Read April Morning for Free Online Page B

how can you tell a girl something like that? And it didn’t explain the way I was looking at her because I didn’t know how I was looking at her.
    â€œYou seem to have forgotten all about your Uncle Ishmael,” she said.
    â€œOh, no. No.”
    At that point, Mrs. Hyam opened her back door and called out, “Is that your voice I hear, Adam Cooper? I should think you’d have something better to do with your evenings than poking around well houses!”
    So we walked again, and the moment that had come over me before faded, and Ruth was Ruth and looking pretty much as she had in her mother’s kitchen. I told her how my Uncle Ishmael had offered me a place on his ship.
    â€œOf course he would. He’d be glad to get you, instead of the trash he picks up on dockside.”
    â€œThat’s not a very flattering thing to say.”
    â€œAdam Cooper, I was just teasing you, if I must spell it out. You surely can’t be serious about going to sea?”
    â€œI don’t know about that.”
    â€œWell, you can’t. Your father never would let you.”
    â€œMaybe it’s time I just went and did something without my father letting me or not letting me.”
    â€œAdam!”
    â€œWhy not? Would it make any difference to you?”
    â€œYes,” she replied slowly. “Yes, it would. I suppose I’d be the loneliest girl in Massachusetts if you went away.”
    When she said that, I felt warm and good and content for the first time in days. I took her hand in mine. Her hand was small and soft, and the fingers twined themselves into mine. We walked down to the end of the lane and then back to her house.
    When I got back to the house, I went into the kitchen, and there was my brother Levi sitting in front of the hearth and cleaning my fowling piece with an oily rag. I let him know what for, and who gave him the right to touch my gun, much less clean it? Didn’t he realize that he didn’t have enough sense to clean a gun?
    â€œI told him he could,” Mother said.
    â€œWell, suppose it was loaded? He could blow his head off.”
    â€œWouldn’t you like that,” Levi grinned.
    â€œIt wasn’t loaded,” Mother said. “And if it wasn’t dirty and gathering rust spots, Levi wouldn’t be cleaning it. It sometimes seems to me, Adam, that you could take better care of your things. Your shoes will rot on your feet before you take some grease to them, and if I left it to you to change your shirt and pants, I don’t think you’d take them off from season to season. I hate to scold you. I really do.”
    â€œIt would be interesting to see what it would be like here if you enjoyed scolding me.”
    â€œAdam, I don’t appreciate sarcasm.”
    â€œI’m sorry, Mother.”
    â€œThe point is that Levi was trying to do something for you. He felt that you blamed him for what happened at the table, and he was trying to make it up to you.”
    â€œThat’s the blessed truth,” Granny put in.
    Levi sat on the edge of the hearth, looking downright virtuous. I shrugged and sat down next to him, and showed him how to clothe the ramrod properly for full cleaning.
    â€œAdam,” Levi asked me, “what would happen if you loaded this here gun with a musket ball instead of bird shot?”
    â€œI don’t know. I never thought of that. It’s got a large bore that a regular musket ball wouldn’t fill, and if you put an extra large ball in it, you’d have to put in an extra large powder load, and the skin of the gun maybe isn’t strong enough to bear it. You might just blow yourself up.”
    â€œThat’s the trouble with a fowling piece. When I get me a gun, it’s going to be a rifle.”
    â€œHa! That’s just like you, always talking when you don’t know a thing.”
    â€œOf course not. You know everything, so there isn’t anything left over for anyone else