Chain Locker Read Free

days.”
    â€œI wouldn’t mind having a tall, strappin’ twenty-five-year-old male about the house for eleven days.”
    â€œWell,” said Emily as she knitted her brow and concentrated on adjusting the damper. “You’re welcome to Randy.”
    â€œI don’t want Randy. I want a tall, strappin’ male,” Gennie guffawed, delighted at her own wit, which was followed by a fit of coughing.
    Gently patting her on the back, Emily said, “Gennie, there’s no need for you to be in here this early. I can see that the stoves get lit.”
    â€œI noticed,” Gennie said. “Why don’t you let the youngsters’ fathers take care of it like they’re supposed to? Then we could come in to a nice warm school like we been doing all winter.”
    â€œI can tell that you haven’t been around here when there are seals on the go. That’s all they think about this time of the year: ‘Did youse see ar swile?’” she mimicked, screwing her pretty face into its most intense expression of anticipation. “And now that there were a few off Long Point earlier in the week, you can be sure there will soon be men scrambling all over the ice, with no interest whatever in lighting the stove in the school. I swear Daddy has sharpened his sculping knife every day this week and he has yet to step out onto a clumper. His gaff and tow-rope are sitting by the door all set to go. You’d think it was emergency life-saving equipment and lives depended on him.”
    â€œThey take their sealing seriously, don’t they?” said Gennie, half listening. “I’ve been meaning to ask you, what’s the story with George Tizzard? Did his mother make up her mind yet?”
    â€œOh, my. Poor little Georgie,” Emily said, frowning. “I honestly don’t know what Agnes is going to do; nothing would surprise me. She dislikes me so much I swear she’ll probably pull him out of school just to spite me. It breaks my heart to see them being taken out when they’re so young, but not many around here see any value in an education. I suppose you can’t blame them: the teenage boys especially are a huge help to their fathers out on the water.”
    â€œOr in the vegetable garden or cutting wood or hunting birds or picking berries or tending the sheep or building boats…” Gennie mused. “It’s hard to keep food on the table without them.”
    â€œI know. But it’s a crime the number of men around here who can barely read their own names.”
    â€œNot one of my brothers finished school. All five of them were in the lumber woods before their fourteenth birthday.”
    â€œAgnes had my blood boiling yesterday,” Emily continued. “It was all I could do to keep from giving her a good smack.”
    â€œOh, that would have been a nice thing to see now: the teacher giving a parent one across the lip.”
    â€œThere was Agnes, with babe in arms and another peeping out from behind her skirts, sticking out her chin and declaring, ‘I only went to Number Five and it never done me no ’arm. I got a ’usband and youngsters and a ’ouse over me ’ead.’ She may as well have added, ‘And what ’ave you got? Sure, you’re nothing but the schoolteacher—an old maid still livin’ at ’ome with your parents!’”
    â€œOf course you’re living with your parents. What would she expect you to do—saw your own logs and build a house?”
    â€œYou know what I mean. Find a husband to build one for me.”
    â€œI have no doubt that will happen…and soon,” she grinned. “But not everybody is lucky enough to get a man…”
    â€œGennie, don’t be silly. You have a lot to offer a man.”
    â€œLike what? TB?”
    â€œStop talking like that! You haven’t got TB.”
    There was a moment of uncomfortable silence. “And