Read Together Apart for Free Online

said, "If you ladies will excuse me, and if I have your permission, Eliza, I'll hitch your filly to the surrey and fetch back a block of ice from the Ice Works."
    Eliza wiped the corner of her mouth on a lacy napkin. "That's a capital idea. You'll save us the delivery charge. Take a coin from that tin on the shelf. Hannah and I will tidy up here. And, by the way, the filly's name is Persephone, for the Greek goddess of winter."
    I shook a coin from the tin, slipped it into one hip pocket, and slid my harmonica out of the other. I played my way out of the kitchen and into the stable. It was a rip-roaring tune.
    Persephone started in whinnying before I'd opened the double, cross-bucked doors. She was a beauty. Coal black and sleek. Not bulky and dull-eyed like Mr. Richards's horses or Mercy, Ma's mule. I tugged on the surrey's tongue, but it didn't budge, so I circled around back to see what the problem was. Wedged in front of the surrey's right rear wheel was an arm-long board. Next to the wheel was a whole stack of boards. And next to the stack hunkered a large lump of a thing, covered by a dust-fuzzed tarpaulin. I lifted a corner of the tarp and saw wood. With a Herculean pull, I yanked the tarp to the floor and beheld the curved wooden spine of a boat.
    I didn't stop to think just then about how a half-finished boat had found its way into Eliza's stable. Didn't stop to think why anybody would have such a thing on the Nebraska prairie or why the boat was balanced on an axle and wheels. Didn't think one thing at all, just ran my fingers over perfectly hewn wooden ribs. I guessed the boat's length at half a rod, maybe more, and the width at two people sitting side by side. Unlike the printing press, this contrivance spoke to me. Sang. I might have stayed there, chawing on the possibilities, if not for Persephone. Her whinny had turned into a horsy nag.
    I backed away but didn't take my eyes off the boat until I reached Persephone's stall. "Easy girl," I said, taking her halter lead.
    When I'd harnessed Persephone, I swung myself up onto the surrey's leather seat. I took up the reins, snapped my wrists with a "Gee haw," and was off. The fringe dangling from the surrey's leather roof swayed and danced as if it were keeping time. My grin was so big I figured it might be stuck that way. And it was, for a couple of hours.

Hannah
    I WAS RINSING THE BREAKFAST DISHES, WISHING I' D WARNED Isaac about my run-in with Mr. Richards. Not knowing how much Isaac had told Eliza, I hadn't thought it wise to mention Mr. Richards in her presence. Just then, framed in the window glass, Isaac drove out of the stable in the most magnificent of buggies, the most magnificent of horses in the lead, high stepping and black as night. A winter horse, indeed. And Isaac, grinning from ear to ear, looked right at home there in the surrey. This was the life he deserved, and, much as I wanted it for myself, I wouldn't spoil it for him.
    Eliza leaned over my shoulder. "Isn't Persephone a beauty?"
    "Yes, ma'am, she surely is."
    "She's a Morgan, a gift from my late husband."
    I turned to her. "I'm so sorry for your loss."
    Tears rushed her eyes, but her smile didn't fade. "I miss Harlan terribly. I'll see a man and woman arm in arm..."
    Mid-sentence Eliza's expression soured. "My Harlan is gone. Would that I could, I cannot wish him back. But I'll not conduct myself as if I died with him. I'll not close my blinds to the sun, will not wear widow's weeds nor veil my face. Harlan would not expect it of me. He would not. And I most definitely will not marry another for convenience's sake, as some of the so-called better class of people in this town have suggested."
    I'd never heard a woman speak so strongly, though the way in which Eliza's hands had balled into fists was familiar to me. Then, as quickly as her steam had built, it seeped away. "I'm sorry, Hannah. None of that was meant for you. It's just that the Reverend Cobb paid me a not-so-social call last