Sarny by Gary Paulsen Read Free Book Online

hard. It was Lucy’s turn on the wheelbarrow and she finally just quit pushing. “We’re going to stop now and make a fire and cook some cornmeal and pork fat and be like regular folks.”
    “Regular folks?”
    “Yes, missy. I’m taking a rest. We can’t just walk all night.”
    ’Course she was right but I couldn’t help myself. Kept thinking of how we found Tyler Two crying back in a closet, and of my own Tyler and little Delie. Stopping was the hardest thing for me to do but she was right.
    Now we had some vittles in us and she was laying up next to the small fire and she was talking about Tyler Two.
    “Must have been what he saw that keeps him from talking,” she said. “The way his kin were treated. That poor girl—”
    “Hush on that. Because he can’t talk don’t mean he can’t hear. Just hush on all that and put it out of your head and get some sleep. We’ll be moving before light.”
    I wrapped little Tyler Two next to me in a blanket. Small body next to me breathing, felt his chest rise and fall when he fell asleep and took some peace from it, but tired as I was I didn’t go to sleep for a spell.
    Thought of all we’d seen and done. Howfast it was all happening. One day I’m on a plantation and a man owns me. Can sell my children, sell me, whip me to death and nobody can say a word to him. Then a boy in blue comes along and sticks a bayonet through him and I’m free and I’m on my way to New Orleans with a wheelbarrow full of food and blankets and a white boy who can’t talk.
    Crazy life.
    Thought on Nightjohn. Just as my thinking closed down for the night I thought on Nightjohn and how he really started it all. Saved me. Hadn’t we been able to read we wouldn’t have found the paper about New Orleans that I kept in a pouch tied under my shift.
    Nightjohn he gave me that. Gave me reading so I could find my children. Wondered about him. Was he still alive? He’d be some older now. Been five and another five and one year. Hoped he was out there still, making them to read.
    Missed him. Missed Martin too, and little Delie and Tyler. But missed Nightjohn more in some way. I wanted to thank him and couldn’t and that made me to miss him heavier.
    Then sleep.
    *  *  *
    Things change.
    First I had Delie and she was my mother. Not my real one but the only one I got to know. Then along came Martin and he was my family and then little Delie and Tyler and now all of them were gone.
    Now I had Lucy. Cross between a daughter and younger sister. And Tyler Two and the wheelbarrow. New family.
    Pushing the wheelbarrow when it was my turn gave me time to think. The wheel rolled on the side of the road like it was meant for it and it had a spoke sticking through the steel a little so every time it went around it made a small bump.
    Pretty soon it was like music. When Lucy she pushed she started singing, using the bump for a beat, and when I was pushing it made me think.
    I didn’t count miles. Didn’t know how to count three hundred and fifty and as long as it took us to do one or two I would have felt sick waiting for New Orleans.
    Days were easier. We’d been traveling two since the officer told us ten and that left five and a mark and then three more. Eight days and we’d be in New Orleans.
    Bump of the wheel was like a clock to me. Bump, tick, bump, tock, bump, tick … Working on another day.
    But things change and by midday the clouds came up and it started in to raining. Soft at first and I hoped it would blow over but then it came hard and before long the road was too muddy for the wheelbarrow and we stopped under an old oak and made a shelter with the blankets. Didn’t stop the rain but the oak took some of it and the blankets let some of it slide off so we didn’t get as wet as we might.
    It kept on raining through the day and we made a cold camp because we couldn’t find any dry wood to light—though I did think to put the matches in an empty water jar so’s they wouldn’t get