Counting on Grace Read Free

Sometimes the man give her a ride in on his wagon, but mostly she walks to school. Miss Lesley is a Yankee herself. Mamère says she prefers her own people to us Francos. I think Miss Lesley don't care who you are or where you come from long as you sit still.
    When Pépé starts in about going home to Canada, my mother says, “Only place to get ahead is here.” Truth is her English ain't half bad either, thanks to Miss Sophie. But she's careful not to speak it in front of Pépé.

    The mill needs the river, but the river don't need the mill. The water was flowing along for thousands of years. Then the people come and dammed up the river so it got fatter and the current got strong enough to turn the water-wheel. This time of year in the spring, the river runs high and proud and the wheel never stops, which means the machines got all the power they need. Until the summertime, when the water can go slack.
    The river don't seem to mind. Borrow my water, it says. Long as you give it back. Trouble is when the mill spits thewater back out, it comes all dirty and it smells queer. Arthur caught me drinking it one time and said it would make me sick. Not me. I've got a stomach that can take anything, even that time I swallowed a rock on a dare.
    Arthur's got himself a place down here by the river, a tumbledown old trapper's shack where he hides. If French Johnny didn't catch him going out the door, then that's where Arthur'll be.
    You need to push hard to get the door through the brambles and briars growing round it.
“Go
away,” he snaps when I stick my head inside.
    “I knew you was going to be hiding here,” I tell him. “They'll catch you anyways.”
    “You going to tell them?” He's curled in the corner, his back against the wet wall, slimy from spring rains. His feet are tucked up close under him and his arms are wrapped around that book like it's his baby or something.
    “Course not,” I say. “Miss Lesley kicked me out of school.”
    He cocks his head. “Shhh,” he says. “You hear that?”
    I listen too. “Just the river going over the rocks. Papa says the water's high even for May.”
    He winces. Maybe at the word
Papa
‘cause he don't have a father no more to tell him things.
    “What are you going to do?” I ask.
    “Run away.”
    “Where to?”
    “Massachusetts. Across the border.”
    I feel a little pinch in my throat. Arthur's not exactly a friend of mine, but he's somebody to talk to.
    “You going now?”
    “Not till after dark,” he says. “I'll tell my mother goodbye.”
    “You're going to leave her?”
    I can see he don't like thinking about that.
    “Why'd Miss Lesley kick you out of school?” he asks me.
    “Said she didn't want French Johnny taking another of her best readers so I might as well leave school right then.” I'm proud for him to hear that. “You may be the best reader, but I'm second best.”
    He shrugs like he don't care.
    “It's fine with me,” I say. “Least I won't have to sit still all day long waiting on Miss Lesley's ruler.”
    “You're stupid,” Arthur says. “Like the rest.”
    I don't let people call me names. Ever. My feet are moving before I even think. I start pounding on him, but he just curls up tighter into himself. He don't cover his head with his hands and he don't cry out. I'm the one doing the yelling.
    “I am not stupid, Arthur Trottier. You hear me? I am smart just like you. Miss Lesley says so and Miss Sophie before her.”
    Then a voice behind me says, “Leave him be, girl. I need him in one piece.”
    It's French Johnny.
    Arthur lifts his head and spits at me. “You showed him where I was hid,” he screams, gathering himself to bolt again.
    “I didn't,” I say, backing away. “I didn't show him nothing.”
    French Johnny ain't taking chances this time. He grabs Arthur's arm in one of his big hands. Arthur twists one way, then the other.
    “Not her fault, boy. I would have found you anyways. Even without the landlady pointing the