Among the Fallen by Virginia Frances Schwartz

Author:Virginia Frances Schwartz
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Holiday House
Published: 2019-10-21T16:00:00+00:00

MAY 1857

·• NINE •·

In the cornfields, boys throw stones at crows gobbling seeds from the newly planted ground. Long past dusk, they chase after the thieves. On rainy days, the boys huddle, wrapped up in their own arms.

Out on the street, workmen dig gas lines. Urania will soon have its own gas jets instead of candlelight. Sesina and Fanny take turns peeking out the curtains at the men.

“Look how that dark-haired one stands, like he owns the whole street!” Sesina cries. “He’s a genie from afar. I’ll take him!”

Fanny protests. “I saw him first!”

Later that morning, Leah arrives, carpetbag in hand, dragging her feet. “My mum’s bedridden. How long she has, nobody knows.”

Hannah serves her tea in the parlor. Leah sips it quietly, staring out the window at nothing at all.

The postman delivers today’s mail. Greedily, I sift through it, heart pounding. Nothing from Ivy. She should have received my note weeks ago. Why doesn’t she answer? Instead, there’s a letter with a strange stamp from faraway Canada, one of the colonies.

“Rhena hasn’t forgotten us after all!” Sesina calls out.

“Give it here.” Fanny snatches a daguerreotype of Rhena out of the envelope, a baby in her arms, beside a mustached husband.

She exclaims, “Look at the arms on that man! A lumberjack who works in the bush! And here’s something else—a pencil sketch Rhena did of the log cabin he built for them.”

At the sound of Mrs. Marchmont’s voice, Fanny slips the papers back into the envelope and presents it to the matron.

“Good news from Rhena!” The matron reads aloud. “ ‘A son’s been born to us, strong and healthy. Even with all the hard work in this Ontario wilderness, we are happy and prospering.’ ”

“Let me see!” Fanny peers over the matron’s shoulder, pronouncing the syllables. “Lum-ber-jack! Look! I’m reading my first letter from a Urania girl. Ain’t that something?”

“Someday soon, you’ll be writing to us, Fanny.” The matron smiles. “You’ll be settled somewhere and have a family too.”

Fanny leaps to her feet and twirls her skirts around.

“How Rhena’s done it,” Jemima mutters, “is anyone’s guess.”

“Quite a handful she was.” Hannah smirks. “Came at sixteen and ever so saucy. Dickens threatened to throw her out more than once, I heard. He’ll be proud to read of her success now.”

Mrs. Marchmont’s lips turn down as she looks through the rest of the mail. Miss Jane leads her away, their muffled voices traveling from the kitchen. We girls speak of Polly and Agnes, gone to Australia, in whispers.

“They were due to arrive by now.” Hannah pokes me. “We should have had a letter. Pray they arrived safe. The seas are fearsome!”

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.