The Heart Remembers by Peggy Gaddis Read Free Book Online Page B

weak, ineffectual blow which the child side-stepped so deftly that one knew he was long accustomed to such blows and to such avoidance of them.
    â€œGo up to the commissary, Annie, for whatever you and the children need. The storekeeper will see that you get it. I’ve made the arrangements,” said Jim over his shoulder as he slid beneath the wheel.
    â€œIt’s right kind of you, Mr. Jim. I’m purely thankful to you,” said Annie politely, as the station wagon drove off.
    As they reached the bend in the narrow lane, Shelley looked back, and wished that she hadn’t. For the
tableau
on the rickety, sagging porch was one she would not be able soon to forget. The gaunt, white-faced woman, surrounded by weeping, frightened children, the baby clutched in her arms, was the most heartbreaking picture she had seen in a long, long time.
    A short distance down the highway, Jim once more followed a lane, this time one that was carefully kept so that the station wagon had no difficulty following it.
    Here again there was a clearing in the woods and a shabby old house; but this one stood hip-deep in flowering shrubbery, and the front lawn was dotted with clumps of daffodils and narcissi and there were neatly trimmed peach trees blooming riotously in the back.
    There was a chicken yard at the back, and a plump, middle-aged woman in a clean blue dress and a checked gingham apron was scattering food scraps to a flock of handsome, healthy-looking Buff Orpington chickens.
    She looked up at the sound of the station wagon, put down the pan and came hurrying over, smiling,wiping her hands on a bit of cleaning tissue in her apron pocket. As she reached the car she caught sight of the man who sat in the back seat and her plump face beneath the old-fashioned “slat” sunbonnet hardened and the eyes behind her old-fashioned golden-rimmed eyeglasses flashed.
    â€œBud Lively, you good-for-nothin’, worthless creature! Are you off to jail
again
?”
    â€œYessum, Miss Hettie—kinda looks like it,” Bud admitted sheepishly.
    â€œJim Hargroves, you make me so blasted mad!”
    The woman turned furiously on Jim.
    â€œKeep your shirt on, Aunt Hettie,” protested Jim wearily. “I figured it was better for me to take him in than to let ’em come and get him. You wouldn’t want Lije Holcomb coming after him, would you?”
    â€œWell, no, I reckon I wouldn’t want Lije Holcomb arresting a yaller dog of mine, not if I liked the dog any,” the woman admitted reluctantly. “But I swear to goodness, Jim, I don’t see how poor Annie and those young-’uns are going to make it without him, worthless and no-’count as he is.”
    â€œI tole Annie to go to the commissary for whatever she and the children needed,” Jim admitted.
    The woman sighed in exasperation.
    â€œWell, I reckon if it comes to that, she fares better when Bud’s doin’ time than when he’s home stirring up trouble. Only the poor fool grieves so for him, worthless as he is.”
    Bud squirmed a little.
    â€œNow, Aunt Het, you hadn’t orter talk like that.”
    â€œDont you ‘Aunt Het’ me, you good-for-nothing, or I’m liable to do what somebody ought to have done a long time ago. I’d just purely enjoy taking a buggy-whip to you and might’ near skinning you alive!” snapped the woman furiously. And Bud subsided, looking a little uneasy.
    Jim interrupted quickly, “Aunt Hettie, this is ShelleyKimbrough. She’s bought the old
Harbour Pines Journal
and the house that goes with it. The house isn’t fit to live in but she thinks if she could get somebody to help her give it a thorough cleaning—”
    Aunt Hettie forgot her age-old grievance against Bud, to turn to Shelley and say with warm, friendly interest, “Well, now, I do declare! I was that put out with Bud being arrested again, I didn’t even notice you had