Miss Carson had jumped, too; she was crying again, twisting up the ends of her shawl in her small hands. “I don’t know—I can’t stay here—I want to go home! I miss my parents! Why don’t they come for me?” She finally let her gaze meet Ollie’s, tears streaming down her cheeks. “Why doesn’t anyone come?”
“I did. I’m here. Let’s all sit down by the fire—my, it’s cold, isn’t it?” Ollie—he would not touch her, no sir—tried to lure her toward the stove with his voice, his movement. “I think I’ll go put my coat on, yes, that’s what I’m going to do.” He gave her some room to get to the stove while he took his dripping coat off the wooden peg, shoving his arms into the sleeves. It really was cold.
She crept toward the stove, casting wary glances toward the children, who automatically stepped back to allow her the warmest spot. She huddled there, miserable, still sniffling, occasionally wiping her nose with her shawl.
Then his son took a step toward her, reaching out his hand. “Miss Carson, don’t you worry. We’ll be all right, now that my papa is here. This old storm will blow itself out sometime—it can’t last forever!”
Miss Carson didn’t take Francis’s hand, but she did smile—a timid little smile; she kind of reminded Ollie of a rabbit, now that he thought about it, with her little red nose, quivering chin—and she nodded.
Ollie exhaled. He felt as if he’d been holding his breath the entire time, ever since he left the Lily, to tell the truth. First the physical exertion of tunneling his way through the storm, then the emotional tightrope he’d had to cross once he got here. But now he could breathe.
They’d be safe, they could survive the night. All of them, including that insensitive but frightened woman-child of Christian charity.
But for damn sure, he was going to have a talk with Alma tomorrow, when the storm cleared and they were all back safe and snug above the saloon. He wasn’t going to allow his children to be taught out of pity. No, he wasn’t. They deserved to be taught by someone who looked like them, thought like them. They deserved to be treated like people, not rungs on the ladder to heaven. There must be something the community could do—help more of their young women get teaching certificates or do a better job advertising for colored teachers. Something.
Maybe the storm had blown some good sense into him—he admitted that. No more could he hide behind his bar, stubbornly refusing to see that the landscape of polite society was being reconfigured as thoroughly as the wind was surely rearranging the physical landscape right now. Trees would be uprooted, fences blown down, roofs collapsed.
And cities like Omaha would continue to be divided up, like with like, languages not mixing. Certain streets not crossed by one kind or another.
Children learning different lessons, depending on the color of their skin.
CHAPTER 13
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“ANETTE!”
Anette started, panicked. She’d almost fallen asleep, even as she was still walking, miraculously; still stumbling in a whirlwind of snow that stung her cheeks. Snow that wasn’t snow, but pebbles. A wind that wasn’t a wind, but a cyclone.
Fredrik held her hand—she saw it but couldn’t feel it. In her other hand was the lunch pail, and she thought the slate was still snug against her chest—frozen to it, she imagined. Somehow, she was being tugged alongside him as he was crying, and calling her name, trying to wake her up out of her stupor.
She was shivering. But she was hot. She was falling. But she was on her feet. She had to go to the bathroom—urgently, she felt her bladder swell, knew it released, knew there must be warmth drizzling down her legs, soaking her underclothes, her petticoat, her stockings, dripping down into her shoes. She longed for that warmth, actually—but it never came, she didn’t feel anything.
Fredrik was suddenly stopping, a strange look on his face, embarrassment; he looked down at his pants. Anette looked, too, and there was a dark stain. The two gazed at each other for a moment; they shared the embarrassment—they’d never done this before, not in front of the other. And they were both crying now, but still bound together, hands entwined. And then they started moving again.