Read Hers the Kingdom for Free Online

been used for a while, and it took her some time to disentangle the knot.
         "Lark buntings are beautiful little birds," she said, speaking quickly. "The female is drab and brown but the male is in sharp contrast, in black and white. If we looked, I suspect we might find their nest in the tall grasses around the churchyard." They were silent for the few minutes it took to get the bucket free. He did not try to help her, but watched as she manipulated the old wooden pail on its rope and pulley.
         As she leaned to drop it over the side, he said, "Don't fall in, you'll go all the way to China."
         She pulled in her breath in a small gasp, then laughed.
         "I know," she said. "When I was small I was sure that if I fell in that black hole they'd never find me."
         "And did you throw in pebbles, and hold your breath until you could hear them hit the water?"
         "An eternity!" she said. "One of the most delicious fears of my childhood, I do believe, was imagining what it would be like to fall down the well . . ."
         "Delicious?" he laughed at her, "well, I'm not so . . ."
         "Yes," she insisted, hauling on the ropes to pull the pail up. "Delicious. It was . . ."
         He was pulling now with her, the weight of the water having become increasingly heavy as it neared the top. She could feel his shoulder against hers, the muscles pressing. She was not sure she could speak, but she knew she must.
         "When the lark bunting, the male, puts on his seasonal show for the female—" ( Oh my , she thought to herself, what am I floundering into?) "He climbs high, as high as you can imagine, and then with his wings quivering, he comes swooping down, singing all the way—a beautiful song. The flight is spectacular, truly." The

water pail appeared, he pulled it easily to the ledge of the well as she searched for the dipper. Finding it, she began to skim off the leaves and bugs that topped the water.
         "The sad thing about the lark buntings," she continued in a voice that was, to her amazement, altogether calm, "is that our farms have taken away so much of the grasslands they nest in that they've had to move south and west."
         "Like the rest of us," Owen said. Then, leaning down into the well, he shouted, "Go west, lark bunting," and the words echoed deep in the well, sounding against the damp and mossy sides like some sepulchral voice from the depths of the earth.
         Willa laughed her wonderful, spilling-over laugh then, and it washed over them, making Owen grin with pleasure. He dipped the water out of the bucket and let it fall in the space between them, so that she could rinse her hands.
         "I like to make you laugh," he said to her.
         "You shouldn't say that," she mocked him. "My teachers at Wellesley told me a lady would never laugh that way—they said it was vulgar."
         "And that," he said, taking her arm, "is what is wrong with Wellesley."
         She looked at him seriously, then. "For a moment I thought I might seem falsely dramatic—about the death of the little bunting." Willa said, "and in fact, perhaps I was. I know I would have felt no such distress had a hawk taken the bunting."
         She started to spread the lunch on a grassy place in the churchyard, under the old elm. A spring breeze stirred the leaves and for a time it was the only sound. Carefully, she placed a loaf of bread on the cutting board, the knife alongside it. She unwrapped the cheese and some sausages. He reached for the knife and began slicing the loaf, giving it what seemed his full concentration.
         "So," he said, finally, "we share a fear of deep wells, and a concern for lark buntings. Surely that is a good start."
         She did not look up at him, but continued arranging the

luncheon foods. Carefully, she removed some dried apples from their bag and put them on a plate.
         "Tell me more," he said, and she quickly retorted, "No, you tell me,