To Make My Bread by Grace Lumpkin Read Free Book Online Page A

different pattern from that at Swain’s. Small Hardy held a red silk waist with glass buttons against his chest to show its beauty. It looked queer against his small face, but in his enthusiasm for the goods he seemed to forget himself. From different pockets of the pack he took many things—a Bible, some cotton thread; gold-eyed needles, and pins with colored tops. With a great flourish he showed them a fine looking knitted thing, a fascinator, he called it.
    â€œThis is what you should wear,” he said to Emma.
    It was bright red, with a border knitted from silver thread. The silver shimmered in the light as Small Hardy let the scarf trail over his hands. Suddenly he gathered it into a ball with his long fingers, and held it between his two palms.
    â€œOh,” Emma said. She thought he had ruined the pretty thing. But when he let go it sprang from his hands as if it was alive and fell over them again in soft folds.
    â€œHow pretty,” Emma said, and bent her neck over it.
    â€œFine ladies wear them like this,” Small Hardy told her. He reached up and put the fascinator over Emma’s hair, crossed the end pieces under her chin and let them fall across her shoulders, down her back. He dug in one of his pockets, brought out a mirror, and held it up close to the lamp so Emma could see. She looked so fine with some of her brown curls coming out in front against her face. Kirk and Basil stared at her, and she felt their eyes were admiring. Her face became softer, and her lips curved up at the corners. Her eyes turned toward the money gourd on the shelf.
    â€œIt’s sure pretty,” she said to Small Hardy. But she did not ask how much. She lifted the red, soft thing from her head and folded it up, letting it rest at each fold in her two hands.
    â€œIt’s sure pretty,” she said again and gave it back to Hardy.
    He laid it away carefully and brought from the same pocket two strings of beads, red, one longer than the other. Emma held them up to the light. They hung from her fingers. The light pierced into them and came away in little red rays.
    â€œAre they jewels?” Emma asked, her voice soft with admiring them. She had heard Sally Swain talk about the jewels rich women on the outside wore.
    â€œNo,” Small Hardy said. “If they were real they’d be worth more than a hundred dollars.”
    â€œI’ve heard,” Granpap spoke out of the dark, “they find real stones somewhere up in the hills. I remember there was gold down in Georgy, mixed right in the sand.”
    â€œI did see some real stones in Leesville. They’d found them somewhere in the mountains. Sapphires large as the end of your finger. If you found one of them you would have something to live on.”
    â€œIt would be nice,” Emma said. “Just to go out, pick up a stone like you’d pick up a mouth rock and be rich.”
    â€œWell,” Small Hardy sat back on his haunches. “They say poor folks are going to get rich now.”
    He let them taste this news. Bonnie, trying to get to bed, stumbled over Plott, who gave a sleepy grunt. All the others were looking at Small Hardy. Even the eyes back in the shadows, Kirk’s eyes and Basil’s, were looking at him. Only Bonnie, done up with sleep, lay on the bed.
    â€œDown in Leesville,” Hardy went on, “a Mr. Wentworth, a rich man, has a mill for making cloth like this.” He pointed to the calico. “And they say whoever goes down to work there is going to be rich like him—for he started out as poor as the next one. They say out there the rivers flow with milk and honey and money grows on trees.”
    â€œDo,” Emma said. “And have you seen?”
    â€œWell,” Small Hardy put his head on one side considering. His big head leaned against the hump and he moved his right shoulder that sloped so far down as if he was not quite comfortable. His bright black eyes looked up at