eat any of ’em.” He rested his forehead against her rib cage and moaned.
Emmett trotted from behind the depot building, trailed by the skinny youth who’d worried about her the day she arrived from Georgetown and a portly man with a sour expression. Perhaps the gentleman would benefit from a seltzer tablet, too. She helped Dusty off the crate and led him to the shade under the depot’s eaves. After a lot of grunting and maybe a few muffled oaths, the men slid all three crates into the wagon’s bed. Emmett shook their hands and thanked them, and they returned to the depot, both holding their lower backs and walking stiff legged.
Addie offered them sympathetic smiles as they passed her, then hurried to Emmett. “I’m sorry the crates are so heavy.”
He laughed. “I think it’s great. That weight tells me there are lots of books in these things.” He helped her up onto the wagon seat and then waved his hand at Dusty. “C’mon, buddy, let’s go.”
Dusty clutched his stomach and stayed put.
Addie leaned down slightly. “His stomach is hurting pretty badly.”
Emmett rolled his eyes. “I told him not to eat that whole bag of candy at once.” He strode to the depot, arms swinging, and scooped his brother up the way a groom carried his bride over a threshold. At the wagon, he laid Dusty in the bed. Then he shrugged out of his jacket. “Here, bud, roll this up and use it for a pillow. But if you think you’re going to throw up, hang your head over the edge of the wagon. Don’t get vomit on my jacket or the boxes.”
Addie gasped at his nonchalant tone and uncaring directions.
“Okay, Emmett.” Dusty wadded the jacket and shoved it under his head. He closed his eyes.
Addie couldn’t stop gazing at the child, battling a wave of pity. Even if he had foolishly caused his discomfort, he looked so small and helpless lying beside the oversized crates.
Emmett pulled himself up onto the seat and released the brake. He glanced at her and grinned. “He’ll be all right. He’s a tough guy. Right, Dusty?”
Dusty’s eyelids twitched, but he didn’t open his eyes. “Right, Emmett.”
Emmett whispered, “He’ll be asleep before we’re out of Lynch. Don’t worry.” He slapped the reins down on the horse’s rump, and the wagon groaned forward.
As he’d predicted, by the time they reached the road leading up the mountain to Boone’s Hollow, Dusty’s mouth hung open and he snored softly. Convinced he was fine, Addie faced forward. One of the wheels hit a rut, and the wagon rocked sideways. Addie’s shoulder connected with Emmett’s. She scooted over a few inches, then kept her hands curled around the rough front edge of the seat. It wouldn’t do for them to roll into Boone’s Hollow and have people see her sitting so close to Bettina’s beau.
Whether it was the privacy of the quiet road or the aftermath of spending such a pleasant afternoon with the Tharp brothers, Addie found herself asking a personal question. “Emmett, Dusty said your father called Bettina ‘loony as a rabid coon.’ Was he joking, or he is not particularly fond of her?”
Emmett snorted under his breath. “He wasn’t joking. Paw doesn’t think much of Burke Webber, Bettina’s pap. He isn’t fond of Jasper Barr—you met his wife, Jennie, and gave her a magazine, remember?—for the same reason. He thinks they’re lazy and don’t take good care of their families. In Paw’s eyes, that makes them useless as men.”
Addie cringed. She didn’t know Burke Webber or Jasper Barr, but for some men, the country’s economic depression got in the way of their seeing to their families’ needs. Would Emmett’s father think Daddy was lazy because he worked only a few hours every day at a menial job? “Is that why he doesn’t like Bettina, too? If you don’t like one person in the family, you dislike them all?”
Mouth set in a rueful grimace, Emmett glanced at her. “Sad to say, that’s the code of the hills. You’re caught up in the middle of it, with people not liking you because you like Nanny Fay. They don’t like Nanny Fay because they didn’t like her husband, and they didn’t like him because he was a Tuckett. It probably seems petty and childish to you, but to these people, it’s an honor to hold on to generations-long grudges. And it’s pretty hard to change a mindset that’s been handed down from a beloved great-grandpappy.”
She shifted