Orchard of Hope Read Online Free Page B

always reciting the proper behavior rules for girls to Jocie, and she looked as if she was about to explode with several of them now as she stared between Jocie and Noah.
    Finally she dabbed her upper lip with one of her pink tissues and managed to say, “Pleased to meet you, I’m sure.”
    “Same here, ma’am,” Noah said. He looked as if he wanted to not only smile but burst out laughing the way he had at Jocie after the bike wreck.
    “Noah’s family bought a farm out on Hoopole Road,” Jocie said. “He was coming to town when me and the Sawyers’ dog managed to knock his bike out from under him. He needs a couple of Band-Aids.”
    “Certainly,” Zella said as she pulled open a desk drawer quickly. She held out the Band-Aids to Jocie and let her eyes skip across Noah’s face. “Your father’s a farmer?”
    “Now he is,” Noah said. “That’s not against the law here in Holly County, is it? Having Negro farmers?”
    “Well, no, certainly not, or at least I suppose not,” Zella said as she fanned her face with her tissue. “I don’t think we’ve ever had one before. Some of the boys who live up in the West End work on the farms now and again, of course, but nobody who actually lives on a farm.”
    “Oh, what do the Negroes here do?” Noah asked.
    “Well, they have jobs like anybody else.”
    “Lawyers, bankers, sheriff’s deputies, mailmen?” Noah said.
    Zella’s eyes narrowed on Noah. “I think you need to learn some manners, young man, when you’re talking to your elders.”
    “Yes, ma’am, you’re probably right,” Noah said. “I sometimes forget my place.”
    Jocie could tell Noah was baiting Zella. She’d done the same plenty of times herself, but it seemed different somehow when somebody else was doing it. “Come on, Noah. I’ll show you where the bathroom is so you can take care of your forehead.”
    Noah followed her away from Zella’s desk. “Are they flesh-toned Band-Aids?”
    “Not your flesh tone, I’m sure,” Jocie said. “You have a problem with being black or something?”
    “Not me. It’s everybody else that seems to have the problem.”
    Jocie decided not to bite on that one and just pointed Noah toward the sink in the bathroom. “I’ll get Dad.”
    “Is he going to have a problem with me being in his restroom?”
    “Beats me,” Jocie said. “You can ask him.” She wasn’t going to be baited like Zella. She could almost hear Zella steaming at her desk behind them before she started banging extra hard on the keys of her typewriter. Jocie went through the door into the pressroom. “Hey, Dad. You back here?”
    “Jocie, it’s about time. I thought maybe I was going to have to call the sheriff and send out a search party. Aunt Love said you left there almost an hour ago.” Her dad stood up from the worktable and took a better look at her. “What have you been doing?”
    “The chain slipped off my bike, and I had a wreck.”
    “Are you okay?” He moved closer to look at her better.
    “Bummed up my ankle, but I’m okay. I sort of hit somebody else. He banged up his head.”
    “You ran your bike into somebody? How could you run into somebody on your bike? I mean, you had the whole outdoors out there to steer around him, didn’t you?”
    “You’d think, but I had help,” Jocie said. “He was on a bike too, and Butch, you know the Sawyers’ big German shepherd, was chasing him and I couldn’t stop and he did. It’s a long story.”
    Her father sighed. “Maybe I better get the short version for now. You can tell me the details on the way to get Wes. Who did you hit? And how bad is he banged up?”
    “Noah Hearndon, and not too bad.”
    “Hearndon?”
    “His family just moved here. He said they bought a farm from Mr. Harvey out on Hoopole Road.”
    “I heard he sold some land, but I hadn’t heard to who. Some welcome to Hollyhill, huh?” her father said. “Do we need to pay for his doctor’s bills?”
    Noah came through the pressroom