Endure My Heart Read Free Page B

would be madness not to take it. My brother went to inform Porson of our plans, and came home with a new notion. The squarson had offered him substantially the same deal. Andrew would take holy orders and take over this parish, where he was already doing more of the church work than Porson.
    I wondered whether I was instrumental in this plan to keep us here. I was being leered at again in a certain way, which made me suspect he wanted Andrew out of the rectory so that I would be alone and undefended. If that was his scheme, he was thwarted. My ex-governess, Miss Edna Halka, was residing in the boardinghouse inhabited by Miss Plum and others. She was between positions, and agreed to accompany me till Andrew returned.
    Miss Halka had not been happy at the boardinghouse. She told me tales of bad food and unaired beds that made me thank heaven I had avoided it. I soon formed the intention that Miss Halka would become a permanent part of our household. That is odd too, for we had not been bosom bows or anything of the sort when she was my governess. She had used to nag and pinch at me; she no longer did so. I discovered that she made a better friend than she had a teacher. I daresay it was our reversal of roles that made us both more comfortable. She was not born to boss, nor I to take orders. Edna—she asked me to call her Edna—was not physically attractive. Tall and thin, with brown hair turning to gray at the temples, though she was not much above forty. She seemed eager to get into old age.
    Miss Aldridge often came to call. As the fall school term rolled around, she offered me a post at her dame school. She was beset with aches in her joints, and would welcome the luxury of being able to stay at home on a wet or windy day. The rowdier boys had taken advantage of her creeping infirmity to get quite out of hand. There is no point being polite to wretches who bring a badger into the classroom to frighten you, or who keep frogs and mice in their pockets. I instituted a rigorous regime of keeping them in after school when they pulled these stunts on me.
    It was my being still there at four-thirty one afternoon that first introduced me to my life of crime. I had just released Tommie Jenkins and Bill Marson (the worst of a bad lot) and was locking up the doors. This was in late autumn. They were not much needed at home or I would not have kept them in.
    Glancing out the window to gauge how long I had to get home before the rain came down, for of course we get a great deal of rain on the coast, I chanced to see two young fellows fleeing down the road at a great rate, peering over their shoulders in fright. I tapped at the window to get their attention, and noticed it was the Hessler brothers, which told me the pursuer would be the revenue officer, Crites. He is no favorite in our community, Crites.
    The boys (they were about sixteen and fifteen) saw me and fled to the school. You would need a heart of forged steel not to like the Hesslers, despite their many pranks. They are about the most common sight in the district, their black heads bouncing along the road together, always with a smile for everyone, while their dog—a beautiful collie named Lady—tags at their heels, sniffing at whatever bit of meat or fish they have poached and have slung over their backs in a bag. No, it is not quite fair to use the word “poached,” though I haven’t a doubt they are into that business as well as their legitimate ones. Jemmie, the elder though he is the smaller, is our local higgler. He is often to be seen in his little red cart pulled by a mule, traveling around to all the farms peddling such urban wares as lace, ribbon, pots and brooms in exchange for any little oversupply of vegetable or fowl that the farmers do not consider worth a trip to market.
    This is a meager job to provide for a widowed mother and three sisters. It is eked out by the trades of mole catcher, fisherman, warrener, fabricator of snares, traps, fishing rods and