The Yearling
A Project BookishMall.com of Australia eBook
Title: The Yearling (1938)
Author: Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, 1896-1953
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Edition: 1
Language: English
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Date first posted: December 2003
Date most recently updated: December 2003
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THE YEARLING
by
Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, 1896-1953
1938
With illustrations by
Wyeth, N. C. (Newell Convers), 1882-1945
The Yearling
Chapter I
A column of smoke rose thin and straight from the cabin
chimney. The smoke was blue where it left the red of the clay. It
trailed into the blue of the April sky and was no longer blue but
gray. The boy Jody watched it, speculating. The fire on the
kitchen hearth was dying down. His mother was hanging up pots and
pans after the noon dinner. The day was Friday. She would sweep
the floor with a broom of ti-ti and after that, if he were lucky,
she would scrub it with the corn shucks scrub. If she scrubbed
the floor she would not miss him until he had reached the Glen.
He stood a minute, balancing the hoe on his shoulder.
The clearing itself was pleasant if the unweeded rows of young
shafts of corn were not before him. The wild bees had found the
chinaberry tree by the front gate. They burrowed into the fragile
clusters of lavender bloom as greedily as though there were no
other flowers in the scrub; as though they had forgotten the
yellow jessamine of March; the sweet bay and the magnolias ahead
of them in May. It occurred to him that he might follow the swift
line of flight of the black and gold bodies, and so find a
bee-tree, full of amber honey. The winter’s cane syrup was gone
and most of the jellies. Finding a bee-tree was nobler work than
hoeing, and the corn could wait another day. The afternoon was
alive with a soft stirring. It bored into him as the bees bored
into the chinaberry blossoms, so that he must be gone across the
clearing, through the pines and down the road to the running
branch. The bee-tree might be near the water.
He stood his hoe against the split-rail fence. He walked down
the cornfield until he was out of sight of the cabin. He swung
himself over the fence on his two hands. Old Julia the hound had
followed his father in the wagon to Grahamsville, but Rip the
bull-dog and Perk the new feice saw the form clear the fence and
ran toward him. Rip barked deeply but the voice of the small
mongrel was high and shrill. They wagged deprecatory short tails
when they recognized him. He sent them back to the yard. They
watched after him indifferently. They were a sorry pair, he
thought, good for nothing but the chase, the catch and the kill.
They had no interest in him except when he brought them their
plates of table scraps night and morning. Old Julia was a gentle
thing with humans, but her worn-toothed devotion was only for his
father, Penny Baxter.
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