Free Patience & Sarah (Little Sister's Classics) by Isabel Miller Page B

ain’t Sam No body, you’re Ira Dowling’s gal.” I went until I crossed a creek, and stopped then and unrolled my blanket and ate, very slow, in little bits, a little jerky and a little nocake, with a whole lot of water between bits.
    Then on again, covering ground. It was a pretty day, April and all. Just right.
    Towards night I asked a farmer could I sleep in his barn. He looked me over for something to be against, but there I was, a simple farmer boy. “Reckon,” he said, so I went on into his haymow, which was pretty much empty, as could be expected by April. There was a little hay, though – folks do hate to feed the last of it till they see the next will be along – and I scooped what I could into a nest and flopped down.
    The farmer came in and perched on the edge of the mow and pecked away at me with questions. I told everything true except my name. He said I’d never get to Genesee. He said I was a fool and should’ve stayed where I was. He said I was no twenty-one, without a whisker like I was, and shouldn’t claim it.
    I asked if he had a chore or two I might do for some supper. He said he figured he could spare a little samp and milk, being as it looked like a good year, and being as he had a boy himself, older though, pushing out through that godforsaken wilderness somewhere. Never mind the chores.
    I hope his boy fared better than the summer did. It was the famous summer of 1816, when it snowed off and on over most of New England the whole summer long. But it still looked all right in April.
    I ate with his family. There were some girls, and then a boy only sixteen with some sure-enough sprouts on his chin. He wanted to hear all about Genesee. I told him all I could, in my deepest voice. The girls listened too, one in particular.
    My eyes kept closing by themselves, but the boy wouldn’t stop asking me what it was like out there. He followed me out to the barn, asking, and was still asking when I feel asleep.
    Someone’s touch made me stir. I thought it was the boy, and mumbled, “I told you all I know.” I thought it was still night and I hadn’t slept at all, but it was earliest morning, dawn, with the birds really blaring, and who woke me was the girl who’d listened so.
    “Sam, you have to go,” she said. “Now. Hurry.”
    I woke right up and started rolling my pack before I asked, “Why?”
    “Papa’s going to turn you in as a runaway prentice.”
    “But I ain’t.”
    “I don’t know. I just know he’s going to, for the reward. He said last night. I let you sleep till birdsong.”
    I stepped down behind the barn. I guess she didn’t peek, because she still called me “Sam” when I went back in to get my pack. She had cheese and a big cut of bread for me, and some milk that I drank right away so’s to leave her the cup.
    She kept looking at me peculiar and standing peculiar, sort of close of close to me. I didn’t know what to make of her.
    “I’m obliged to you,” I said, if that was what she wanted.
    “It’s nothing.” She kept on.
    “I better get off,” I said.
    She said, “You better,” but she had me by the arm and I didn’t like to jerk away.
    “It’s getting pretty light. They’ll be about,” I said.
    And she pushed up and kissed me.
    I was just so surprised. Did girls act like that with boys as a regular thing?
    Before I had a chance to enjoy the kiss it was over and she was laughing and pushing me out saying, “Good luck, Sam. You’re sweet. Hurry.”
    Just remembering her kiss kept me grinning and I stepped along so fine. Being a boy was going to be pretty good. I pictured girls all the way to Genesee giving me little laughy kisses and keeping my spirit up. I began to see it might be better this way than getting all tore up by caring a lot. A kiss that you feel deep tears you deep later when it’s lost. But a laughy kiss hurries you on your way and makes the miles fly.
    People I passed looked at me and I felt so good I smiled even when they