Will Sparrow's Road (19 page)

“Good,” said the woman. “You’re not dead. No need to call the bailiff to cart you off. Now out of that heap and away.”

The fierce pain in her stomach made Brat bold. “Please, may I have some’ut to eat first?”

“No beggars in this village. Away.”

“Please, mistress, a little to eat?”

“Those who don’t work don’t eat.”

Brat opened her other eye to show her eagerness and energy. “I will work, mistress. I am stronger and smarter than I seem.”

“Smart enough to use the heat from the dung heap, I see. What can you do?”

“Anything, mistress. And I don’t eat much.”

The woman’s sharp nose smelled hunger, which she could use to her own greedy purpose. “Get up, then, girl. You do put me in mind of a dung beetle burrowing in that heap. Get up, Beetle, and I may yet find something for you to do.”

So Brat, newly christened Beetle, got up, and the sharp lady found some work for her to do and rewarded her with dry bread and half a mug of sour ale, which tasted so sweet to the girl that she slept in the dung heap another night, hoping for more work and more bread on the morrow. And there was more work, sweeping the lady’s dirt floor and washing her linen in the stream and carrying her bundles to those cottages where a new baby was expected, for the sharp lady was a midwife. Beetle soon acquired a new name, the midwife's apprentice, and a place to sleep that smelled much better than the dung heap, though it was much less warm.

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Karen Cushman’s
historical novels include the Newbery Honor book
Catherine, Called Birdy
and Newbery winner
The Midwife’s Apprentice.
She lives with her husband on Vashon Island in Washington State. Visit her website at
www.karencushmanbooks.com
.