Jim the Boy Read Online Free Page A

come to the new school. Jim had often seen hillbilly kids with their fathers at the store. They stared at Jim as if they hated him already; he didn’t like them, either. Jim’s grandfather lived on Lynn’s Mountain. Jim had never laid eyes on him, and did not think he ever would. Mama would not permit it. Jim was a little afraid of going to school with kids who might know his grandfather, but he had not told anyone that.
    Jim stopped at the edge of the school yard, but Whitey Whiteside marched up the steps and tried the wide front door. It was locked.
    “Shoot,” Whitey said. “I was hoping we could get inside.”
    Whitey walked down the steps and over to the nearest window. He was just tall enough to look in. He pushed his hat back and cupped his hands around his face and peered through the glass.
    “That’s the principal’s office, I guess,” he said. “You’ll need to make sure you stay out of there, Jim. You want to see what it looks like?”
    Jim shook his head. He did not want to look inside the principal’s office. His old school didn’t have a principal, just two teachers, and they were both nice.
    Whitey walked farther down the side of the building and stopped at another window.
    “This’ll probably be a classroom right here,” he said. He peered inside and whistled. “Boy, this is something, Jim,” he said. “Come have a look.”
    Jim shook his head again.
    “Oh, come on,” Whitey said. “You’re not going to get into trouble for looking in the window.”
    He made a low step with his hands. Jim put his foot into it and Whitey hoisted him up. Jim pressed his face against the glass. The glass was warm from the sun. He had watched the school going up, but he had not looked inside before. The first thing he noticed was that the room did not have a proper ceiling. The beams holding up the second floor were visible.
    “What’s that up there on the ceiling?” Whitey asked.
    “It doesn’t have a ceiling,” Jim said.
    “You know what I mean,” said Whitey.
    “Electric lights,” Jim said.
    “You got it,” said Whitey.
    The uncles said that electricity would come to Aliceville when the new school opened, but Jim had his doubts. The town had been wired for years, but still hadn’t been connected to the power plant in New Carpenter. Jim wanted to go to a school with electric lights, but he wasn’t getting his hopes up.
    “And look at the size of that blackboard,” Whitey said. “There’ll be plenty of room to do arithmetic problems. You won’t have to worry about running out of space when you do algebra.”
    The room was empty save for the lights and the blackboard. It did not have desks in it yet, or pictures on the walls. Jim pushed away from the window and Whitey lowered him to the ground.
    “Shoot, Jim,” Whitey said, “you’re going to get so smart you won’t be able to stand it.”
    “The uncles are going to teach me how to do geometry,” Jim said. “They’re good at geometry.”
    “They’re smart men,” Whitey said, seriously. “You do what the uncles say and you’ll turn out all right. That’s for sure.”
    Jim and Whitey turned away from the school and started back toward town. They could see almost all of Aliceville from the top of the hill. Pete Hunt stood up on the porch of the depot and stretched and looked up and down the street. Uncle Coran walked out of the cotton gin and into the store. He would lock the store soon and go to Uncle Zeno’s house for dinner. Smoke was rising from the kitchen chimney. Uncle Al and Uncle Zeno would come in from the field and tell Uncle Coran and Jim’s mother about the morning. Jim felt something cold, like a fog, ink out through his belly. Only his mother would believe he had gotten sick in the field. The uncles would not have much to say because they would be ashamed of Jim. The tall houses on Depot Street were the last place Jim wanted to go.
    Whitey suddenly slapped Jim on the arm.
    “Hey,” he said, “I heard it