Spencer's Mountain Read Online Free Page B

quiet, still bathed in the pale light of dawn, broken only by the abrasive cry of some wakeful rooster. The only sound from inside the house was the regular, terrible rise and fall of his grandfather’s snore. It came from the room downstairs which the two old people shared. Clay-Boy wondered if his grandmother was awake; she frequently complained that she had not slept a wink all night on account of the old man’s snoring.
    At five o’clock, Clay-Boy heard the alarm from the clock his father kept beside his bed. It sounded for a moment, then was silent as Clay wakened and turned it off. Clay-Boy listened now to his father’s long deep yawn, smothered so as not to wake the children, and then after a moment the torturous screech of bedsprings as his father raised himself in the bed and put his feet on the floor. Clay usually muttered to no one in particular a four-or-five-word weather forecast. This morning he said, “Goen to be a beaut.”
    Then there was silence again while Clay got into his work clothes, broken at last when he made his way down the stairs, through the living room and into the kitchen. Once in the kitchen Clay set about building the fire in the old wood cooking range, drenching each stick of wood with kerosene to make the fire start quicker. Then when the fire roared up the chimney he dressed in a heavier coat to go out and milk the cow and feed the pigs.
    With the milk pail in his hand Clay tiptoed back to the foot of the stairs and called softly, “Sweetheart.” It was his name for Olivia and the only thing he ever called her at that hour. And she whispered, “All right. I’m awake.”
    By the time Olivia reached the kitchen, Clay had gone to the barn. Soon the aroma of strong black coffee drifted up the stairway to where Clay-Boy lay, and the tantalizing smell of fried lean bacon, the bubbling, spattering, hissing sound of fried eggs, and all the warm rich sunny smells of biscuits baking.
    Clay announced his return from the barn by placing the pail loudly on the kitchen table. Then Olivia strained the warm foamy milk into Mason jars, placed them in the refrigerator and sat down to breakfast with Clay.
    While they ate they talked quietly and the sound of their voices floated up to Clay-Boy.
    â€œClay-Boy’s goen to need money for his class ring soon,” his mother said. “I put a down-payment of three dollars on it when they ordered them, but there’s twelve more has to be paid when the rings come.”
    â€œI’m senden that boy through high school to get an education,” said Clay. “What the Sam Hill does he need a ring for?”
    â€œIt’s like a sign,” explained Olivia, “something to show he graduated.”
    â€œWhat does he need a sign for?”
    â€œWell, he can walk in some place and ask for a job and the minute the man sees that ring on his finger, he’ll know he’s a high school graduate and that’ll put him ahead of the ones that aren’t wearen one.”
    â€œA ring is somethen pretty to go on a woman’s hand is my way of looken at it,” said Clay. “Clay-Boy don’t need any ring to show he’s graduated from high school. It’s what they put in his head that counts.”
    â€œHe’s goen to be the only one in the class that won’t get a ring, then. You want him to be different from the others?”
    â€œYou’re A–1 right I want him to be different. I want him to make somethen of himself. The rest of ’em ain’t goen to amount to a hill of beans. But Clay-Boy’s goen somewhere in this world.”
    A man who had been to school only a few days in his life, Clay had an incredible respect for learning. In New Dominion it was a rare thing for a boy to graduate from high school because extreme youth was no barrier to finding a job with the company. Most boys dropped out of school once they passed the seventh grade to take a job,