Winterbound Read Online Free

Winterbound
Book: Winterbound Read Online Free
Author: Margery Williams Bianco
Pages:
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is a very hard and unpleasant thing to stub your toes on, and as you are the person who does most of the toe-stubbing around here, she was probably thinking of you.”
    â€œBut she said you ,” Caroline persisted.
    â€œShe meant all of us. Now if you’ve finished your supper you can go out and play till it’s time to dry the silver.”
    â€œCan I go over and play with Shirley?”
    â€œYou can not. You can play in the yard.”
    â€œI wish I could go and play with Shirley!”
    â€œIf you spend any more time in wishing,” said her mother pleasantly, “it will be too dark to play anywhere, and then you’ll have to go to bed.”
    Caroline trailed half-heartedly towards the door, as Kay and Garry began to gather up the plates.
    â€œThere’s one of you, anyway,” said Mrs. Ellis, “that’s going to be brought up right.”
    A muttered sound reached them, and she added aloud: “What was that you just said, Caroline?”
    Caroline faced round, her hand on the screen door. “I only said ‘shucks!’”
    Kay smiled, and Garry turned to her mother.
    â€œYou see, Penny dear—you’d far better give it up! It isn’t the least use in the world!”

Listeners Hear No Good
    â€œMOTHER, Mr. Rowe’s going to take apples over to the cider mill. Can we go with him?”
    â€œI don’t know if he wants you . . .” Mrs. Ellis began.
    â€œHe does,” Martin insisted. “He saved it for Saturday so we could all go along.”
    â€œIs Shirley going, too?” For Caroline was hopping in the background, as impatient as her brother.
    â€œYes. Her mother said she could!”
    â€œThen run along! Caroline, you’d better take a coat.” They dashed off down the road to where Neal Rowe was waiting with his dilapidated truck, already loaded with two empty barrels and the heaped apples, a mountain of them, red and yellow and speckled, that Martin and Jimmie had helped all morning to rake up under the orchard trees. Shirley and Caroline sat in front and the two boys climbed in behind, hollowing a nest for themselves among the apples and holding to the sides ofthe truck as it lurched and swung down the bumpy road.
    It was a clear day, with a sky of that deep burning blue that only comes in fall, and a tang of brush smoke and wild grapes on the air. Virginia creeper and poison ivy were scarlet along the stone walls, and asters and goldenrod still bloomed here and there by the roadside. The mill to which Neal always took his apples was not the big affair down the state road but a smaller one some few miles away, reached by a narrow back road that wound up and down hill, now through woods, now between stony pastures thick with sumac, becoming less and less traveled as it went, till at the last dip it joined the beginning of an old corduroy road crossing a tract of swamp land.
    This road had originally been built for logging. Years ago all the big timber had been cut from the swamp and now there was only a sparse second growth, with the old water-logged stumps dotting the ground and here and there a dead tree, gray and gaunt like a skeleton, and everywhere the rank emerald swamp growth thrusting up through the black spongy soil. The air was close and heavy with the smell of rotting wood and stagnant water. There was a legend that bears lived—or had lived—in this swamp, which stretched on either side for a couple of miles, and Jimmie and Martin felt an excited thrillas they peered between the trees, while the little girls pressed close together, staring down fearfully at the dark water that oozed between the logs as the truck pushed slowly forward.
    â€œDon’t know how good this road is any more,” Neal said as he steered carefully, watching his front wheels. “It’s all of a year since I was over it last. If the old truck gets stuck, boys, you’ll have to help pull her out!”
    But
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