Encounter at Cold Harbor Read Online Free Page A

tightly.
    “No, you can’t get down,” he said. “Here, stand up beside me and look out the window.” He turned her toward the glass.
    This seemed to please Esther well. As the landscape flashed by, she chattered almost constantly.
    “It’s been a long trip,” Tom said. “I know you’re worn out, Leah.”
    “I’ll be glad to lie down on a bed again.” Leah groaned, straightening her back painfully. “It’s hard to sleep sitting up in one of these seats.”
    “Sure is!” Tom looked out the window and said abruptly, “Looks like we’re pulling into Richmond. There’s the siding right over there.”
    “Won’t be too soon for me!” Leah brightened and brushed away some cinders that had come in through the open window. Her face was smeared with smut. “We look like we’ve come from a sideshow!”
    “I guess it beats walking.” Tom held onto Esther tightly. “Pa will sure be glad to see Esther again.”
    “He’ll be glad to see you too, Tom.”
    Tom did not answer for a while, and when he did he changed the subject. Turning to Leah, he said, “I guess you’ll be glad to see Jeff.”
    “I guess so.”
    “You
guess
so!” Tom jeered. “You two are thick as thieves. Always have been!”
    They talked about the time Leah and Jeff had gotten lost in the woods and Tom had to go find them. “You two always were close,” he said, holding tightly to Esther as the train clanked and rattled over the rails, swaying from side to side. “Must be nice to have a built-in sweetheart. You don’t have to make any decisions.”
    “Oh, don’t be foolish, Tom!”
    “Nothing foolish about that!” He watched the tall buildings as the train rolled into the outskirts of Richmond. “Most girls have an awful time courting, have all kinds of fellows, and can’t make up their minds.”
    He’d always liked to tease Leah, and now, she thought, he seemed to be light of spirit for a change.
    “But you and Jeff—why, you just grew up together.”
    Leah was watching the buildings of Richmond also. Finally she said quietly, “That’s just the trouble, Tom.”
    “What trouble?”
    “Jeff never thinks about me as a woman. He thinks about me as a little girl.” She touched her hair and, feeling the grittiness of it, made a face. “I guess he’ll always think of me as just the little girl he went hunting birds’ eggs with.”
    Tom studied her. “Well, you look a lot better than you did when you were eleven or twelve. You were all legs and arms then and gawky as a crane.” He laughed. “I think you used to cry about that every day!”
    “I did!” Leah admitted. “I thought I was too tall, and I still think so!”
    “You’re not too tall for Jeff. He’s going to be taller than either Pa or me. Why, he might be six one or two by the time he stops growing.”
    “It won’t make any difference,” she said. She sat quietly for so long that Tom must have noticed she was worried.
    “What’s wrong, Leah? I thought you’d be glad to get back to see Jeff and Uncle Silas.”
    Leah thought, then said, “It’s hard to grow up, Tom. I sometimes don’t know whether I’m a girl or a woman. I’m just halfway in between.”
    Tom reached over and patted her on the shoulder. “Well, believe it or not, it’s hard for boys to grow up too. Hard to know when to act like a man and when to act like a baby.” He smiled. “I heard a funny story about Lincoln. Somebody asked him how he took a loss, and he said, ‘Well, when I was aboy, things would happen and I would cry.’ He said, ‘Now I’m too old to cry, and it hurts too much to laugh.’”
    Leah could not help smiling too. “I guess that’s about the way I am. It hurts too much sometimes, but—”
    “One thing’s for sure. You’re
going
to grow up, and Jeff’s going to see one day what a fine-looking young lady you are. You already are, as far as I’m concerned.”
    “I’ll never be as pretty as Sarah.”
    Tom looked at her quickly. His mouth tightened