Georgia Boy Read Online Free Page A

those goats are still up on top of the house when they get here, I’ll simply die of mortification.”
    The two nanny goats were chewing, too, but their whiskers were not nearly as long as the big goat’s. In addition to the three grown goats up on the rooftop, there were two little kids up there. The kids were only two months old and they were only a quarter of the size of the billy, but all five of them up there together on top of the house looked like a lot of goats.
    “William, tell Handsome to go downtown and find your Pa and tell him to come home and get those goats down right away,” she said to me.
    Handsome was cleaning up in the kitchen, and all I had to do was go to the edge of the porch and call him. He came out and asked me what we wanted.
    “The first thing I want you to do, Handsome Brown,” Ma said angrily, “is to tell me what on earth you meant by bringing those goats here.”
    “I only done what Mr. Morris told me to do, like I always does when you or Mr. Morris tells me to do something, Mis’ Martha,” he said, shifting from one foot to the other. “Mr. Morris said he wanted them goats brung home and he told me to drive them, and I done just that. You oughtn’t blame me too much for what Mr. Morris told me to do, Mis’ Martha.”
    “Why didn’t you tell Mr. Morris he ought to ask me first, then?” she said. “You thought of that, didn’t you?”
    “Yes, ma’am, I thought of it, but when I got ready to mention it to Mr. Morris, Mr. Morris said, ‘The devil you say,’ just like that, and that’s why I ended up driving them here like I done.”
    Ma got madder than ever. She picked up a piece of stove wood and slung it at the goats on top of the house, but the stick fell halfway short of reaching them. It slammed against the side of the house, making a big noise and leaving a mark on the weatherboarding.
    “Go downtown this instant and find Mr. Morris,” she told Handsome, “and tell him I want to see him right away. Look in the barber shop and the hardware store and every place he loafs until you find him. And don’t you dare come back without him, Handsome Brown. I don’t want to hear any excuses from you this time.”
    “Yes, ma’am, Mis’ Martha,” Handsome said trotting off to look for Pa.
    The goats walked along the ridge plate on the roof, looking down into the backyard at Ma and me part of the time, and the rest of the time looking down the other side into the street. They had got up there by hopping from the woodpile to the woodshed, from there to the porch roof, then leaping up on top of the kitchen roof, and from there to the main part of the house. They were about two stories and a half high above us on the ground, and it was a funny sight to see the three large goats and the two little kids walking Indian file across the top of the roof.
    The next time they stopped and looked down at us, the billy chewed some more, making his whiskers sway, and it looked exactly as though he were making faces at us.
    Ma tried to find another stick of wood to throw at him, but she was too mad then to look for one. She shook her fist at all five of them and then went running into the house.
    I sat down on the steps for a minute, but Ma came back and pulled me up by the arm.
    “William, go out in the front and watch for your Pa,” she said, shoving me down the steps, “and the minute you see him coming up the street, you run and tell me. The women will be getting here any time now.”
    I went around the corner of the house and stood by the front gate watching down the street. I did not have to wait long, because the first thing I knew I heard Pa and Handsome talking. They came walking fast.
    “What’s the matter, son?” Pa asked, looking up at the five goats on the rooftop. “What’s gone wrong?”
    “Ma says to get the goats down off the house before the women start coming to the meeting,” I told him.
    “That’s easy enough,” he said, hurrying around the corner of the