Far From Home Read Free Page B

air and left.
    The girls stood nervously staring across the room at the little girl. When Mrs. Grenfell hurried back into the room, she gave the girls a glass of water and a molasses bun each. She smiled. “The cook made the buns this morning. They will give you energy for your walk down the hill. You had better eat them quickly. The cold weather is settling in; soon it will be a jacket colder. Snow, too, I am sure of it.” She looked through the window and frowned. “The sun dogs are flanking the sun. Bad weather is coming and the leaves have not all fallen.”
    The girls finished their buns and emptied their glasses, and Mrs. Grenfell nodded at them to leave. They laid their glasses on a small table and followed Mrs. Grenfell through the hall. She pushed open the big, dark door. Her goodbye smile followed the girls like sunshine.

3
A FORBIDDEN VISIT
    T he girls made their way down Tea House Hill to Fox Farm Hill. Clarissa moved carefully through the knotted brush of the uneven path. “Someday,” she said, holding her head primly, “I am going to grow out of my paralysis and walk without crutches. I shall be a nurse and wear a black-striped white cap or a white veil. Later I shall get married and be a lady like Mrs. Grenfell and have beautiful children.”
    Clarissa was not going to marry a doctor. The plight of other people was always tugging on the minds of doctors, taking them away from their families. Sometimes they risked their lives. Dr. Grenfell went adrift on an ice pan in 1908 and almost died, even though he was called a man of whipcord sinew and wire nerves. He killed Spy, Watch and Moody, three of his beloved dogs, and used their hides to keep him warm and save his life. Everyone knew that story.
    Cora sighed. “I don’t know about gettin’ married. If men come from the likes of orphanage boys, I’d just as soon keep my distance. I just want to grow up – to be past my mother’s shoulder. Even when I’m on my tippytoes, grownups never hear me. Anyway, ’tis no good to write the future in the air.”
    â€œIt’s getting colder,” Clarissa said, looking up. “I can see the sun dogs Mrs. Grenfell spoke about – dusty arcs of rainbow bringing bad weather.”
    Cora let out a squeal and tipped up her head. She poked out her tongue to catch a snowflake, her pale face flushing. The first snow of the year was tumbling down in a shower of tiny, silver stars.
    The sun became a dusty face drawn behind grey whiskers of cloud, and the October wind that had begun to stir when the girls were on Tea House Hill now cut them like a whip. Clarissa’s crutches wavered in its gusts as she trudged over the light snow. The exertion of climbing and descending the steep hill had left a jangled torment inside her limbs. She was glad to reach the base of the path.
    By the side of the road at the bottom of the path was a shack. A quarter moon was painted on the door, as if the people inside liked the moon so much they wanted to see it day and night all year. On a piece of board nailed to the side of the shack was an admonition in black, clumsy-looking letters: “Don’t spit!” Clarissa had seen the same sign posted on a lot of houses and shacks. Some older men had a fashion of chewing baccy and spitting it on the ground or into the wind. They didn’t seem to pay any attention to the signs. Many of them couldn’t read them.
    â€œLet’s lean against the shack for a minute,” Clarissa said in a tired voice.
    Cora nodded and followed her off the road. Clarissa pressed her back against the small building, careful not to bang her head on the iron frying pan hanging on a rusty nail.
    â€œWe’ve got to get to the orphanage,” Cora urged. She tried to mimic the tone Miss Elizabeth would use if she found out they had stopped at the shack. “I forbid you to stop at any house in the harbour. You never know what germs you