house after all. She pulled Spirit up and climbed off, one eye warily on the window, remembering the bullet-sized hole in Margery’s hat. The books appeared untouched. She picked them up under one arm, packed them carefully in her saddlebags, then checked the mare’s girth. She had one foot in the stirrup, her heart beating uncomfortably fast, when she heard the man’s voice echo out across the holler.
“Hey!”
She stopped.
“Hey—you!”
Alice closed her eyes.
“You that library girl stopped here before?”
“I wasn’t bothering you, Mr. Horner,” she called. “I just—I just came to pick up the books. I’ll be gone before you know it. Nobody else will come by.”
“You was lying?”
“What?” Alice took her foot out of the stirrup and spun round.
“You said you was going to bring us some more.”
Alice blinked. He wasn’t smiling, but he wasn’t holding a gun either. He stood in the doorway, his hands loosely by his sides, and lifted one to point at the gatepost. “You want more books?”
“Said so, didn’t I?”
“Oh, goodness. Of course. Um . . .” Nerves made her clumsy. She fumbled in the bag, pulling and rejecting what came to hand. “Yes. Well. I brought some Mark Twain and a book of recipes. Oh, and this magazine has some canning tips. You were all canning, weren’t you? I can leave that if you like.”
“I want a speller.” He pointed loosely, as if that might summon it. “For the girls. I want one of them with just words and a picture each page. Nothing fancy.”
“I think I have something like that . . . Hold on.” Alice rummaged in her saddlebag and eventually pulled out a child’s reading book. “Like this? This one has been very popular among—”
“Just leave them by the post.”
“Done! There they are! . . . Lovely!” Alice stooped to place the books in a neat pile, then backed away and turned to spring onto her horse. “Right. I’m . . . I’m going now. Be sure to let me know if there’s anything particular you want me to bring next week.”
She lifted a hand. Jim Horner was standing in the doorway, two girls behind him, watching her. Although her heart was still beating wildly, when she reached the bottom of the dirt track she found she was smiling.
FIVE
Each mine, or group of mines, became a social center with no privately owned property except the mine, and no public places or public highway except the bed of the creek, which flowed between the mountain walls. These groups of villages dot the mountain sides down the river valleys and need only castles, draw-bridges, and donjon-keeps to reproduce to the physical eye a view of feudal days.
• United States Coal Commission in 1923
It pained Margery to admit it, but the little library on Split Creek Road was growing chaotic and, faced with the ever-growing demand for books, not one of the four of them had time to do much about it. Despite the initial suspicion of some inhabitants of Lee County, word had spread about the book ladies, as they had become known, and within a few short weeks it was more common for them to be greeted by eager smiles than it was for doors to be rapidly closed in their faces. Families clamored for reading material, from the Woman’s Home Companion to The Furrow for men. Everything from Charles Dickens to the Dime Mystery Magazine was ripped from their hands almost as soon as they could pull it from their saddlebags. The comic books, wildly popular among the county’s children, suffered most, being thumbed to death or their fragile pages ripped as siblings fought over them. Magazines would occasionally be returned with a favorite page quietly removed. And still the demand came: Miss, have you got new books for us?
When the librarians returned to their base at Frederick Guisler’s cabin, instead of plucking rigorously organized books from his handmade shelves, they were more often to be found on the floor, riffling through countless piles for the requested titles, yelling at each other when someone else turned out to be sitting on the one they needed.
“I guess we’re victims of our own success,” said Margery, glancing around at the stacks on the floor.
“Should we start sorting through them?” Beth was smoking a cigarette—her father would have whipped her if he’d seen it and Margery pretended she hadn’t.
“No point. We’ll barely touch the sides this morning and it’ll be just as bad when we get back. No, I’ve been thinking we need someone