
    Lewis quickly opened the second leather case he carried and took out four sandwiches wrapped in cellophane. He lined them up on the ground. “I’ve got two egg-salad and two ham and cheese,” he said quietly to M.C. “You are welcome to have either kind with me.”
    M.C. couldn’t think when he’d had an egg-salad sandwich. He knew he wasn’t to take food or anything else from strangers.
    He’s a friend, M.C. thought. “I’ll have an egg-salad,” he said. “You better have the other egg-salad or it will spoil. Save the two ham and cheese. I don’t have food to give you.”
    “I’ll just do that,” Lewis said.
    M.C. had to hurry and eat the delicious egg-salad; then scoot back up the pole in order to watch the children. He told the dude this.
    “You can’t call it watching them, not from way here, can you?” Lewis asked.
    “Watch them everyday,” M.C. said.
    “I mean, what if something was to happen to them?” Lewis said.
    M.C. shook his head. He gobbled the food and drank water directly from the pitcher.
    Shortly after, he returned the pitcher to the house. When he came back, he said, “I have to go up. You going to stay?”
    “No,” Lewis said. “Think I’ll go on, see what I can find. But I’ll be back this evening.”
    “Mama’ll be here.”
    “You tell her I’m coming, will you, son?”
    “I sure will tell her,” M.C. said.
    “You think she’ll be too tired to sing?” Lewis asked.
    “She sings every night,” M.C. said.
    Lewis smiled. “Then she knows she’s good.”
    “No sense pretending she’s not,” M.C. said.
    “Well then,” Lewis said, “I’ll see you later on.”
    M.C. shimmied up his pole, saying so long to James K. Lewis. At the top, he settled on the bicycle seat, staring out on the expanse of hills. Below him, Lewis still sat, munching on his sandwich. Across from Sarah’s, something glinting caught M.C.’s eye. It sparkled in the sun and it was moving, half-hidden by foliage. He watched it, curious for a moment because he couldn’t identify what was glinting and moving. Suddenly, it was gone.
    “I thank you for the water,” James Lewis called up to him. Squinting into the sun, he looked up at the dark form of M.C., forty feet above him. “Hope you don’t mind if I just rest here a little while longer, get up all my energy.”
    “Sure,” M.C. said mildly. “And thank you for the sandwich. Better be careful, though,” M.C. told him. “Saw something I can’t figure moving out there. . . .” He had only wanted to sound important, like the dude. But then he paused, remembering the morning and the nice kind of surprise he had discovered on the path to home. He had to smile.
    “What kind of something?” Lewis called.
    “There’s some girl out there,” M.C. said. “Saw her early, just walking along. Some new kind of a girl. And just now I saw something shining. But I don’t see it now. Don’t know if it’s the girl for sure. You have any protection against girls?” He laughed.
    The dude smiled up at M.C. “Is she a pretty little thing with a back pack?”
    “Sure, a green pack,” M.C. said. “You know her?”
    “Why, yes,” the dude said. “She’s my ride.”
    “What?”
    “My ride. My ride. She brought me into Harenton. She’s got a little car.