Emily's Fortune (4 page)

Emily stared at him. “What for?” she asked.

Jackson shrugged. “I dunno. Something to do,” he told her.

They walked over to the carriage house, where two small buggies sat, whips across the seats.

“We could hide those whips in the bushes,” Jackson said. “They'd have to hunt all day to find 'em.”

“Why would you want to do
that?”
Emily asked.

“Cause a little excitement, maybe,” said Jackson.

And when they poked their heads into the stable, Jackson talked about letting the horses out.
No wonder the last family Jackson stayed with didn't want him
, Emily thought.

“Are you always looking for trouble?” she asked as they wandered along the fence beside the pasture.

“Not always,” said Jackson.

“Then what else do you like to do?”

“I like to climb trees. I like to chase rabbits. I like to wade in creeks and catch crawdads.”

“I've never climbed a tree in my life,” said Emily.

Jackson studied her for a moment. “Your arms are too short; legs are too weak,” he said.

“They are not!” said Emily.

“Ha! You couldn't climb a tree if the devil was after you,” he jeered.

What made this dirty-faced boy so awful? Emily wondered. There was a tree up ahead, and Emily marched over. “I could too!” she declared, but when they got there, her heart pounding, she said, “Boys first.” Then she added, uncertainly, “It's the polite thing to do.”

“Well, I've never been polite in my life,” said Jackson, “but I'll show you how to climb a tree.”

Holding on to a post, the skinny boy hoisted himself to the top of the wood-and-wire fence, then braced one hand against the tree and stood up on the top rail. He reached both hands toward the lowest branch, grabbed it, then in one swift move swung a leg over it and pulled himself up to a sitting position.

Once again, he stood, reached for the next branch, threw a leg over, and climbed up.

“Your turn!” he called.

Emily set her bag on the ground. Her throat felt dry and her hands were sweaty. She held on to the post, and though her feet slipped and slid against the wire, she finally managed to get onto the top rail. But when she tried to stand up on it, she felt herself being yanked backward, and sat down with a bump.

Jackson cackled gleefully in the branches above.

Emily tried again, but once more she felt herself being yanked backward onto the wooden rail.

“Haw haw!” came Jackson's voice above her. “It's your dress! It's snagged on the wire.”

Emily looked down and unhooked the hem of her dress. But when she freed herself at last and shakily stood up, the first branch of the maple tree was just beyond her reach. Bracing one hand against the tree trunk, she stood on tiptoe and stretched her other arm as high as she could, but her fingertips barely touched the branch.

“Hee hee ha ha!” chortled Jackson, and this made Emily angry indeed. This time she stretched her arms as high as they would go and gave a little jump. The next thing she knew, she was hanging on to the branch, her feet swinging back and forth in the air.

“J-J-Jackson!” she called shakily. “Help me!”

He peered down at her. “Well,” he said, “I could stomp on your fingers….”

“Jackson!” she pleaded.

“Swing your legs over to the tree trunk and walk yourself up to the branch. Then flop one leg over,” he told her.

Emily's feet flailed back and forth until they found the trunk, scraping and skidding against the bark.
One of her shoes fell off, and Jackson howled some more. But finally, holding the branch with both hands, she walked her feet up the trunk to the branch where she clung, and threw one leg over, finally getting on top of it.

“Well,” Jackson said. “You made it this far, but you can't say you've climbed a tree until you go one branch more.”

Emily didn't want to hear it. She was too frightened to go up and too frightened to go down. She imagined that she would spend the rest of her life wrapped around that branch.

But at last she gained the courage to sit up, and she found that the next branch was closer than she had thought. And with a little help from Jackson, she managed to get up onto the limb beside him. Shakily she sat up and looked about.

“I've never been this high before,” she confided. “Not even on a stepladder.”

“Ha!” said Jackson. “I've hid in a tree so many times I'm about to grow leaves. Every time somebody wants to beat me, I'm up a tree.”

“Oh, lordy, whatever happened to your parents?” Emily asked.

“My ma ran off, and Pa got sick and died,” Jackson told her. “I'm a bad-luck kid for sure.”

What would Luella Nash say about her sitting in a tree beside a boy who was always in trouble?

Emily wondered. It didn't matter much, since she liked being up this high, where she could see carriages far out on the road, and a creek running along the edge of a wood.

Suddenly Jackson slid off the branch onto the limb below.
“C'mon,” he said. “They're lighting the lanterns on the porch and folks'll be going to bed. If you don't find a place early, you'll end up on the floor.”

Emily peered down at the ground beneath them. It seemed a lot scarier going down than it had coming up. “I…I can't!” she said, her voice shaky.

“Well, if you don't, you'll sleep in the tree all night,” Jackson told her. “Grab hold of the branch you're sitting on and slide your foot down to the next one.”

Somehow Emily made it to the limb below, but the fence was too far for her feet to reach. She hung by her hands, feet kicking, and finally she simply let go and fell to the ground with a thump.

For a moment she lay on her back, eyes closed, but when she opened them, she saw a huge hairy face looking down at her with two terrible eyes, and before she could roll away, a huge brown tongue suddenly poked out and licked her face.

Emily screamed, but on the other side of the fence, Jackson was rolling on the ground with laughter, and the big brown cow that had stopped by ambled on to another part of the pasture.

Jackson continued to laugh as Emily climbed back over the fence and found her shoe. He went on hee-hawing as she tied the lace and picked up her carpetbag. But as they walked back to the inn, he said, “Now, listen here, if you don't get a bed, the best place to sleep is under a table, 'cause no one can stumble over you during the night.”

No bed? Emily wondered. Things were going from bad to worse. And who would want to give a bed to a dirty girl in a torn dress and wrinkled socks?

Inside, the innkeeper was giving instructions: “Women and girls sleep up,” he said, pointing toward the stairs; “men and boys sleep down. Don't sleep with your boots on, don't hog the covers, and no more'n five to a bed.”

Emily followed the women and girls, already missing the soft bed she had shared with her mother back in Miss Nash's big house.

There were four bedrooms upstairs, with two beds each. Women were busy setting their bags down, and Emily knew she had to hurry if she wanted any space at all.

Taking off her shoes and socks, she lifted her dress over her head and placed it on a chair. Then she slipped under the covers on one of the beds, and was soon joined by two women on one side of her, one woman on the other.

There were only two pillows, and Emily didn't even get to share one. Her small head sank down between them, where she couldn't see out. When the women on either side of her moved, Emily got an elbow in the ribs, a knee against her leg, an arm across her face. And then the women began to snore.

Sssnnnooog
, went the first woman.

Sssnnnooop
, went the second.

Sssnnnoooz
, went the third.

Bong, bong, bong
, went the grandfather clock at the bottom of the stairs.

When the clock struck one in the morning, Emily heard it.

When it struck two, she was still awake. She slept some after that, but at five, when the woman beside her got up to use the chamber pot, Emily saw her chance and slid out of bed. She put on her dress and
felt around for her shoes and socks. Then, picking up her carpetbag with Rufus and his little box inside, she made her way downstairs to see if she could find a sofa or chair where she might curl up and sleep a few more hours before breakfast.

But the snoring downstairs was even louder than the snoring up. In the early-morning light, Emily could see men and boys sleeping every which way. There were men under tables, men propped up in chairs. Every sofa had a man on it, and one little boy had rolled himself up in a rug.

There was a faint noise in the kitchen, and Emily wondered if the innkeeper's wife might be up starting breakfast. She tiptoed through the hallway toward the kitchen. She could just make out a sign above the door that read:

But all she wanted was a peek.

And what in
blinkin' bloomers
do you think
she saw?

T
here was Jackson by the big iron stove, his hand deep inside the cracker barrel.

“Jackson, what are you
doing?”
Emily whispered. “Didn't you read the sign?”

“What sign?” asked Jackson.

Emily pointed to the door behind her. “Back there. Customers aren't allowed in the kitchen.”

“I was hungry,” said Jackson, and Emily noticed for the first time just how very thin and bony his face was.

“Well, we shouldn't be here,” Emily told him, and
was sure of it when she heard footsteps upstairs. With her carpetbag in one hand, she pulled Jackson out the back door, but not before he had crammed his pockets full of crackers.

“Didn't you get enough to eat last night?” she asked.

“I never get enough to eat,” said Jackson. “All they put on my plate was the last ladle of beans. The last bit of bread. A little dried-up piece of meat.”

“Well, then,” said Emily, opening her carpetbag and pulling out the lunch sack she had been saving. “Let's go eat in the barn.”

A small shaft of early-morning light came from a high window inside the barn. There was a huge mound of sweet-smelling hay that almost reached the rafters, and a stall on one side where the cow could rest during the night. It had already been milked and let out to pasture. Emily opened the sack the neighbor women had given her and handed the sausage to Jackson.

“Here,” she said.

Jackson reached for it hungrily, then stopped. “But it's yours!” he said.

“We'll share,” Emily told him.

She took Rufus out of his box and let him crawl about as she and Jackson had their breakfast. They ate the sausage and the bread and cheese, nibbled some carrots, and devoured the caramel cake. Emily fed another tiny bit of carrot to Rufus.

“Ah!” said Jackson, leaning back in the hay, hands on his belly. “That's the first time I've been full since Christmas.”

“What happened at Christmas?” asked Emily.

“I was in an orphanage, and the church ladies showed up with a big turkey and plum pudding. Never ate so much in my life. All of us kids did. But then I knew it would be next Christmas before they came again, so I just hiked out of there.”

“Where did you go?” asked Emily, picking up a little stick to guide Rufus into turning around. Then she amused herself by tracing letters in the dirt as she listened to Jackson.

“Well, I was on my own, just knockin' about, till the Child Catchers caught up with me and put me in a home where they used any excuse at all to beat me.
So I ran away again, and this time when I was caught, they dropped me off at the Overhill Stagecoach Company with a ticket to the West. Some family out there wants to put me to work.” He looked at Emily's scribbles. “What you writing?”

“My mother's name,” Emily said. “Constance Wiggins. And here's the name of the woman we lived with….” She drew in the dirt some more. “Luella Nash.”