Jackson was so excited at the thought of becoming part of the family that he jumped onto the swing. He pumped himself so high that Emily was afraid he’d swing right over the top of the branch.
“Let’s get the chores done,” she called after Aunt Hilda had gone down the road. “Which of them is the worst?”
“Mopping the floor,” Jackson told her, slowing the swing down.
“Then that’s what we’ll do first, and it’ll make all the rest seem easy,” Emily said.
When the floor was shiny clean, they fed the chickens and collected the eggs—in a basket this time. Then they went outdoors to get the dry sheets and shirts off the clothesline.
They were just folding the wash when Spook suddenly pricked up his ears and gave a low growl.
Aunt Hilda had left the gate open when she went out that morning on horseback. And what should come riding through it but a gray carriage pulled by a gray horse?
Emily knew she was no longer in danger herself, because Aunt Hilda was her guardian now. But …
“Jackson!” she cried. “Hide!”
She did not have to wait until the carriage got all the way up to the house to know that the words on the door read:
CATCHUM CHILD-CATCHING SERVICES,
REDBUD DIVISION.
And she wasn’t surprised when the carriage pulled up beside the cottage and a man in a gray suit held out a bunch of papers and said, “I’m looking for a boy named Jackson. I’m told he’s been staying at this place.”
“He’s not here,” said Emily, meaning the spot where she was standing, for it was quite true that Jackson was nowhere in sight.
“Where is he, then?” asked the man, stepping down and adjusting the tall gray hat on his head. Spook growled some more.
“I don’t know,” said Emily, which was also true, because she did not know just where Jackson was hiding.
“Then by the authority of the registrar of the first office of the ninth court of the twelfth district of the territory, I shall just look around,” the gray man said, and he walked straight to the house, opened the door, and went inside.
Now, that made Emily mad. “It’s not polite to walk in someone’s house without knocking,” she told him.
“Catchum child catchers do not have to knock,” he said. “If we had to knock first, we would never catch anyone.” He pushed his glasses up higher on his nose and looked around the kitchen—under the table and inside the cupboards. He went into Emily’s little bedroom next and checked under the bed, then went into Aunt Hilda’s room. He peered into the closet there as well. Finally he went into the parlor.
“Aha!” he cried when he saw the little ladder that led to the loft, and at once he began to climb.
Emily’s heart began to pound, for that was the very place she expected Jackson to be.
“Oho!” cried the man again when he reached the top. “And whose britches are these, may I ask? Whose socks and suspenders?”
And without waiting for an answer, he climbed down again and went straight to the door. Outside, he walked all around the house, Spook barking at his heels and Emily following close behind. This time he noticed the door to the storm cellar.
“Hey, hey!” he cried. He slid open the metal latch and lifted the heavy door. Emily closed her eyes, unable to watch what would happen when he pulled Jackson out. But there was no boy hiding in the storm cellar, and the gray man moved to the shed and the springhouse, then on to the barn.
“Hee, hee!” the man cried when he saw the big stack of hay in one corner. He took a pitchfork and began stabbing at the pile—first here, then there—waiting for the yell that would tell him he had pricked a hiding boy.
But there was no Jackson in the haymow, and by this time even Emily was surprised. The man in the gray suit was angry. There were no “ahas” or “ohos” or “hee, hees” coming from him now.
“You know and I know that the young rascal Jackson has been staying here, and he is the property of Catchum Child Catchers, Incorporated,” he said crossly to Emily.
“He isn’t the property of anyone,” Emily said boldly. “He is a free person and should be able to live with people who love him.”
“Wrong!” said the man. “Until he is eighteen years old, he is a ward of the territory, and we have been hired to deliver him to someone out west.”
He began walking along the path near the garden now, his head turning right, then left, his sharp eyes looking for anything that moved. Emily walked along behind him, hoping that Jackson would stay put, wherever he was.
She was curious as to where Jackson could possibly be. She looked all around—the yard, the swing, the tree. She even looked high in the branches, expecting to see Jackson perched up there. No Jackson, of course. He wouldn’t have had time to climb the tree before the man’s carriage had entered the yard.
There was nothing in the garden but what should have been there: Aunt Hilda’s bean plants in neat little rows, the knee-high corn, the tomato plants, the turnips, the scarecrow Aunt Hilda had made out of Sam’s old clothes, and …
There were two scarecrows. When had there been two in Aunt Hilda’s garden? Emily wondered.
One was wearing Sam’s old pants and jacket, with a ragged straw hat on its cotton-ball head, and a post up its back. A crow flew down and landed on its head.
The other was shorter. It had a cap pulled down over its face, and was dressed in one of Aunt Hilda’s freshly washed shirts, which hung down below its knees. The sleeves were so long that they flopped back and forth in the breeze, and there was no post holding it up. But just like the first one, this scarecrow stood perfectly still, its arms straight out at its sides.
Emily’s heart leaped to her throat, and she put one hand over her mouth to stop the Oh! that was about to escape.
“He’s got to be here somewhere,” the man in the gray suit was saying. “I’ll stay here till midnight if I have to, because when I leave, that boy’s coming with me.”
How long could Jackson stand out in the garden without moving? Emily wondered. How long could he keep his arms straight out at his sides? How still could he stand if a crow flew down and landed on his head?
Suddenly the gray man stopped.
“Now, that is odd indeed,” he said, staring at the scarecrows.
“What is?” Emily asked in a tiny little voice.
“That crow, sitting on that scarecrow’s head,” said the man. “Doesn’t seem like those scarecrows do much good in your aunt’s garden.”
“I … I guess not,” said Emily.
Just then, Spook left Emily’s side and went running through the garden. Through the bean plants and across the turnips, right over to Jackson, who stood still as a wall in Aunt Hilda’s clean shirt.
Spook snuffled about, wagging his tail, and the gray man said, “Aha!”
And when Jackson still didn’t move, Spook jumped up, put his paws on Jackson’s chest, and knocked him over backward.
“Oho! Hey, hey! Hee, hee!” cried the man in the gray suit, starting toward him. “I’ve got you now, you rascal!”
“Run, Jackson, run!” Emily cried, for the gray man’s legs were twice as long as Jackson’s.
Emily could not bear to watch. She covered her eyes, and when she peeped out, the man in the gray suit had Jackson by the arm and was dragging him toward the carriage. Spook ran alongside, frantically barking and growling.
“Let him go!” Emily screamed. “No! No!”
At that very moment, there was the clippity-clop of a horse’s hooves coming through the gate at the end of the lane. Jackson was still struggling to get loose when Aunt Hilda rode through the gate and up to the house.
“Now, what’s all this?” she asked. “What are you doing with my child?”
“He’s not yours,” said the gray man, waving his papers. “This boy is headed west, and he’ll be on the next stagecoach coming through.”
“I won’t! I won’t!” Jackson bellowed, trying to get away. “I want to stay
here.”
“Let that boy go!” Aunt Hilda demanded, getting down off Old Billy. “I just came from the judge, and I have the papers to become his legal guardian. Once he signs his name, he’s part of my family.”
“But he hasn’t signed them yet, and he won’t!” the gray man said. “The Catchum Child-Catching Services has the authority to seize him. You’re too late.” And he opened the carriage door.
“He’s my ward, and I aim to keep him here,” Aunt Hilda argued.
At that moment, Jackson wriggled out of the oversized shirt he was wearing and rushed across the yard into Aunt Hilda’s big arms, leaving the gray man holding nothing more than a shirtsleeve.
Aunt Hilda hustled Jackson into the house to sign the papers, and Spook stood guard at the door, snapping at the gray man’s ankles when he tried to enter.
“Done!” Aunt Hilda said when she and Jackson appeared in the doorway. Jackson was beaming, and Aunt Hilda waved the papers in her hand with his signature on them, the ink not yet dry.
“Hooray!” cried Emily as the angry man in the gray suit climbed back into his gray carriage, growling. Even his growl sounded gray.
Why, they had a party, of course! Aunt Hilda baked a cake, and after supper they popped corn and played Hide-the-Thimble, and then Aunt Hilda took out Sam’s old fiddle and played a tune while Emily danced and made Jackson laugh.
Aunt Hilda didn’t play very well. In fact, her playing was rather awful, and Spook whined for her to stop. But it was such a wonderful evening that even bad music sounded good to Emily. Now that Jackson would be her brother, there was no telling what adventure they might have next.
• • •
The days that followed were busy ones, for there was still a lot of work to be done because of the tornado.
Emily found a small red wagon in the shed, and she and Jackson pulled it around the yard, picking up all the sticks and straw that were scattered about the place. Jackson climbed up on a ladder and nailed a piece of roof back onto the shed.
The next time Aunt Hilda went to town, she had many things to buy—more tin for the shed, more feed for the horse, more nails, more flour, more sugar and salt. Emily’s bedroom needed curtains, and Jackson would want another blanket soon.
“I’ll be gone all day,” Aunt Hilda told them. “Please wash the breakfast dishes. Pick the last of the peaches and put them in a basket. Feed the chickens, sweep the floor, and pull the weeds in my flower garden.”
Emily and Jackson promised they would, and as soon as Aunt Hilda and Old Billy disappeared out the gate, the children set to work washing the breakfast dishes and putting them back in the cupboard.
They did all the work they’d been told to do, and when they were done, they even picked some flowers and put them in a vase on the table so that the kitchen would be bright and cheerful when Aunt Hilda came back.
Later, as they were sailing paper boats in the creek, Emily thought she heard a noise.
“Listen!” she said.
Jackson straightened up and listened.
“It sounds like a cow mooing,” he said.
“I don’t think so,” said Emily. “It sounds like a dove cooing.”
They listened some more.
“It sounds like the wind moaning,” said Jackson.
“It sounds like somebody groaning,” said Emily.
They waded out of the water and put on their socks and shoes. The strange sound seemed to be coming from the end of the lane. Spook heard it too, because he pricked up his ears and led the way toward the road.
Up ahead, Emily saw something black near the gate.
“What’s that?” she asked, pointing. “It looks like a heap of old rags.”
“It looks like a pile of dirt,” said Jackson.
And then the pile moved. A hand reached out and clutched at the gate, and a low moan made the hair on Spook’s back stand on end.
“It’s a person!” cried Emily, beginning to run. “I think someone needs help.”
When she reached the fence, she opened the gate and knelt down beside a woman dressed all in black. The woman wore a black hat on her head and a black veil over her face. Her black dress had a high collar, and there were black stockings and black shoes on her feet, black gloves on her hands. She was holding a tin cup with a few pennies in it.
The widow woman Aunt Hilda told us about! Emily thought.
“What’s the matter?” she asked the woman kindly. “Can we help?”
“W … water!” the widow said in a low, sad voice. “Please, my dear, may I have some water?”
“Of course!” said Emily. “We’ll bring some.”
“I’m so tired,” the widow said then. “If I just had a place to lie down …”
Emily looked at Jackson and then at the poor woman.
The kind thing to do, the children decided, was to take the poor woman to their cottage and let her lie down and rest. That was what Aunt Hilda would do. But how could they get her there?
“Can you walk?” Jackson asked her.
“I’m so very tired,” the woman repeated. “Too, too tired.”
“We could pull her in the wagon,” Emily suggested.
“We’ll be back,” said Jackson. “We’ll get you to the house.”
So off they went, back up the lane.
“I don’t know, she’s awful big,” Jackson said. “Do you suppose she’ll fit?”
“We have to try,” said Emily. “And if she’s thirsty, she might be hungry too. She’ll probably eat a lot. We could give her the beans and muffins Aunt Hilda left for us.”
Jackson wasn’t eager to give up his lunch, but there were other things in the cupboard he could have, so he figured he could be generous too. “And milk,” he said. “We could give her a tall glass of cold milk.”
Inside the cottage, Emily filled a jar with water from the water bucket. And with Jackson pulling the little red wagon, they went back down the long lane to the road.
The widow was sitting up when they got there and reached out one gloved hand for the water jar. She held it to her lips beneath her black veil, then gulped the water down so fast that it made little glugging sounds in her throat.
“Do you think you can get in the wagon?” Jackson asked her.
“If I have help, dearie,” the woman said, and holding on to the gate for balance, she pulled herself up off the ground. Jackson and Emily pushed the wagon beneath her. The woman sat down with a plop.
She was a very tall woman, with large feet. She sat with her legs hanging over either side of the wagon, her heavy boots scraping the road now and then as they moved along. Emily wondered if the wagon would break. Jackson pulled and Emily pushed, and finally they got the wagon up to the cottage door and helped the woman out.
“You are so kind, dearies,” the woman said. “Your parents certainly have raised you to be good children.”
“We live with my aunt Hilda,” Emily told her. “She’s in town today, but she’ll be back this afternoon.”
“Well, I’m sure she wouldn’t mind if I rest here for a bit,” the woman said, fanning herself with her black pocketbook. “I do feel faint. If I could just lie down awhile …”
Emily wondered where to put her. Her own little bed was much too small, and surely the woman couldn’t climb the ladder to Jackson’s loft. The only thing to do was take her to Aunt Hilda’s large bed. So that was what Emily did.
The woman in black thanked her and sat down. Her black veil fluttered back and forth across her face as she continued to fan herself.
“Would you like to take off your hat and cool your head?” asked Emily politely.
At that, the woman began to cry. “Oh, no indeed,” she wept. “These are the clothes I wore to my husband’s funeral, and I must wear them for a year to honor him.”
It seemed strange to Emily that a widow had to sleep in her hat and boots to honor her dead husband. But she told the woman to get some rest, and that when she felt strong enough to walk to the table
, they would give her a little lunch before she went on her way.
“Thank you,” the woman said. “I will never forget your kindness.”
Emily went back out and closed the door, but not quite all the way. She and Jackson prepared a lunch for the widow—a plate of beans, two corn muffins, and a ripe tomato.
Then Jackson remembered the milk. He went to the springhouse, where Aunt Hilda kept her milk and butter and eggs. He lifted the jug of milk from the cold water and poured some into a pitcher. Then he carefully carried the pitcher back to the cottage and set it on the table. The lunch looked so good that it was hard for the children not to eat it themselves, but they made do with crackers and cheese and a small shriveled apple they found in the cupboard.
After some time had passed and the woman had not come out of the bedroom, Emily went to the door and listened. She didn’t hear a sound, but she was afraid to knock for fear the widow woman was sleeping. So she silently pushed the door open just a little more to peep inside. The bed was empty.
The widow woman was on her knees, her head almost touching the floor. One arm was under the bed.
“Oh!” said Emily. “Have you lost something?”
The widow woman sat up quickly. “You startled me,” she said in her low, sad voice. “I was praying.”
“Oh,” Emily said again. “Well, we made some lunch for you. I can help you to the kitchen.”
“You are so kind, so kind,” the woman said, but she got to her feet sooner than Emily thought she would be able to. Both Emily and Jackson were happy to see that the rest had made her stronger.
“My, doesn’t this look good,” the widow woman said as she sat down in a chair.
She placed her long arms on the table but did not take her black gloves off, even to eat. When she ate, she took large forkfuls of beans, Emily noticed, not dainty little bites. She must have been hungry indeed!