The Twelfth Child Read Free Page A

through the words ‘girl baby’ and wrote Abigail Anne, the name of her own mother. She would allow that the boy be named William Matthew; but the girl would be known as Abigail Anne Lannigan.
    Livonia closed the bible and replaced the key on top of the ledge. As she moved William Matthew to her breast, she thought back on Ruby’s words, “The baby girl will walk a rocky road.” No, Livonia vowed, as long as there is breath in my body, no harm will come to either of my precious babies.
    William Matthew, she whispered, and sweet Abigail Anne.
     
    L ivonia Lannigan remained true to her vow and as the years passed she learned how to cast each of her eyes in a different direction; one always focused on Abigail as the other watched young Will trailing along behind his father. When the boy was barely three, she’d hear William saying, “You watch this, boy. You got to know how to fix a tractor. You listening up, Will?” Of course, the boy wasn’t listening, Livonia could see that. Any fool ought to know a three year old boy just wants to romp and play. Other fools maybe, not William. He’d swing little Will up onto the back of the quarter-horse and never once take notice of how scared the boy was. Will had the thickset bones of his father, but a real timidness when it came to horses. Many a time Livonia heard the poor child crying to get off, but William was so fixed in his ways he’d keep right on circling that horse around and around the pen. “You got to learn to ride, boy,” he’d say. “What kind of farmer are you gonna be if you don’t know how to handle a horse?”
    Abigail Anne was the one he should have been teaching, she was always hanging after her papa, trudging along behind him like a stray puppy. That child would have done handsprings if she thought she’d get a sliver of attention. Will would be begging to get down off the horse’s back and there she’d be, standing at the gate with those tiny little arms stretched out, “Me, Papa, me,” she’d say, but she got less notice than a gnat buzzing by her daddy’s ear.    
    “Abigail Anne is every bit as capable as Will,” Livonia told William time and again— but he’d generally turn off with some sort of sneer or pretend he hadn’t heard a word of what she’d said. When he tired of hearing about how Abigail Anne could keep up with whatever her brother did, William would remind Livonia that running a farm was, and always would be, men’s work.
    “Cooking the supper and seeing to a man’s needs, that’s woman’s work!” he’d say and usually it was the end of the discussion.
    The more William ignored her, the more determined Abigail Anne became. Livonia saw this in the child, so she fussed and badgered until the girl was allowed to ride the gentlest of the horses, Whisper. By the time Abigail Anne was six years old she could ride as well as boys twice her age, even bareback. Little as she was, she’d take hold of the mane and dig those heels into the mare’s side hollering “giddyap, giddyap.” Of course by then, Whisper was well into years and the most the poor horse could do was a sluggish trot. “Let me ride Malvania,” she’d say. “Please, Papa, please!” Of course, he wasn’t about to; especially when Will had not yet sat astride that gelding’s back. 
    “He’s no horse for a girl!” William would answer.
    “But I can do it Papa, I can, I can!”
    William wouldn’t even hear of it. “Stop pestering me, girl!” he’d say. “Get in the house and help your mama like girls are supposed to do. The Good Lord didn’t see fit to make you a boy, and I swear, by Jesus, you ain’t gonna act like one!”
    “But, Papa …” Abigail would whine and stand rooted in the spot as he turned his broad back and walked off. No matter how many times William turned away, Abigail didn’t give up; she followed after him, pestering him first about one thing and then another. “I can fix the tractor,” she’d say. “I know