Fire by Night Read Online Free PDF

before he dropped to the floor with a splat . Mrs. Haggerty would likely subtract the price of mending his cracked skull from her pay, too.
    Phoebe’s burlap sack had barely hit the floor before half a dozen Haggertys pounced on it like catfish going after breadcrumbs.
    “Touch that bag and I’ll skin every last one of you like you was raccoons,” Phoebe said. The swirling bodies froze for a moment, their dirty faces upturned as if trying to measure her meanness. She narrowed her eyes, trying to look ornery enough to scare a nest of rattlesnakes. She felt ornery, too, as something warm and wet oozed from the baby’s diaper and ran down her arm.
    “You’re ugly,” one of the bigger boys said.
    “Oh yeah? Well, you’d better get yourselves outside before I count three, or your sorry little faces will wind up even uglier than mine. One …two…” The back door slammed shut on the last of them before she got to three.
    That night Phoebe’s attic room proved hotter than she’d imagined— plus it had bats. She’d been standing across the alley at dusk, trying to herd all the Haggertys home, when she’d seen the bats streaming out of her window. She’d counted thirteen of them— which seemed unlucky. Phoebe still hadn’t counted all the Haggertys. Every time she thought she had their number, one or two would wander off somewhere and three or four new ones would wander home from who-knows-where, and then she’d have to start all over again. She had tried to wipe one boy’s bloody nose after he’d gotten himself punched, and he’d squirmed away from her, saying, “I ain’t no Haggerty! Leave me alone!” That had thrown her count way off. Who knew how many of them she’d already counted who weren’t Haggertys at all?
    She wondered if Mr. and Mrs. Haggerty themselves had any idea how many there were, seeing as nobody but the two of them ever bothered to sit down to eat. And how could anyone keep track of their kin when they were all called Bubba or Sissy?
    From the moment her brother Willard had shoved her off the back of the wagon, Phoebe had seen nothing but kids, chaos, and chores. The worst part was never having a moment to herself from the time she’d arrived until she’d climbed the ladder to the airless attic—and now she was too tired to enjoy the fact that she was alone. Phoebe lay down on her scratchy corncob mattress, feeling wretched enough to hang herself from one of the spidery rafters above her head. Not only was the bed so short her feet hung off the end, but she was wringing wet with sweat after only five minutes, even stripped down to her chemise and bloomers. She could probably wring a cupful of water from her hair.
    “Ain’t no way I can stand living here,” she mumbled aloud.
    When the war had begun last April, everybody said it wouldn’t last more than ninety days. Now here it was six months later, and the Rebels showed no signs of backing down. In fact, they were cockier than ever after whipping the Yanks at Bull Run. Who knew how long the fighting would drag on, how long she’d be sentenced to this Haggerty hell?
    Somewhere in a room below, the baby began to cry. It was the last straw. Better to die with a Rebel bullet between her eyes than get worked to death by these blasted Haggertys.
    Phoebe stood, careful not to crack her head on the rafters, and dug in her bag for her beloved overalls and shirt. She tore a long, wide strip of muslin from her bloomers and tied it around her bosom to flatten herself, then put on her one-piece union suit. She had to admit as she changed her clothes that girls’ underthings were a whole lot cooler than men’s, but that was about all that could be said for women’s clothes. When she was finished, she laid the chemise, petticoat, skirt, and bodice neatly on the bed so that it looked as though she’d simply shriveled up and vanished, leaving her clothes behind. Then, carrying her shoes and burlap sack, Phoebe descended the ladder and crept