Down Jasper Lane (Amherst Island Trilogy)

Yet as sleep descended, she couldn’t shrug off the faint unease caused by the way her father had looked to the hills and told her not to worry.

THREE

“Sit still, child,” Ruth said, her voice caught between annoyance and something that almost sounded like amusement.

Ellen immediately stopped wriggling, though her shoulders positively itched to twist and turn, to catch a glimpse of the girl in the mirror who looked so grown-up in navy muslin.

Aunt Ruth had been as good as her word, using the morning to fit Ellen with three new dresses. First they’d gone over to the store, and Uncle Hamish had taken down the bolts of cloth while Ruth sized them with a beadily knowledgeable eye.

Ellen had held her breath, not saying anything, not daring to ask for the pink sprigged cotton with the little clusters of yellow flowers. When Aunt Ruth clucked her tongue and chose the navy muslin, her spirits had fallen, just a little bit, but she smiled all the same.

New dresses were new dresses, after all.

“They’ll do, I suppose,” Ruth said now, taking pins from her mouth and sticking them firmly into a little yellow pincushion. “They fit at any rate, and they should last through the winter. You’re a small thing, aren’t you?”

Ellen shrugged, remembering how the immigration officer had almost sent her back because of her smallness.

In a quick, strong movement, Ruth took Ellen’s chin in her hand, startling her. “You may answer when I speak to you, Ellen. Otherwise you’re being rude.”

“I—I didn’t know you asked me a question,” Ellen stammered, and Ruth’s eyes narrowed.

“I said you were small. You may answer, ‘Yes, Aunt Ruth’.”

Uncertain and a little afraid, Ellen nodded her head like a puppet, her chin still held in her aunt’s hand. “Yes, Aunt Ruth.”

“Very good. Children must always respect their elders, Ellen. I don’t know how you were brought up with your mother half in her grave—”

“My mother,” Ellen said, her voice shaking, “was as good a woman as you could please. She read her Bible every day, right until the end.”

Ruth frowned at this interruption, but she nodded and let go of Ellen’s chin. “I remember Ann Copley as being a good, devout woman, poor soul,” she said. She gave Ellen a small, parsing kind of smile. “The dresses should be ready in a few days. There’s an ice cream social on the village green on Saturday. You can wear the navy to that.”

Since they were all navy, Ellen didn’t see the need to respond—until she saw Aunt Ruth’s expectant gaze. “Yes, Aunt Ruth,” she said dutifully, and her aunt smiled rather tightly.

“Do we eat ice cream at the social?” Ellen asked, realizing at once that the question sounded stupid, especially when Aunt Ruth raised her eyebrows incredulously.

“Of course we do. What do you suppose it’s called an ice cream social for?”

“It’s just I’ve never eaten ice cream before. Is it very cold?”

This question seemed to displease Ruth, for she pursed her lips and jabbed a pin in the dress pattern. “You’ll find out soon enough.”

Ellen watched her aunt covertly, the strong lines of her jaw and throat, the way her hands moved gracefully across the fabric. She must have been very pretty when she was young, and even now she possessed a sort of queenly beauty.

She wanted to say something, something about how the feelings inside her were so strange—joy and excitement and a terrible confusion and even grief all mixed up into one tight ball of emotion that always seemed to get stuck in her throat, but the determined set of Ruth’s mouth, the cool distance Ellen saw in her eyes, kept her from saying anything at all.

While Ruth busied herself with the dress patterns, Ellen wandered out into the little yard. She liked to sit on the porch steps and breathe the clean air, away from prying eyes. She watched the chickens scratch in their little yard. That morning she’d asked Aunt Ruth if she could gather the eggs.

Ruth had pursed her lips, eyeing Ellen thoughtfully, before giving one decisive nod. “I suppose you could, couldn’t you?”

“Do they have names?” Ellen asked and her aunt looked at her as if she’d sprouted another head. Ellen was getting quite used to that look.

“No, of course not, child. Many of them will be supper

eventually, after all.”

Ellen decided she would still name them. She just wouldn’t tell anybody.

Now she kicked at the steps and wondered what she should call them. The speckled one who always flapped her wings could be Breezy. Ellen sighed in sudden, pent-up frustration.