That Camden Summer by Lavyrle Spencer Read Free Book Online Page A

all the way to the top. "Heavy the sorrow that bows the head . . . " she sang as she idled her way into the rear bedroom, the one that looked out at Mount Battie. Its ceiling followed the steep roofline, and on one end it had a pair of long, skinny windows that reached to within inches of the floor. Before them, Mr. Farley was on one knee, examining the wall around the window and whistling very softly between his teeth. His whistling sounded like ducks' wings when they flew low over your head.
    "Hello," she said.
    He stopped whistling and looked back,over his shoulder. "Oh, hello."
    "I'm Lydia."
    He pivoted on the balls of his feet and let his weight settle onto one heel, resting his forearms on his knees, letting his hands dangle between them.
    "It's nice to meet you, Lydia. I'm Mr. Farley."
    AQ
    "I know. Are you going to fix this house for us?"
    "I think so."
    "It's quite a mess, isn't it?"
    He let his gaze rove as if following the shape of a rainbow. "Oh, I don't know. It's not so bad." He pointed with a knuckle while keeping the wrist over the knee. "That window in the other bedroom needs replacing, and it looks like it'll need almost a whole new front porch, but the roof is shingled with slate, and she's good for another hundred years."
    "This is going to be my room," Lydia told him.
    ccOh?55 "Mine and Becky's and Susan's. Mother will take that one." She pointed behind her.
    "Have you talked it over already?"
    "No, but Mother pretty much always lets us have our way."
    "She does, does she?"
    "Pretty much. Unless it would hurt somebody, or be bad for our minds. We want to stay, so I know she'll say yes."
    "Why do you want to stay?"
    "Because we have a grandmother here, and cousins and Aunt Grace and Uncle Elfred, whom it's time we got to know., and because there's an opera house here which Mother says we'll frequent, and exceptionally fine schools, and if you attend high school here you don't even have to be tested to go into college, they just let you in. Did you know that?"
    Amazed by her spiel, Gabriel cleared his
    AO
    throat. "No, I didn't. "
    "Mother says education is paramount." Mother does, does she? Gabriel studied the precocious child. She was no higher than his armpit and rather the ragamuffin in scuffed brown high-top shoes with knots in their strings and a sacky brown pinafore-shaped dress whose patch pockets sagged. Her sandy braid was in disrepair; a fringe of hair had worked loose from it and she frequently shoved it back from her temples. Her nails were dirty. But her cheeks were rosy and her eyes as bright as a tern's. Moreover, her vocabulary and elocution put Gabe's own to shame. He peered at her more closely.
    "How old are you?" "Ten. "
    "You
    "Mother
    speak awfully well for a ten-year-old." reads to us a lot, and encourages us
    to be inquisitive about words, and to create." "Create what?"
    "Anything. Music, poetry, plays, essays-, paintings, even botanical exhibits. Once we wrote an opera."
    "An opera," he repeated in undisguised surprise.
    "In Latin." "My goodness."
    "Well, we tried it in Latin, but we made so many mistakes that Mother got tired of correcting them, so we changed it to English instead. Do you have children?"
    "Yes, I do. I have one daughter, Isobel. She's fourteen.
    "Susan is fourteen. Maybe we'll all be friends. "
    "I'm sure Isobel would like that."
    "And Rebecca is sixteen. Susan and Rebecca do everything together, but I'm the baby and sometimes they won't let me. But at least they let me put on plays. Well, I'd better go now."
    She swung around and collided with her uncle Elfred, who had just reached the top of the stairs.
    "Oopsy-daisy!" he said, sidestepping.
    She looked up. "I'm sorry, Uncle Elfred. I was just going to find Mother."
    "She's downstairs on the front porch with your sisters. "
    Lydia clattered off down the steps and Elfred joined his friend in the rear bedroom. "Well, what do you think?" he asked, stopping beneath the unlit light bulb and reaching into his vest