Manly Wade Wellman - John the Balladeer SSC Read Online Free

think, I flung up my both hands to box it off from me, and it gave
back, flew backward like the biggest, devil-ishest humming bird ever seen in a
nightmare. I was too dizzy and scared to wonder why it gave back; I had barely
the wit to be thankful.
                 "Get
out of here," moaned Mr. Onselm, who hadn't stirred.
                 I
shame to say that I got. I kept my hands up and backed across the clearing and
into the trail beyond. Then I half realized where my luck had been. My hands
had lifted the guitar toward the Ugly Bird, and somehow it hadn't liked the
guitar.
                 Just
once I looked back. The Ugly Bird was perching on the log and it sort of
nuzzled up to Mr. Onselm, most horrible. They were sure enough close together.
I stumbled off away.
                 I
found a stream, with stones to make steps across. I turned and walked down to
where it made a wide pool. There I knelt and washed my face—it looked pallid in
the water image—and sat with my back to a tree and hugged my guitar and rested.
I shook all over. I must have felt as bad for a while as Mr. Onselm looked like
he felt, sitting on the log waiting for his Ugly Bird and—what else?
                 Had
he been hungry? Sick? Or just evil? I couldn't say which.
                 After
a while I walked back to the trail and along it again, till I came to what must
have been the only store thereabouts.
                 It
faced one way on a rough road that could carry wagon and car traffic, and the
trail joined on and reached the door. The building wasn't big but it was good,
made of sawed planks well painted. It rested on big rocks instead of posts, and
had a roofed open front like a porch, with a bench where people could sit.
                 Opening
the door, I went in. You'll find a many such stores in back country places
through the land. Counters. Shelves of cans and packages. Smoked meat hung one
corner, a glass-front icebox for fresh meat another. One point, sign says u. s. post office, with half a dozen pigeonholes
for letters and a couple of cigar boxes for stamps and money-order blanks. The
proprietor wasn't in. Only a girl, scared and shaking, and Mr. Onselm, there
ahead of me, telling her what he wanted.
                 He
wanted her.
                 "I
don't care if Sam Heaver did leave
you in charge here," he said with the music in his voice. "He won't
stop my taking you with me."
                 Then
he swung around and fixed his squint eye and wide-open eye on me, like two
mismated gun muzzles. "You again," he said.
                 He
looked hale and hearty. I strayed my hands over the guitar strings, and he
twisted up his face as if it colicked him.
                 "Winnie,"
he said to the girl, "wait on him and get him out of here."
                 Her
eyes were round in her scared face. I never saw as sweet a face as hers, or as
scared. Her hair was dark and thick. It was like the thundercloud before the
rain comes down. It made her paleness look paler. She was small, and she
cowered for fear of Mr. Onselm.
                 "Yes,
sir?" she said to me.
                "Box of crackers," I
decided, pointing to a near shelf. "And a can of those sardine fish."
                 She
put them on the counter. I dug out the quarter Mr. Bristow had given me, and
slapped it down on the counter top between the girl and Mr. Onselm.
                 "Get
away!" he squeaked, shrill and mean as a bat. He had jumped back, almost
halfway across the floor. And for once both of his eyes were big.
                 "What's
the matter?" I asked him, purely wondering. "This is a good silver
quarter." And I picked it up and held it out for him to take and study.
                 But
he ran out of the store like a rabbit. A rabbit with the dogs after it.