Read Young Bleys - Childe Cycle 09 for Free Online Page B

the large log building, which was obviously a dwelling, had a door in its middle right ahead of him up three steps from the miry yard in which he was now standing. He ran for it, got up the three steps, took hold of a block of wood which seemed to-do for a knob, and pushed. The door did not open.
    "You'll have to turn it," said a voice behind him, and he looked back to see the older boy, Joshua, standing just behind him. He turned it and went inside, grateful to be out of the rain and for the warmer interior of the building.
    "Stand there," said the voice of Joshua, as Bleys heard the door close behind him. "Stay on the entry rug. If you get the floor all wet Father won't like it at all."
    His voice took for granted the right to give orders.
    Bleys stood where he was, dripping onto and over the roughly woven rug, which seemed to absorb the water without
    too much problem. The room he had stepped into was clearly a large part of the house's interior. It had a rough ceiling made by lengths of saplings laid side by side, and the partitions that took the place of walls on the two sides of it that were not the exposed logs of the building's exterior were made of medium-sized logs standing upright between the floor and ceiling of saplings.
    In the far wall of the house, the other outside wall that would face backward, there was a large, stone fireplace—like everything else around the house, obviously homemade—that had a good fire going in it which accounted for the warmth, and with a rack that stretched out across the flames to hold a large metal pot above them. The furniture in the room consisted of a couple of chairs with straw-stuffed tarpaulin cushions on their seats, and a rectangular table with upright chairs having no padding whatsoever. The single exception was one enormous chair, strongly built, which was pushed back into a comer. Surprisingly, the floor, which was made of split logs, had been planed almost level and had apparently been scrubbed mightily, for it was as clean as the rest of the interior and the furniture, itself.
    The door opened and shut again behind him. He turned around to see Henry and the younger boy.
    Henry stood aside, stepping onto the thick entry rug as did the boy, so that they were all crowded together.
    "Will, meet your cousin, Bleys. Bleys, this is Will, my younger son."
    "Hello," said Will, offering a smile. He looked something like Joshua, built on a more flimsy and smaller scale.
    "Honored to make your acquaintance," said Bleys.
    "Never mind being formal!" said Henry. "Bleys, this family doesn't speak cant and it also doesn't go in for high manners. Say hello to your cousin."
    "Hello, Will," said Bleys.
    Will blushed, evidently at simply being directly addressed and called by name. He said nothing.
    "All right now," Henry was saying above Bleys' head, "Joshua, take Bleys to your room and find some clothes for him besides this old jacket of yours he's wearing. They'll have to be your clothes, and there's no reason he shouldn't get the older ones, since he's come later to the house. They'll be too big, but that's all right—he'll grow into them. Go along with Joshua, Bleys. Never mind about the floor. You're pretty well dripped off by this time."
    Bleys followed Joshua through an entrance in a wall on then-left and directly into a relatively small room that had two chairs and three bunkbeds in it, the bunkbeds fixed to the wall. The last of these was obviously freshly carpentered, but had nothing but a mattress so far. This could only be the one intended for him.
    "Here," said Joshua, holding out some pants and a shirt to Bleys. He was on his knees, rooting around in a chest that he had pulled from under the bottom one of the other two bunks, attached to the outer wall of the room. He went on, still in a commanding but, Bleys thought, not really a bullying tone. "As Father says, they'll be too big; but you can roll the sleeves and pant-cuffs back, and make do. I'll have some socks for you