The Immortal American (The Immortal American Series) by L. B. Joramo Read Free Book Online

straw.
    I was pushing the yellow blades of barley stalks in a corner with a pitchfork when I turned and my sister stood over me, her eyes bright and blue. I screeched, but she merely held onto my arm’s shirtsleeves and shook her head.
    “When are you going to pack?” she asked intently.
    “I’ve packed already.”
    Hannah looked reprovingly at me. “We’ll be at the opera. You didn’t pack any decent dress for the opera.”
    “How would you know that, little sneak?”
    “Who are you calling little, tiny mouse?”
    “You aren’t that much taller than I.” I smiled up at her one or two, mayhap as many as three inches of height she had over me.
    Hannah cracked a smile through her chiding. Finally, she let a bust of giggles come out. “I . . . I’ve made you a dress for the opera.”
    “Ah, that’s awfully nice of you.”
    “I know it is.”
    “I’m glad you know, and you’re so humble too.”
    Hannah shrugged, playacting being affronted. “Well, of course I do know how nice and generous it was of me to make you a dress, especially when these last few weeks you’ve been too busy to talk to me. You only run about the countryside when you aren’t working the farm.”
    I grimaced. “Oh, that . . .”
    “Yes, that. Don’t think Mother and I haven’t noticed that you haven’t been in the house except for when you sleep at night. Also, you have no appetite. If you weren’t constantly smiling and glowing like gold, then I’d worry. Mother thinks that you and Mathew are meeting in secret and working toward breaking your chastity.”
    I shook my head. “I’m not!”  But then I realized I should have agreed to meeting Mathew in secret for, surely, my sister would ask why I was apparently so happy as of late. I cleared my throat, thinking of some excuse. “I just love spring, seeing all the wild flowers in bloom, the animals stirring from their hibernation . . .” I waved my hand around my head like an adorable squirrel was there, stretching and yawning from its winter’s sleep.
    Hannah let her blonde eyebrows sink in suspicion, but then she shook her head and looked even more cross at me. “What my point is, you haven’t been around enough to notice that others in this household are just as joyful as you.”
    I frowned and thought of Mother. She’d just bickered with Hannah about a wild strawberry jam this morning, so I knew my mother wasn’t the culprit Hannah was describing. Then, I looked back up to Hannah who held up her left hand beside her cherry-hued cheek, displaying a tiny diamond in a thick gold band—at least the band and the chip of a gem appeared to be real–on her third finger.
    “Oh my . . .” I whispered.
    Hannah flew into a fit of little jumps as her hands clutched my arms. “I’m getting married too!”
    I couldn’t breathe. The world began to spin too fast.
    “Tomorrow, when we get to Boston, my Mark will meet us. I’ve written Monsieur Beaumont and Mathew, who both extended the invitation to Mark. So, he’s coming to the opera with us! You’ll get to meet him, finally! I can hardly believe it that I’m getting married soon.”
    I plastered a smile into place and nodded. “Oh my, how . . . grand is this? My sister is getting married. Oh my . . . oh my . . .”
    “I know. I haven’t told mother yet. And you know her, she hasn’t noticed the ring.”
    I sincerely doubted Mother hadn’t noticed. Knowing my mother, she was biding her time until Hannah broke the news to her. Mother, like my Da, had always given my sister and I enough privacy to grow, and enough room to make many a mistake as well.
    Hannah’s smile was wider than I’d ever seen it. “I’ve talked to Mark about our having a double ceremony—”
    “Talked?”
    “Well, wrote, to be more precise, like we always do, but as I was saying Mark is so wonderful. He wrote back saying whatever pleased me would make him the happiest of men, and it would make me so blissful to be married at the same time you