Hannah Coulter Read Online Free Page A

to go, only two doors to a handsome red brick house in a row of other such houses that stood between the street and the top of the Ohio River bluff. We went across a green lawn with a birdbath and tall trees, and up the porch steps to a door with leaded glass. Through the glass I could see into a hallway where the light was colored by a stained-glass window at a landing on the stairs.
    Grandmam raised the loop of a brass knocker and knocked three
times. After a minute we heard steps, and then the door was opened by a white-haired lady, slightly stooped, who looked piercingly at us through her rimless glasses, and then smiled and pushed open the screen door. “Well! Vinnie Steadman! Come in!”
    â€œHello, Ora Finley,” Grandmam said, not ready to come in yet. She stepped aside and reached for me where I was standing behind her. Patting my shoulder with her hand, she stood me where I could be seen. “This is Hannah Steadman.” She said it proudly, and then to prove her pride she said, “She is the valedictorian of her school.”
    I felt myself blush hot to the top of my head, and I had tears in my eyes that I was afraid were going to run over, but they didn’t.
    â€œOh, it’s Callie’s girl!” Mrs. Finley said in a tone that both sorrowed for my mother and approved of me. She took another of her unhurried straight looks at me and said, “Isn’t she fine!” And then, looking back at Grandmam, and with a sort of insistent gesture pushing the screen door wider, she said, “You all come in.”
    It was a requirement when she said it that time, and we went in.
    We followed her into a pleasant living room with a big window looking out to the front, an ornate clock on the mantelpiece, and under the window a radiator fairly loaded with books and magazines. I could hear the clock ticking in a solemn way that made the house seem proper and formal, as Mrs. Finley herself seemed to be. She and Grandmam sat down in armchairs on either side of the big window, and I perched on the edge of a slipcovered sofa on the other side of the room.
    Miss Ora—that was what I was going to call her—and Grandmam talked for a while without reference to me. They had been girls together when Miss Ora’s father kept the store at Shagbark. They told each other their news or some of it, spoke of the changing times, and named names from the past. There was pleasure and some laughter in all their talk, for they were happy to see each other. And there was something else too, a sort of tone that made you know they were speaking out of the knowledge of age and widowhood and hard times.
    After a while Miss Ora said, “And how are Dalton and Ivy and her boys?”
    â€œThe same,” Grandmam said. “As you would expect.”
    Seeing Grandmam’s reluctance to say more, Miss Ora said, “Hmh!”
and to change the subject looked over at me. She was smiling, but she had sharp, estimating eyes that were not easy to meet, and I blushed again.
    â€œWell, Hannah, you have finished school.”
    I could only smile back and nod, but Grandmam was quick to answer for me. “Yes. She made A’s in all her studies. She was the number one.”
    Miss Ora said, “Yes. I heard you say that.”
    â€œYes,” Grandmam said, talking as if I were perfectly deaf, understanding rightly that I was too shy to take part. “And now she needs to be getting on. She don’t need to be any longer at home.” She pressed her lips together, looked straight at Miss Ora, and nodded, inviting her to come to her own conclusion.
    Miss Ora looked back and then said, “I see.”
    She had given up talking to me. She said to Grandmam, “And what does she propose to do with herself?”
    â€œShe would like to come down here to Hargrave and get a job. There are lots of things she could do. They taught her to typewrite. She can do it fast. And she can write in