Читать онлайн «The Prairie Thief»
Автор Melissa Wiley
Contents
CHAPTER ONE
It Ain’t Right
CHAPTER TWO
Not a Critter
CHAPTER THREE
As Plain as Pie
CHAPTER FOUR
No More Spiders in Our Stew
CHAPTER FIVE
Evangeline
CHAPTER SIX
What in Tarnation?
CHAPTER SEVEN
The Seven-Day Clock
CHAPTER EIGHT
The Badger Hole
CHAPTER NINE
The White Stone
CHAPTER TEN
A Critter with Hands
CHAPTER ELEVEN
How Softly They Gleamed
CHAPTER TWELVE
May as Well Get It Over With
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
A Goose Indeed
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
What Sort of Fool
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Ignore the Spiders
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
The Underhill House
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Horseradish Tea
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Spilling Over with Secrets
CHAPTER NINETEEN
A Very Good Question
CHAPTER TWENTY
In the Dugout
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Sudden Moves
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
A First in the History o’ the World
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Three Miles from Town
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
The Best Worst Day
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Town Jail
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
The Truth, the Whole Truth, and Nothing but the Truth
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Especially When It’s Hard
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Potato Chowder
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Elflocks
CHAPTER THIRTY
A Hair Bow Ain’t a Hatchet
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Top o’ the Mornin’
August 9, 1882
Dear Judge Callahan—
I sorely hate to ask this of you, seeing as we weren’t expecting you back in Fletcher until next month. If it ain’t too great an inconvenience, I’d be obliged if you’d catch the next stage back to town. I’ve got just about the last person on earth you’d expect sitting in my jail right this minute. Jack Brody’s been accused of thievery. Got to say, Judge, it don’t look good for him. I hope you’ll come back and get it sorted for us.
—Chester Morgan, County Sheriff
CHAPTER ONE
THE SMIRCHES TOOK LOUISA IN WHEN HER PA WENT to jail, but they weren’t happy about it.
“Another mouth to feed,” griped Mrs. Smirch. Her cold eyes looked Louisa up and down. “And she’s too puny to be any help around this place. I can’t fathom what got into your head, Malcolm. ”
Mr. Smirch shrugged. His lips were pressed into a thin line. He had the same grim look on his face Louisa’s pa always had when it was time to kill a pig—the look of someone who can’t get out of doing a thing he hates to do.
“Don’t see as we had much choice in the matter, Matilda,” he said. “Sheriff only had the one horse.
”Louisa blinked hard, trying to stop picturing Pa riding away on that horse, hatless, his red hair blowing back, sitting in front of the sheriff with his hands tied, looking over his shoulder at her until the sheriff cuffed him on the arm and made him face front. Before he turned away, Pa had winked at her; that was the worst part. She had almost cried then. But Mr. Smirch had been standing beside her, and she would sooner have died than shed a tear in front of the man who had called the law upon her father.
Now here she was in that man’s own house, being scowled at by his wife, a wispy-haired woman with sharp eyes and a greasy apron. The little Smirch boys, Winthrop and Charlie, stood behind their mother, making faces at Louisa when their pa wasn’t looking. Near the table, a young girl with long straggly braids stood working butter in a churn that was almost as big as she was. She was staring at Louisa, smiling a little as she thumped the wooden dash up and down, up and down. Louisa remembered Mr. Smirch telling her pa—was it really only the day before yesterday?—that his nine-year-old niece had arrived on the train from Topeka a week or two earlier. That had been right before Winthrop came charging down the hill from the old dugout, jabbering about Mrs. Smirch’s missing clock and Mr. Smirch’s lost hatchet. Louisa could still picture the way the friendly look on Mr. Smirch’s face had gone sharp and wary, his eyes narrowing at Pa.
