Emily's Fortune Read Online Free PDF Page A

kitchen.”
    â€œI was hungry,” said Jackson, and Emily noticed for the first time just how very thin and bony his face was.
    â€œWell, we shouldn’t be here,” Emily told him, andwas 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.
    â€œDidn’t you get enough to eat last night?” she asked.
    â€œI 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.”
    â€œWell, 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.
    â€œHere,” she said.
    Jackson reached for it hungrily, then stopped. “But it’s yours!” he said.
    â€œWe’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.
    â€œAh!” said Jackson, leaning back in the hay, hands on his belly. “That’s the first time I’ve been full since Christmas.”
    â€œWhat happened at Christmas?” asked Emily.
    â€œI 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.”
    â€œWhere 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.
    â€œWell, 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?”
    â€œMy 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.”
    â€œI don’t know my letters,” said Jackson. “All I can read is my own name. Never stayed in any place long enough to learn.”
    J-a-c-k-s-o-n
, Emily wrote in the dirt.
    â€œThat’s it,” said Jackson. “How do you spell
your
name?”
    E-m-i-l-y
, she wrote.
    â€œFunny-lookin’ name,” said Jackson. And then, “What do you want to do now?”
    â€œWhat I really want to do is sleep,” said Emily. “I was bumped and kicked all night long. I could curl up right here.”
    â€œGo ahead,” said Jackson. “I’ll see you around,then.” He got up and started to leave, then stopped. “Thank you for the breakfast.”
    â€œYou’re welcome,” Emily told him. She put Rufus back in his box, then curled up in the hay and fell asleep.
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    The sun was fully up, carriages came and went, and still Emily slept on, exhausted from her travels. She slept all of the morning and part of the afternoon.
    She was dreaming of cinnamon toast and hot cocoa when the barn door burst open and Jackson came in.
    â€œHey, Emily!” he called proudly. “I