Read Online Taking the Reins by Dayle Campbell Gaetz - Free Book Online

enough, but we’d be sick of each other inside of a week.”
    â€œNot if you go to school.”
    Emma dropped the broom over a pitifully small pile of leaves and started up the steps, fists clenched tight at her sides. Anger pressed hard against her ribs, bursting to get out. Didn’t they have this argument two times before? The man had a problem with his head, and that’s for certain-sure. Couldn’t remember what a person told him or couldn’t understand it, one of the two. She would never go to school. Not now, not at her great age, and she’d never been to a real school in her whole entire life. Even little Martha Douglas, who attended school every day, could read better than her, and she only a child of eight.
    No, Emma did not need any of that. Them sitting at their little desks, laughing at her for being such a great, huge fool. She grabbed the front door handle.
    â€œEmma, please, I’m sorry. I know I promised not to bring it up again, but I still think you’d like to be able to read and write.” He paused, and when she didn’t answer but stood facing the door with her back straight and shoulders tense, he added more gently, “I’m simply trying to be a father to you.”
    She turned and glared down at him, eyes blazing. “An’ didn’t I tell you I don’t need takin’ care of?”
    â€œYes, you did.”
    â€œI can take care of me own-self.”
    â€œYes, you can.”
    â€œThen why do you keep after me about goin’ to school, I’d like to know?”
    Tall Joe studied her face, he rubbed a hand over his thick brown beard and his dark eyes looked up at Emma with a hint of pain in them. “It won’t happen again, I promise. Just let me know if you change your mind, will you?”
    Emma shrugged.
    â€œMeanwhile, I have something to show you. Something I know you’ll like.”
    She waited, but he said nothing more. “What is it then?”
    â€œTomorrow is Wednesday, your half day off, correct?”
    She nodded.
    â€œI’ll come by for you at one o’clock.”
    With that he swung around and strode down the straight sidewalk as fast as he could go without running.
    â€œAn’ I never said I’d go with yer!” she called after him.
    He laughed, turned his head, and called over his shoulder, “You’re going to love it!”
    â€œNot if I can help it!”
    He laughed again.
    Emma limped back down the stairs to fetch the broom. And what was so funny, she’d like to know.

    At noon the following day, Emma picked up the large, steaming kettle that always sat on the woodstove. As she made tea she thought about Tall Joe. He said he’d fetch her at one o’clock but never bothered to ask if she had plans of her own. If she drank her tea and gobbled her food fast enough, she could be gone before he showed his face. Could be she’d take a stroll up to Beacon Hill or walk through town an’ gape in shop windows at all the expensive goods she never could afford in a lifetime of work.
    Mrs. Douglas walked into the kitchen with a wide smile on her broad and friendly face. Eight-year-old Martha and eleven-year-old James, the only two Douglas children at home since Alice eloped last year, spent their days at school, and Governor Douglas was always off doing whatever he did every day over at those Birdcages of his. So there were only the two of them at home come noon.
    Emma always felt comfortable with Mrs. Douglas. Her employer was not like those other ladies who flitted about town in their foolish hoop skirts and thought they were better than anyone else, just because they were British and not from the working class. Those ladies in their fancy dresses turned up their noses when Emma walked by, and they didn’t much like Amelia Douglas ei ther, even if she was the governor’s wife. They didn’t care how nice she was; they looked down on her because her