Wish You Well by David Baldacci

lawyer.”
    “Folks up here don’t have much need for the likes of me. And maybe that’s not such a bad thing. Got a problem, go down to Judge Atkins over the courthouse and just talk it out. Lawyers just make things complicated.” He smiled and patted her hand. “It’ll be okay, Louisa. Those children being here with you is the right thing. For everybody.”
    Louisa smiled, and then her expression slowly changed to a frown. “Cotton, Diamond said some men coming round folks’ coal mines. Don’t like that.”
    “Surveyors, mineral experts, so I’ve heard.”
    “Ain’t they cutting the mountains up fast enough? Make me sick ever’ time I see another hole. I never sell out to the coal folk. Rip all that’s beautiful out.”
    “I’ve heard these folks are looking for oil, not coal.”
    “Oil!” she said in disbelief. “This ain’t Texas.”
    “Just what I’ve heard.”
    “Can’t worry about that nonsense.” She stood. “You right, Cotton, it’ll be just fine. Lord’ll give us rain this year. If not, well, I figger something out.”
    As Cotton rose to leave, he looked back down the hallway. “Louisa, do you mind if I stop in and pay my respects to Miss Amanda?”
    Louisa thought about this. “Another voice might do her good. And you got a nice way about you, Cotton. How come you ain’t never married?”
    “I’ve yet to find the good woman who could put up with the sorry likes of me.”
    In Amanda’s room, Cotton put down his briefcase and hat and quietly approached the bed. “Miss Cardinal, I’m Cotton Longfellow. It’s a real pleasure to meet you. I feel like I know you already, for Louisa has read me some of the letters you sent.” Amanda of course moved not one muscle, and Cotton looked over at Louisa.
    “I been talking to her. Oz too. But she ain’t never say nothing back. Don’t never even wiggle a finger.”
    “And Lou?” asked Cotton.
    Louisa shook her head. “That child’s gonna bust one day, all she keep inside.”
    “Louisa, it might be a good idea to have Travis Barnes from Dickens come up and look at Amanda.”
    “Doctors cost money, Cotton.”
    “Travis owes me a favor. He’ll come.”
    Louisa said quietly, “I thank you.”
    He looked around the room and noted a Bible on the dresser. “Can I come back?” he asked. Louisa looked at him curiously. “I thought I might, well, that I might read to her. Mental stimulation. I’ve heard of such. There are no guarantees. But if I can do nothing else well, I can read.”
    Before Louisa could answer, Cotton looked at Amanda. “It’ll be my real privilege to read to you.”

 
     
    CHAPTER FOURTEEN
    As dawn broke, Louisa, Eugene, Lou, and Oz stood in one of the fields. Hit, the mule, was harnessed on a singletree to a plow with a turnover blade.
    Lou and Oz had already had their milk and cornbread in gravy for breakfast. The food was good, and filling, but eating by lantern light had already grown old. Oz had gathered chicken eggs while Lou had milked the two healthy cows under Louisa’s watchful eye. Eugene had split wood, and Lou and Oz had hauled it in for the cookstove and then carried buckets of water for the animals. Livestock had been turned out and hay dropped for them. And now, apparently, the real work was about to begin.
    “Got to plow unner this whole field,” said Louisa.
    Lou sniffed the air. “What’s that awful smell?”
    Louisa bent down, picked up some earth, and crumbled it between her fingers. “Manure. Muck the stalls ever fall, drop it here. Makes rich soil even better.”
    “It stinks,” said Lou.
    Louisa let the bits of dirt in her hand swirl away in the morning breeze as she stared pointedly at the girl. “You’ll come to love that smell.”
    Eugene handled the plow while Louisa and the children walked beside him.
    “This here’s a turnover blade,” Louisa said, pointing to the oddly shaped disc of metal. “You run it down one row, turn mule and plow round, kick the blade over, go