say.” Then he looked straight at Olivia, his expression serious. “No, Goody always give me a good tanning when I got it comin’, but they ain’t never treated
me bad. But they got four kids without me. That be crowd ’nuff in one cabin.”
Olivia studied the horizon, still frowning in bewilderment. “How did you find
your way home?”
“Followed the river back. Minute I seen it, I know that be my chance to run.”
She hugged her doll and stared at this amazing boy, somewhat frightened of
him. “You can have the apples too.” She pushed the plate toward him.
They sat staring at the sunlight on the river while they listened to the distant
buzz of honeybees and breathed in the sweet smell of clover. Mourning chomped
on the apples, leaving nothing but the stem and seeds.
“Why were you hiding?” Olivia asked.
“I don’t think they be lookin’ for me.” He tossed the tiny remains of the last
apple away and lay back in the warm sun, hands behind his head. “They be just
as glad I gone. But I gonna stay out a sight a few more days, just in case.” He
lifted his head to look at Olivia. “Once they be gone west for good, ain’t nothin’
no one can do with me.”
“But you don’t have a mommy or a daddy,” Olivia said in a small voice,
feeling cruel the moment she said it.
“Don’t need ’em. I can sleep in the loft over at the livery. Or in Smithy’s back
room. In someone’s barn. Wherever I be workin’.”
“Oh.” Olivia imagined having to sleep in a pile of hay and started to get up,
anxious to be home and safely away from Mourning.
“Tonight I’m a sleep in that old barn, ’cross from Mrs. Place’s. You could
bring me some food over to there, you felt like.”
“You already ate all the food.”
“Can’t you get no more?”
“I don’t know,” she said, tilting her head toward a shrugged shoulder, afraid
of getting in trouble. “What kind of food?”
“Kind you eat.”
She stared at him, her bottom lip sucking the top one. “I don’t know.” She began putting things in her basket. When she reached for the tablecloth, he stood
up too.
“Bread be good, you ain’t got nothin’ else.”
She packed her things as quickly as she could.
“Blanket be good, too. Get cold at night.”
“You can have this.” She held out the tablecloth, which she had been folding.
It was hers, for her picnic basket, and Mrs. Hardaway would never notice it was
gone.
He took the cloth and fingered it. “Thanks. But a blanket still be good.”
“Okay,” Olivia said, remembering an old gray blanket in the linen closet she
didn’t think anyone would miss. “But you’ve got to promise to teach me to skip
