The Librarian of Boone's Hollow - Kim Vogel Sawyer Page 0,65
a few seconds, then gave Bettina one of her pinched-lips scowls. “Please hurry. I’d like to get your returns cataloged. Addie and I are late to supper.”
Bettina scampered off, though she didn’t care one bit about that new book gal going hungry. If she’d agreed to stay with Pap and her, then Bettina wouldn’t have took so much time on her route and they could be sitting down to a meal right now. ’Course, then she would’ve missed seeing Emmett come up the road. Maybe the new book gal had done her a little bit of a favor. Maybe.
She grabbed Mule’s reins and pulled him close to the library. She yanked the pack from his back, eased past Emmett into the building, and flopped the pack onto the table.
The new book gal opened the pack and smiled. “Thank you, Bettina.”
Bettina grunted and hurried back outside. “Lemme get your boxes, Emmett, an’ then I’ll help you up on Mule’s back.”
He pushed his hand against the rock stoop and stood. “It’s all right, Bettina. I’m so tired I’d probably fall off his back. But if you don’t mind, I’ll let you carry those boxes for me.” He looked at his bandaged hands. “I hate to admit how much these hurt.”
A gasp came from the library’s doorway.
Bettina looked up, and Emmett half turned, too.
The new book gal stared at Emmett’s hands the way Bettina might stare at Pap’s raised fist. She looked straight into Emmett’s face. “What happened to you?”
Emmett’s whole body jerked, like somebody’d sneaked up behind him and poked him with a stick. He leaned toward the new girl, wobbling a little bit, and his mouth fell open. “Addie Cowherd?”
Addie
ADDIE MOVED ONTO the stoop, gaze locked on the blue eyes of the young man who wore stained bandages on his hands and splotches of black dust on every inch of his skin and clothes. Between the fading sunlight and the smears marring his face, she couldn’t make out his features. But his voice seemed slightly familiar. “Do I know you?”
A lopsided smile formed on his lips. “I think that’s what I asked you at the UK bonfire.”
She drew in a breath and reared back. “Now I remember. You’re Emmett. Emmett…” She couldn’t recall his surname.
“Tharp.” He bobbed his hands. “I’d offer to shake hands, but…”
“It’s all right.” She cringed at the dark stains on the cloth. “Were you in an accident?”
“No, these are from ignorance.”
She shot him a puzzled look.
“I shoveled coal for four hours without first putting on gloves.”
Addie gripped her throat. “Oh, my…Four hours is a long time to shovel coal.”
“Actually, I shoveled closer to nine hours in total, but I used gloves in the afternoon.” He turned a rueful grimace on his hands. “Of course, it was too late by then.”
Bettina had stood to the side, her attention shifting between Emmett and Addie the way spectators watched a tennis match. She scuttled close to Emmett and curled her hands around his upper arm. “C’mon, Emmett. I’ll getcha home now.”
Addie stepped to the ground. “Just a moment, Bettina.” She’d come out to deliver a message, but Emmett’s pathetic appearance had distracted her. She shouldn’t let Bettina leave without fulfilling her duty to the librarian. “Miss West said your pack is short a book, a copy of Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina. Her records indicate it was loaned to the Tool family.”
Bettina clung to Emmett’s arm and scowled. “I brung back everything the folks give me. Mebbe Miz Tool wasn’t done with it yet an’ kept it.”
“That’s possible. It is a lengthy novel.”
Emmett set his head at a proud angle. “ ‘All the diversity, all the charm, and all the beauty of life are made up of light and shade.’ ”
Addie laughed. How peculiar to hear the beautiful words recited by someone who appeared to have recently rolled in an ash pile. “You’ve read it?”
He shrugged, and his body seemed to deflate. “Yes, but don’t ask me anything more about it. Right now I’d have trouble spelling my own name.”
Bettina yanked on his arm. “Let’s go.”
He stood firm, staring at Addie. “What are you doing here?”
She linked her hands and let them fall against her skirt front. “I’m the newest packhorse librarian. I arrived yesterday evening. I wasn’t able to deliver books today since I didn’t yet have a horse, so I stayed here and helped Miss West. But Mr. Gilliam is lending me one of his horses. Tomorrow I’ll go out with one of the other girls and learn my