Ellen knew Jed wanted to quit school—he made no secret of it—but according to Lucas his father had hopes for both of his sons to go to Glebe Collegiate in Kingston, and then perhaps even on to Queen’s University.
“My father says the way this world’s changing we’re going to need some book learning,” Lucas told her one October morning a week or so after she’d arrived. “Even if we reckon on just being farmers.”
“How’s the world changing?” Ellen asked, for she’d never thought of such a thing before.
“Inventions,” Lucas answered succinctly. “Automobiles, escalators, bicycles, even roller coasters! The world is going to be a different place, Ellen, by the time we’re both grown.”
He looked so earnest, with his brown hair flopping across his forehead, his eyes alight with excitement. Ellen shook her head slowly.
“Escalators?”
“Moving staircases.”
She could not conceive of such a thing. “Have you ever seen one?”
Lucas let out a self-conscious laugh. “Well, no, of course not! I don’t think an escalator will ever come to the island. But mark my words, you’ll see one someday. Someday soon, I don’t doubt, in Kingston maybe. Same with automobiles. Mr. Stevenson is bringing one over to the island, he says, when the lake freezes over and he can drive it straight across.”
Jed reached over and grabbed Lucas’ cap, tossing it in the air before chucking it back at him. “Moving staircases sound like the stupidest thing I ever heard,” he scoffed. “Why not just walk? Who’d want such a clattering thing in your house?”
Lucas glared at him. “They’re not for houses,” he said loftily. “They’re for shops and things, with lots of floors.”
Jed just shrugged, completely dismissive, and although Ellen privately agreed with him about the usefulness of escalators, she still felt sorry for Lucas. She gave him a conciliatory smile.
“I don’t doubt it, Lucas. I just can’t imagine it, that’s all.”
“Well, it will happen,?
?? Lucas said firmly. “Just you wait and see.” Ellen thought he was talking more to his brother than to her.
School for Ellen was a delight. It was a one-room building on the edge of Stella, and the teacher, Miss Gardiner, was young and cheerful. Jed, Lucas, and Ellen were the oldest pupils; the other children their age had already quit school, usually to work on the farm, and anyone older who wished for more schooling had gone to high school in Kingston, where they would board for the term.
When Ellen confessed, stammering a little, her Scottish brogue thicker than ever, that her arithmetic was quite poor, Miss Gardiner had merely shrugged and said, “I shall have to find time to get you up to scratch, then. And you can help teach the little ones to read, if you’d like to. Your voice is so pretty, and you read so very well.”
Ellen flushed with pleasure, and soon she was spending the mornings with Sarah and three other little children, primers on their knees as they stiltedly sounded out letters by the wood stove. She loved those moments, when she felt needed and clever and liked. Sometimes Sarah put her head on Ellen’s shoulder, and the other little ones would press close. Their simple, childish affection warmed Ellen right through.
Every once in a while she’d glance covertly at Jed crammed into his child’s desk, knees barely fitting underneath, elbows out at angles, and she felt a surprising pang of sympathy at the way he scowled while doing his own sums, one hand driven through his dark, unruly hair. He had more trouble than she did with his arithmetic, but at least Ellen liked being in school. It was quite clear that Jed was counting the days and maybe even the minutes until he was free to go back to the farm.
Ellen loved everything about school: the cozy little schoolhouse with the wood stove in the middle; Miss Gardiner’s merry voice as she called out sums or spelling words; and she loved that the other children accepted her with amazing ease. The children of Amherst Island were, in some ways, as much a bunch of misfits as Ellen had ever been. There was Johnny Spearson, with his carrot-colored hair and so clumsy that Miss Gardiner wouldn’t let him get within six feet of the wood stove, in case he burned all his hair off like his older brother had; Lily McAndrew, who had freckles and gap teeth and slipped her arm through Ellen’s very nearly the moment she arrived, offering to share her bench; and Archie Anderson who laughed like a donkey and was hopeless at reading but could do sums straight in his head, even the big ones. Ellen was soon friends with them all. Of course, not every child at the island school was kind; that, Ellen knew, would have been too much to ask. Yet she didn’t really mind. Julia Charbonneau, who had airs because her family was from Montreal, could stick her nose as high in the air as she liked and still no one paid her any mind. Michael Wilson reminded Ellen a bit of Artie Dole back in Seaton; he tried to snatch her hair ribbon that very first day but she neatly stepped aside before he could, and with flashing eyes surprised herself by warning him that he’d best not do that again. So far he hadn’t.
Ellen enjoyed the happy chaos of life at the McCafferty farm as much as school, although it did take some getting used to. Dyle McCafferty had greeted her by pulling her into his arms and swinging her around and around until she’d nearly lost her breath and Rose, laughing, told him to stop. Ellen could not remember the last time Da had swung her around like that.
“Well, Ellen,” he’d said, cramming his hat on his head and regarding her with a twinkling smile, “perhaps you can set us to rights. Goodness knows with five children and a father who is still trying to understand this farming lark, we need someone to straighten us out!”
Shaking her head with a smile, Rose patted her husband on the back and half-pushed him out the door. “Go on, now. The sun will be high in the sky before you get to the animals.”
It was quite clear to Ellen that Dyle McCafferty approached farming with a lightness of purpose that left the McCaffertys with just enough to get by. She hadn’t been at the farm for a week before she saw Rose counting out coins kept in a pretty blue and white jar in the kitchen, a frown turning down the corners of her usually smiling mouth. As soon as she’d spied Ellen she’d smiled again and put the jar back on the shelf above the range.
“There are never enough pennies, are there?” she said lightly, but Ellen thought she still saw a shadow in those faded blue eyes. Rose McCafferty was a cheerful woman, but worry and want dogged her heels. Ellen knew all about that, and she decided right then she’d do her best to help the McCaffertys as much as she could, whether Rose had meant for her to do so or not.
Quietly after school she would tidy the kitchen or finish a pile of ironing, dust the front parlor (which was hardly used anyway) or gather the eggs. When Rose found her completing some small chore she would give her a harried smile and a quick hug. “Bless you, child, bless you,” she said, and Ellen felt something inside her start to unfurl, like a tender shoot first finding light. She liked being useful, after all. She liked being needed even more.
One evening in early October Rose asked Ellen to deliver a chicken pie to the Lymans’ farm.
“Dear Maeve is poorly again,” Rose said with a sorrowful shake of her head. “She was never strong, and when the cold weather comes it always seems to go straight to her chest. Bringing a bit of dinner is the least we can do.”
Outside the air was chilly and crisp, and dusk was falling quickly, leaving the fields cloaked in a soft purple twilight. Ellen could hear the baleful lowing of the cattle in a distant field, although in the oncoming darkness she couldn’t see them. She hadn’t told anyone she was a bit nervous of cows—afraid, she decided, was too strong a word. Still she picked her way across the darkened fields with some care, making sure to keep a good distance from that mournful sound.
The Lymans’ farm was a tidy-looking place, with several outbuildings and a clapboard house painted in a cheerful yellow. Mr. Lyman answered the door, still wearing his muddy farm boots, the graying stubble visible on his chin. He looked tired, Ellen thought, and supposed that taking care of a farm and a sickly wife was hard on a man. She thought suddenly of her father, which surprised her, since she’d deliberately tried not to think of him for the last month, since he’d sneaked out at dawn and boarded that train to Chicago. She hadn’t heard a word from him, and sadly she wasn’t even surprised.