Free Casteel 1 - Heaven by V. C. Andrews Page A

crying out, had it been? What kind of man was he anyway, that he would come in the night to chop wood without even stopping in the cabin to say hello to his wife and children?
    “Pa,” called out Tom, “I kin help ya do that.”
    Pa didn't pause in his swing that sent wood chips flying, just yelled: "Go back and get your rest, boy. Tell your ma I've got a new job that keeps me busy all day, and the only spare time I have is at night, and that's why I'm chopping down trees for you to
    split into logs later on." He didn't say a word to indicate he saw me beside Tom.
    “What kind of job have ya got now, Pa?”
    “Workin on a railroad, boy. Learnin how t'drive one of them big engines. Pulling coal on the C and 0. . . come down t'the tracks tomorrow about seven and you'll see me pull out . . .”
    “Ma sure would like t'see ya, Pa.”
    I thought he paused then, the ax hesitating before it slammed again into the pine. “She'll see me . . . when she sees me.” And that was all he said before I turned and ran back to the cabin.
    On my coarse pillow stuffed with chicken feathers I cried. Didn't know why I cried, except all of a sudden I was sorry for Paand even sorrier for Sarah.

Casteel 1 - Heaven
    Four
    SARAH
    .
    ANOTHER CHRISTMAS CAME AND WENT WITHOUT REAL gifts to make it memorable. We were given only small necessities like toothbrushes and soap. If Logan hadn't given me a gold bracelet set with a small sapphire I wouldn't even have remembered that Christmas. I had nothing to give - him but a cap I'd knitted.
    “It's a terrific cap,” he said, pulling it down over his head. “I've always wanted a bright red hand- knitted cap. Thank you very much, Heaven Leigh. Sure would be nice if you'd knit me a red scarf for my birthday that's coming up in March.”
    It surprised me that he wore the cap. It was much too large, and he didn't seem to notice that I'd dropped a couple of stitches and that the wool had been handled so much it was more than a bit soiled. No sooner was Christmas over than I started on the scarf. I had it finished by Valentine's Day. “It's too late for a red scarf in March,” I said with a smile when he wrapped it around his neckand he was still wearing that red cap to school every day. If anything could have made me like him more than his devotion
    to that awful red cap, I don't know what it would have been.
    I turned fourteen in late February. Logan gave me another gift, a lovely white sweater set that made Fanny's dark eyes blaze with envy. The day after my birthday Logan met me after school where the moun- tain trail ended; he walked me to the clearing before the cabin, and every day after until it was spring. Keith and Our Jane learned to love and trust him, and all the time Fanny plied her charms, but Logan continued to ignore her. Oh, falling in love at age fourteen was so exhilarating I could have laughed and cried at the same time, I was so happy.
    The glorious spring days sailed too quickly by now that love was in the air, and I wanted time for romancing, but Granny and Sarah were relentless in their demands for my time. There was planting to do as well as all the other chores that were my duty, but not Fanny's. Without the large garden in the back of our cabin we wouldn't have been as well nourished as we were. We had cabbages, potatoes, cucumbers, carrots, collards for the fall, and turnip greens, and, best of all, tomatoes.
    On Sundays I looked forward to seeing Logan again in church. When we were in church and he was
    seated across the aisle from me, meeting and holding my eyes and sending so many silent messages, how could I help but forget the desperate poverty of our lives? Logan shared so much of what was in his father's pharmacy with us; small things he thought commonplace filled all of us with delight, like shampoo in a bottle, perfume we could spray on, and a razor and blades for Tom, who began to grow more than auburn fuzz over his lip.
    One Sunday afternoon we planned to go fishing