Mrs. Stein Solves a Crime: A Victorian San Francisco Novella by M. Louisa Locke

Author:M. Louisa Locke [Locke, M. Louisa]
Language: eng
Format: epub

Chapter 11

Friday afternoon, August 11, 1882

O’Farrell Street Boardinghouse

“Grandmama, did you see how high Dandy can jump!”

“Yes, dear, I see, but I’m afraid he might knock something over. I do believe that he knows how to sit and then fetch to command. Take that small ball Kathleen gave you and hold it up while telling him to sit. If he sits, then you can roll it into the bedroom for him to chase.”

Thank goodness, Kathleen had brought the small black-and-white terrier up to Esther’s parlor after lunch. Otherwise, Esther wasn’t sure how she’d be able to entertain the boy all afternoon. She had him bring a couple of issues of The Youth’s Companion with him from home, but that hadn’t worked out. When she asked him to read one of the stories from the magazines to her, he stumbled over words and within minutes threw the magazine down, saying petulantly that it gave him a headache. Professor Herzer appeared to be correct; Georgie did read as if he were a four-year-old. Could he be doing this on purpose?

Esther had decided to bring her grandson back to the boardinghouse with her because she wanted a chance to talk to Annie about what she had learned from Frobisher. She also hoped that Emmaline, Jamie, and Ian, the three older children living in the boardinghouse, might be willing to entertain Georgie, even if they were three years older. Jamie, and his mother Barbara Hewitt, had lived in the boardinghouse from its opening; Ian, the maid Kathleen’s youngest brother, had moved in more recently, as had Emmaline, who lived with the Misses Minnie and Millie Moffet, her two elderly aunts. The three children infused the old house with noise and laughter and, to Esther’s mind, made the boardinghouse feel even more like a home.

Unfortunately, none of them were currently at home. Mr. Livingston, Emmaline’s official guardian, had invited her and the two boys to lunch at his store, the Silver Strike Bazaar, as an end-of-summer treat. Yesterday, Emmaline had told Esther all about the school supplies she helped Mr. Livingston pick out to give to the boys as a surprise at the luncheon. The girl’s eyes sparkled with pleasure as she described the new slates, copy books, and the painted wooden boxes that held pencils, pens, rulers, and erasers.

Thinking about how important these three children––two of them orphans, one fatherless––had become to each other, Esther felt a pang of sadness for her grandson, playing alone with his toy soldiers day-after-day.

“Grandmama, look, Dandy sat down for me. What do I do now?”

Esther took off her spectacles and glanced over to where the terrier sat. Dandy’s small pink tongue curled in his wide-open mouth, his black button nose quivered in the center of his squashed-in muzzle, and his prominent brown eyes stared up intently at Georgie.

She smiled and said, “Roll the ball into the bedroom and tell him to fetch. He should run and get it and bring it back to you.”

Her grandson yelled, “Fetch!” Then he turned and threw the ball into the next room, not quite as gently as Esther had hoped.

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.