Hoggee Read Online Free

and maybe learn what troubled her.
    When the old man was gone, Howard washed his face and hands in the icy trough where the mules drank. Resisting the urge to dry his hands on his dirty clothing, he waved them in the air until they dried. Next he changed into the other clothing he had washed in the trough last week. He took up his comb and ran it through his long, limp hair to comb it back from his eyes. His mother would have been horrified to see him so dirty calling on anyone for Christmas dinner, but he feared the icy water would kill him if he tried to bathe.
    When he was dressed, he went outside to the holly tree that grew near the barn. Howard had admired the red berries that grew there earlier, but now he wanted to bring a bit of Christmas inside. He broke some of the thin, berry-laden branches from the tree and took them into the barn. Twisting them together, he made a wreath to hang around Molly’s neck. Stepping back, he admired his work. “Merry Christmas to you, old girl,” he said. “I’ll keep my eye out for a bite of something for your Christmas pleasure.” He closed the barn door, climbed the slight hill, and stood looking down at Cyrus’s little house behind the large one owned by Captain Travis.
    Howard stopped for a minute on the front stoop. He wondered how the second oldest girl would react to his coming. She had been so hostile on the path. He did not wish to offend anyone. But the smell of roasting chicken seeped through the door, and he raised hishand to knock. Before his knuckles hit the wood, the angry girl opened the door.
    â€œGrandpa says you’re to come in,” she said, and she turned away.
    He followed her. The house was small, one main room with two doors opening off of it. Howard supposed those were sleeping rooms. There was a small pantry room off the kitchen, with the door open, and he could see shelves with food on them. A fireplace stood in one corner, but Howard also saw a large cast-iron stove like the one his father had bought his mother for cooking. A long sawbuck table stood near the stove, and there were empty plates on it, and dishes of food. Howard’s eyes traveled over loaves of bread and a bowl of beans to a plate of apple slices, once dried and now freshened with water. He would, he decided, slip a piece or two of the apples into his pocket for Molly.
    A woman standing near the stove looked up at Howard. “Well, Da,” she said to old Cyrus, who sat nearby smoking a pipe, “your visitor has come, it seems. Won’t you make us acquainted?”
    Cyrus took the pipe from his mouth and scratched at his beard. “This here is my daughter, Mistress Donaldson.” Next he pointed to three girls who stood nearby. The one who had opened the door had been joined by the two others, one smaller and one larger. Their hair, clean and dressed in shiny braids, was almost white.
    The boy put his hand to his head. His own hair was also that fair, but it was so dirty now that it looked much darker. Cyrus pointed to the tallest girl. “This beSarie,” he said, and his face warmed with the saying of her name.
    â€œSarah,” his daughter corrected him, but Cyrus paid her no heed. “This be Laura,” he said, pointing to the next girl, “and little Grace.”
    Howard nodded his head to acknowledge the introductions. “Pleased to meet you,” he said, but the girls said nothing.
    â€œDa,” said Mistress Donaldson. “You’ve not told us our visitor’s name, now have you?”
    Old Cyrus twisted his face, thinking. “Why, I don’t know your name, boy,” he said. “All I know is hoggee, and you ain’t rightly a hoggee at the moment, are you? Not in the dead of winter, not on Christmas Day.”
    The boy nodded. “I’m not,” he said. “I’m just plain Howard Gardner.”
    The woman motioned toward the table. “Set yourself down, then, Howard