by M. P. Barker
“Hate to misillusion you, son, but her looking a fright is exactly what you want.” The peddler was perched on the top fence rail as if he’d conjured himself there.
Daniel’s face grew hot. How long had the peddler been watching? The mare twitched her ears forward and greeted the little man with a cheerful whinny.
Mr. Stocking smiled, a peculiar combination of horsey teeth and turtle-like eyes. “Sorry, there, darling, but vanity’ll cost you and your Irish prince awful dear in this world.”
“Vanity?” Daniel raised an eyebrow. The only reason a lass would look him over more than once would be to find something new to laugh at. “That’s one sin I don’t fancy I’m likely to fall into.” He fetched a coarse brush from the barn and began working the dust out of the mare’s coat.
“A man ain’t always vain for his own sake.”
Daniel’s hands followed the slope of muscle down Ivy’s neck, tracing the graceful arc that disguised the strength underneath. “Ah, well, any man’d be vain of such a grand lass.”
“Maybe any man could afford to be. But not you.”
Daniel swirled the brush lightly over the bony points of Ivy’s withers. “I’m not such a dab hand at riddling, sir. Why don’t you just tell me plain what you’re about?”
“I’m about peddling just now. It’s a trade that can learn you quite a bit about human nature.” The peddler pried a sliver from the fence rail and picked his teeth with it. “You know what makes a good peddler?”
Daniel shrugged. “Sharp talk and fast dealing, I s’pose.”
Mr. Stocking shook his head. “You got to anticipate people’s expectations. A boy like you, traveling on your own, can’t afford to give ’em any surprises.”
“Could you p’raps be a bit plainer?”
Mr. Stocking pushed his hat back, the sun winking off his glasses. “It’s not me that needs to be plainer, but you.” He pointed a stubby finger at Ivy. “And her.”
“She’ll no more be plain than I’ll be an Irish prince.”
The peddler shook his head. “Then you’ll have trouble wherever you go.”
“Trouble,” Daniel repeated, the word sitting in his throat like a lump. “I thought I was done being knocked about after I left Lyman’s.” Mr. Stocking and the blacksmith’s lad had cleared his name in Chauncey, but what about the next town and the next after that?
“I’m afraid the likes of you and me ain’t never done being knocked about, son.”
“Don’t we never get to do any of the knocking?”
“Chester tells me he gave you the chance to knock back, but you didn’t take it.”
The constable had spent the better part of a morning explaining how Daniel could bring charges against the blacksmith and the other men. “Aye, well, I’d have to stay here and see it out, now, wouldn’t I? And who knows how long that’d take?” Daniel said. He wasn’t sure which weighed on him more: the prospect of trying to convince a justice of the peace or a court to take the side of an Irishman, or the idea that he’d be setting the Ainesworths against their neighbors. The constable and his wife had been more than kind; they’d even offered Daniel a job on their farm, but he couldn’t see staying in Chauncey, daily facing the blacksmith and his friends.
The peddler leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “I got some heartless things to learn you, if you want to get by.” He nodded toward Ivy. “You got to give up your idea of what she ought to be, just for a bit, anyway. And you got to make yourself what people expect you to be.” He chewed the end of his toothpick thoughtfully.
“I tried to look a gentleman, and they thought me a thief, never mind all them papers Silas give me.”
Mr. Stocking pointed the sliver at Daniel. “There’s your mistake. You wear your old clothes, let the mare go ragged, ride her bareback with a rope halter, and all folks’ll see is a farm boy and his nag. But put on your best duds and slick up your horse, and they’ll see a boy with fine things he’s got no right to. Once you open your mouth and let some of that Irish talk out—”
“—I’m a thief.” Daniel turned away from the peddler and scratched Ivy’s ears. He couldn’t let her coat go shaggy and her tail and mane full of burrs, let her be less than perfect.
“I’m not saying you should be neglectful, son.” The peddler came down from the fence and stood by his side. The little man pulled a scrap of biscuit from his pocket and let Ivy nibble it. “Just put her light under a bushel for a little while.” He brushed his hands off on the seat of his trousers. “Anyway, no point gathering troubles. Your name’s cleared, you got a fine horse to ride and the world ahead of you.”
Daniel pressed his lips together, taking a long time to respond. “Aye, the whole world, and I haven’t a clue what to do with it. All me life I’ve known naught but to obey orders. Now I’m free to be me own man, and I scarce know where to begin, or how.”
The peddler smiled and held out his hand. “You can try beginning with us.”
Daniel stared down at the offered hand.
“I don’t s’pose it was happenstance brought you here, was it, son?”
Daniel squirmed and ducked the peddler’s gaze. “I—well, I remembered you telling Ethan you had kin down here. I wanted to ask you about—about heading west.”
Mr. Stocking squinted into the sun. He licked his finger and held it up as if to test the wind. “West . . . hmmm . . . I think it’s . . . that way.” He pointed in a vaguely northeasterly direction.
Daniel bit back a snappish retort when he noticed a corner of the peddler’s mouth twitch.
Mr. Stocking clapped Daniel on the shoulder. “No, I didn’t s’pose you trailed me all the way down here to ask me what the sun could tell you. Me and Billy still got a fair bit of peddling to do before winter sets in. We’ll be leaving next week, after we replenish our stocks and settle accounts with Eldad. You’re welcome to come along.”
“I don’t know naught about peddling,” Daniel protested, but he already imagined riding alongside the peddler’s cart, and the idea stirred something warm and homey inside him.
“Don’t worry, son. We’ll make sure you pull your weight.”
We. Aye, there was the peddler’s lad to consider. The peddler’s lad who’d mocked Daniel’s Irish. Since waking in the constable’s house, Daniel had seen the lad often, but the yellow-haired boy kept his distance, staring at Daniel as if he were an animal in a menagerie. “Your lad’ll not be minding, then?”
The peddler chuckled. “Well, it depends on what you mean by minding.”
“How could you?” Billy’s face was crimson. “You didn’t even ask me!”
Jonathan bit his lip against a smile and pretended that Phizzy’s hooves needed tending. “I seem to recollect that this is my goods, my horse, and my wagon. Seems to me I’m the one gets to say who can ride with me.” He peeked discreetly around his shoulder.
With arms crossed, Billy stamped a foot. “He can’t come with us. He can’t!”
Jonathan moved to Phizzy’s hind foot and took his time about studying it. “Seems damned uncharitable of you. The boy could use some company, just like you did once.”
“He has a horse. He has his own goods. He don’t need us and we don’t need him.”
“You don’t have to fret about Dan’l taking your spot. He can’t sing to save his life.”
Billy’s lower lip jutted out. “He’ll ruin everything!” The everything was nearly a wail.
Jonathan straightened slowly, feeling his bad knee pop as he eased it into place. “I thought you’d be pleased to have a young fella around to liven things up a bit. Somebody who talks Irish, just like you.”
Billy spat out something in that self-same Irish—something Jonathan was pretty sure was a curse. “He talks Irish no better’n a pig. He’ll learn you all wrong.”
“That ain’t why I asked him to come.”
Billy hugged Phizzy’s muzzle. “We don’t need him. Everything’s perfect just the way it is.” Billy made Phizzy bob his head in agr
eement.
Perfect. Traipsing around the countryside with a broken-down old fool and a broken-down old horse, not knowing where you’ll sleep or eat next? Stay here at Sophie’s another week or two, then you’ll know what perfect is, friend. Jonathan laid one hand on the gelding’s neck and the other on Billy’s head, tousling the yellow curls. “No, we don’t need him, that’s true. But maybe he needs us.”
Billy jerked away. “I don’t care!”
“What are you afraid of?” Jonathan asked.
“He’ll be stupid and rude and nosy. You’ll tell him . . . things.”
Jonathan shook his head. “I don’t break my promises. He won’t be learning your secrets from me.”
“Excuse me, ma’am?”
Sophie started, nearly dropping her book. One hand to her breast, she turned to face the boy standing in the parlor doorway. “Goodness, Billy, you made me jump!”
“I’m sorry, ma’am. I only come to ask you a bit of a favor.” Billy tugged at his forelock. “I’m needing me hair cut, if you wouldn’t be minding.” He pulled the curl straight so that it came down past the end of his nose. “Short like this, see?” He combed his fingers through his hair and stopped with his hand barely a quarter inch above his scalp.
“Cut all your lovely—” Sophie bit off her intended lament over the loss of Billy’s curls. Cooing over the child’s hair would only make him want to be rid of it all the more. “All right.”
After she had settled him in a chair with one of her aprons draped about his shoulders, she put her book in his lap. “Here,” she said. “You can read to me while I work.”
Billy carefully sounded out the title. “O-liv-er Too-wist. Twist. . . . But why?”
“Why what?” Sophie combed out a tangle at the nape of Billy’s neck.
“Why does he twist?”
“It’s his name, you goose. The boy in the book.”
Billy opened the book and stared at it for a long time.
“I know it’s hard starting in the middle,” Sophie said. “I’ll tell you the beginning later, if you like.”
“I wanted to be looking it over a bit first.” Billy glanced over his shoulder at the growing pile of hair. “Are we almost done?” he asked.
“Not even half finished.” Sophie planted a hand on top of the boy’s head and made him turn back to the book. “You don’t have to like it. Just read it.”
With a defeated sigh, Billy began, sounding out each word letter by letter. It was excruciating to listen to, like watching a wounded bird flutter and fall back to earth over and over again.
Sophie set down her scissors and comb and knelt on the floor in front of the boy. She tipped Billy’s chin so he had to look her in the eye. “How old are you, child?”
“Twelve,” he said. “No, thirteen.” He pulled himself straighter, but his eyes darted away from Sophie’s.
Twelve, most likely, or maybe eleven, if the boy knew at all, Sophie decided. “What schooling have you had?”
“I know I’m a bit slow at the reading, but I’m getting better, really I am. Mr. S. is learning me,” Billy said brightly.
“Learning,” Sophie repeated. “And what sort of grammar do you have?”
Billy wrinkled his nose. “I never knew me grammar. I s’pose she’d be living in Ireland, if she’s still living at all.”
“I mean what sort of book is he ‘learning’ you from?”
“He started with the Bible, but we hadn’t got very far into it when he said there’s stories in there not fit for young folks’ eyes. So he mostly learns me from these.” Billy pulled a wad of crumpled papers from his pocket.
Sophie smoothed out the faded advertisements for horses and cookstoves and patent medicines, menageries and traveling acrobats and conjurers. “No books at all?”
“Sometimes. But just as soon as we get to reading one, someone’ll be wanting to buy it, so I’m forever missing how the story ends. Mr. S., he’s a lovely reader, he is. He can play all the parts while he’s reading, just like he was in a show.”
Sophie gritted her teeth. “I’m sure he can.” She closed her book and laid it on the table. “Never mind. I’ll tell you the story. And then tonight we can read some of it together.” She went back to work, snipping until there seemed to be enough hair on the floor to stuff a bolster. “There.” She handed Billy a mirror. “You look like a proper little man now.” The boy winced.
With his hair cut nearly to his scalp, the boy could have passed for thirteen, so long as he didn’t stand up and reveal how slight his frame was. Yet at the same time, the exposure of his forehead and ears and cheeks and neck made him seem vulnerable as a newly shorn lamb.
Billy grinned up at her. “Aye, that’s grand. Thank you, ma’am.”
“Soph, where’re you hiding my—” Jonny stopped dead in the kitchen doorway. “For God’s sake, woman, what have you done to his hair?”
“I cut it.” There was a little more acid in her voice than she’d intended.
“Cut it? Damn it all, you scalped the poor boy!”
“She done a grand job, ain’t she, Mr. S?” Billy said. There was a little too much bright innocence in his voice, causing Sophie to wonder if there was more to the haircut than a little boy’s wish to look grown up.
“Folks’ll think he’s got lice. Now, Soph—”
“Now, Jonny,” Sophie said, her protest quelling her cousin’s. “We need to have a talk about this boy’s education.” She waved her scissors threateningly under Jonny’s nose. “Or, rather, the lack of it.”
Jonny deflated like a punctured balloon. “Um,” he said. He studied Billy’s haircut again. “Very nice. A handsome haircut, very fine indeed.”
Chapter Nine
Daniel slapped at a mosquito and wiped the sweat out of his eyes. Whose daft idea had it been to send him and Billy off collecting fox grapes? Ah, yes, the bloody peddler, probably so he and the Taylors and the Ainesworths could have some privacy to decide Daniel’s future for him. He stopped short, a bunch of fat grapes warm and heavy in his hand. Mr. Stocking and his friends had proven their good will, and here he was full of ungrateful suspicious thoughts. Maybe the only reason they’d sent him and Billy out was that the ladies really did need to do their jelly making, and perhaps Mr. Stocking only wanted to give the lads a go at learning to be sociable together. But how did one do that?
Billy hacked at the vines as if he hoped to draw blood, and there wasn’t much doubt whose blood the lad wanted. Ever since Mr. Stocking had invited Daniel to join them, Billy had done nothing but scowl and cast venomous looks at him.
Daniel took a breath—as much as he could, with the humid air clinging around his face like a steamy damp towel. All they wanted was for him to say a few friendly words and put the lad at ease. It wasn’t very much, was it? But he’d no clue how to knit together the little chains of pleasantries that normal folk called conversation, never mind how to spark a friendship. He thought of how young Ethan had befriended him at Lyman’s. Ethan had been the one always speaking first, with his endless questions. All right then. He’d start with a question that wouldn’t get the lad’s back up.
The sweet, sticky aroma of the ripe grapes hung heavy in the air. He could already taste the fruit’s promise, and licked his lips in anticipation. So he said, “Won’t Mrs. Ainesworth be pleased? She can make barrels of jelly now.”
“Barrels?” Billy looked at the wheelbarrow mounded high with bunches of grapes. He wrinkled his nose, as if the fruit wouldn’t fill a thimble with jelly. “She’ll not be half as pleased to be cooking ’em as we are to be picking ’em.”
Daniel wasn’t sure whether this was progress or not. It was, at least, more than two words from the other boy’s mouth, even if they were hostile words. “Whyever wouldn’t she be pleased? She likes to cook, don’t she?”
“And I fancy you like doing everything you’re s’posed to, now?” It was a good thing the grapes were destined for jelly, for Billy flung them into the wheelbarrow as though t
rying to pulp the fruit right then and there.
“Work ain’t about liking or not liking. It’s only about doing,” Daniel said. “And anyway, it’d hardly be natural for a lady not to like cooking and such.”
Billy grunted. “I’d rather be spending a week picking grapes or cutting hay than an hour tending a mess of kettles in a kitchen.”
Daniel couldn’t see that tending a pot of jam was any work at all compared to wrestling grapes from a tangle of saplings and vines on a sweltering day that felt more like July than September, all the while watching for poison ivy and plagued by mosquitoes.
Billy stomped off through the underbrush, cursing Daniel for an idiot and a lot of other things that Daniel couldn’t catch, except that hearing them reminded him how much his Gaelic was slipping away, no matter how often he practiced it with Ivy.
“Aye, and the same to you, you foul-tempered little wretch,” Daniel muttered. He flung himself down on the pond’s bank, cooling his feet in the soft mud. Lifting his cap, he raked a hand through his sweaty hair. He picked up a stone and hurled it toward the opposite bank. It fell short and plunked beneath the murky water. “Dammitall,” he muttered as he tossed his cap and cravat aside and shrugged off his suspenders.
“What’re you doing?” Billy asked. Trousers rolled to his knees, he stood in the shallows a dozen yards away, poking a stick at something in the water.
“I’m having meself a swim.” Perhaps it would clear his head. “Come on, if you like.” He stepped out of his trousers and kicked them aside.
“I can’t—I don’t—” Billy backed out of the water.
“I’ll teach you.” Daniel yanked his shirt over his head. Perhaps a swimming lesson might soften the lad. He waded out, slowing as the water lapped to his knees, then his thighs. He turned to encourage the other boy in, and found Billy staring at him.