Abigail's Secret (A Whimsical Select Romance Novella) Read Online Free Page B

let’s take our revenge, my dearest sister,” he said, and smiled wide.  “We will locate and hire that woman—Tiny Tess, I recall— and see if she’s willing to portray herself as Abigail Large.  We’ll have her show an incredible fancy toward whatever gentleman is to your liking—whether it is Brice or another—and then we’ll see if Abilene can lure him away from her dowry.”
    “ Not to offend you, Thomas, but you have always been dull as ditch water,” she said.  “You’ve always and only have been concerned with business, especially since the Yankees won the war.  I am truly shocked by your suggestion.  What has come over you?”
    “Yes, I have, but I feel it’s time for me to seek some amusement, and perhaps get a little bit back from those damn carpetbaggers in the progress.  In a matter of days, Mecklenburg County has become a spectacle by the crowds assembling from every neighboring county to seek marriage for the single purpose of your dowry.  Do you not see that as despicable?  I say these people have it coming!”
    “Do you truly think we can pull this off?”
    “I most definitely do.”
    Abigail sat down on the settee and thought hard and long about the people of Mecklenburg County.  She could barely recall a single act of kindness among any of them, and worse, their cruelty had no limitations.  It never helped matters that she possessed the surname of Large.  She didn’t want to recall all the manner of yarns she had endured by that cruel twist of fate.  As she pondered on the contradictory behavior of the townspeople from that time to her present, her ire grew into hellfire furious.  “I think you may be right,” she said absently.  Then with more conviction she rose and gave him a terse nod.  “No, you are right, Thomas.  Let’s teach this town a lesson they’ll not soon forget.”

CHAPTER THREE
     
                  Robert E. Lee’s visit through Charlotte in 1870 paled in comparison to the ballyhoo that arose by Tiny Tess’s debut as Abigail Large.  She arrived on the rail from Wilmington to Charlotte.  As she was unable to fit in the train’s passenger cabin, Thomas had arranged that a private boxcar be supplied with furniture and luxuries and it accommodated her outsized figure nicely.
    People lingered on and around the tracks for nearly a mile, and they peered down the railway in anticipation of the locomotive’s three o’clock arrival.  The smoke off its engines puffed out large white clouds into the distant sky and silently announced it was soon to be there.  When it neared the station, the engineer released the train’s steam trumpet and it blew out its six-chime warning.  The train’s brakes squealed in protest as it slowed into the station.  Men, women, and children whom gathered from afar, as well as within their community, eagerly waited for Abigail Large to make her departure from the train.
    With Tess’s arrival came fireworks, barbecues, musical bands, street merchants, and more possible suitors than any one woman rightly deserved.  The moment the train stopped at the station, the musicians sang out their welcoming song of Buffalo Gals , which they appropriately altered to Charlotte, Abigail’s hometown.
     
    As I was walking down the street
    Down the street, down the street,
    A pretty gal I chance to meet
    Under the silvery moon.
    Charlotte gals, won't you come out tonight?
    Come out tonight, Come out tonight?
    Charlotte gals, won't you come out tonight,
    And dance by the light of the moon.
     
    I asked her if she'd stop and talk,
    Stop and talk, Stop and talk,
    Her feet covered up the whole sidewalk,
    She was fair to view.
    Charlotte gals, won't you come out tonight?
    Come out tonight, Come out tonight?
    Charlotte gals, won't you come out tonight,
    And dance by the light of the moon.
     
    I asked her if she'd be my wife,
    Be my wife, be my wife
    Then I'd be happy all my life,
    If she'd marry me.
    Charlotte gals, won't you come