Hear the Wind Blow Read Online Free Page A

any easier.
    When I went into the barn to tend the cow and Warrior, I could scarcely see. Snow-blind, I guessed. The horse raised his head and whinnied, as if to say he wanted his oats and he wanted them now. I fed him and visited with him a while.

    "Don't worry. Your master's on the mend already," I told him. "He'll be down to see you in no time."
    Warrior seemed to understand every word I spoke. I'd never known a horse to look so intelligent. I reckoned he was the equal of Alexander the Great's noble steed Bucephalus in looks as well as brains.
    By the time I returned to the house with a bucket of milk, Mama was busy kneading bread and Rachel was drawing pictures on the steamy kitchen windows. The air smelled as sweet as a field of mown wheat on a hot summer day.
    I stamped my feet to warm them and rubbed my hands together. "How's James Marshall?"
    "Sleeping," Mama said. "His wound is healing nicely. Wasn't near as bad as it looked. His fever's down, too. I believe what he needed most was warmth and nourishment and sleep."
    That was good news. I had half a mind to sneak up and take a peek at him. If he was awake, I planned to ask him what getting shot was like, and had he been scared, and did he ever have a chance to sit down next to Mosby and talk to him close up. But the second I put my foot on the step, Mama shook her head.
    "Leave the poor boy alone, Haswell. Didn't I just say rest is what he needs?"
    "Yes, ma'am." I headed for the parlor to find a book to read, but Rachel got there first.
    "Read to me, Haswell." She thrust
Great Expectations
at me. Papa was very fond of Mr. Dickens and had acquired most of his books, including this one, the very latest. He'd managed to find a copy in Richmond and brought it home for Christmas. He'd read the entire book to us, sitting by the fire on cold winter nights.

    It was simpler to read to Rachel than argue with her, so I took the book and began at the beginning, even though we both knew the story almost by heart. Pip's meeting with the convict in the foggy graveyard always gave me the shivers. Sometimes I lay awake wondering what I'd do if I ever experienced a moment like that.
    "'Hold your noise!'" I read. "'Keep still, you little devil, or I'll cut your throat!'"
    I did my best to speak with expression the way Papa did, but I couldn't make the convict's voice sound as gruff as he could.
    "A fearful man," I read on, "all in coarse grey, with a great iron on his leg. A man with no hat, and with broken shoes, and with an old rag tied round his head. A man who had been soaked in water, and smothered in mud, and lamed by stones, and cut by flints, and stung by nettles, and torn by briars; who limped and shivered, and glared and growled; and whose teeth chattered in his head as he seized me by the chin.
    "'O! Don't cut my throat, sir,' I pleaded in terror."
    Now I pitched my voice higher, imitating poor scared Pip. Beside me, Rachel listened hard. You'd think she'd never heard the story before.
    "The convict sounds like a Yankee," she whispered. "They'd just as soon cut our throats as not."
    "That would hush a person, wouldn't it?"
    Rachel didn't catch my meaning. "What will we do if they come here searching for James Marshall, Haswell?"

    "They won't."
    "But what if they do?"
    "Do you want to hear Mr. Dickens or fret about Yankees?"
    Rachel leaned up against me. "Read, Haswell."
    So the afternoon passed. While we followed Pip's adventures, the sky darkened slowly. Soon it was time to feed Warrior and milk the cow.
    When my chores were done, I took a bowl of soup to James Marshall. He was sitting up in bed looking a world better, but his eyes had dark shadows and his skin was still white as milk that's had the cream skimmed off.
    "Tell me about getting shot in the raid," I said.
    He shrugged. "Not much to tell, Haswell." He spooned soup into his mouth.
    "That's all right," I said. "Tell it anyway. Papa never would say a thing about fighting."
    "Maybe he had cause not to." James