A Family Apart Read Online Free Page A

splash of freckles, snuggled on Megan’s arm. As usual young Petey, a curly-haired, blue-eyed six-year-old, had managed to work his way crossways in the bed, his feet almost in Danny’s face. Redheaded Mike, one year older than ten-year-old Danny, who was almost his carbon copy, lay sprawled on his face, breathing heavily.
    Too heavily, Frances thought, and she stood by the bed silently listening and watching. She recognized the uneven breathing of someone who has been running hard, and suddenly she was sure that she saw one of Mike’s eyes flick open for an instant’s peek before it was squeezed shut again. Ha! She’d been right! That
had
been Mike dashing home ahead of them.
    Ma had already splashed her face and arms in the bowl of water that stood on the corner stand. She looked up from the cloth she had dried herself with and whispered, “Get a move on, Frances. You haven’t washed yet.”
    “I will, Ma,” Frances answered.
    Knowing Mike, she supposed he’d been out causing a little mischief. Smiling at her brother, she shook her head and whispered, “Just you wait until morning! Like it or not, Mike, my boy, I’m going to find out what you’ve been up to!”

3

    F RANCES AWOKE WITH the pale sunlight that filtered through the room’s one small window. There was no time to lie in bed, clinging to dreams. Too much had to be done.
    As Frances sat on the edge of the bed, blinking sleep from her eyes, Megan smiled at her. Gentle Megan, as usual, was first up, already dressed and tending to breakfast. Frances smiled back, thinking how peacefully reassuring it was that every morning repeated itself over and over.
    As soon as they had eaten—either slabs of heavy Irish soda bread or a porridge that simmered on the stove until it was thick—Megan would carry her basket to the green-grocer’s to buy potatoes and cabbage, which would be boiled for the noon meal.
    Danny and Mike, with their shoeshining kits, would head uptown to the streets of office buildings, wherewell-dressed businessmen, on their way to work, might take time to let one of the “shiners” polish their shoes.
    Ma would open the box of shirts to be sewn, and she and Frances would pull their straight, wooden chairs to the window to catch the light in order to sew the tiny stitches demanded by the tailor who paid them to work on this piecework. Frances liked to sew with her mother, enjoying the closeness, the stories Ma would sometimes tell, and especially the songs she’d sing in a voice as soft and comforting as a newly knit shawl.
    Even the little ones, Peg and Petey, had their chores, tidying, dusting, drying the tin plates and utensils. Ma demanded cleanliness in and about the room and of all who lived in it. Each week the children carried buckets of water from the trough in the hall, and Ma would heat it by the kettleful to fill the large round tub that stood on end in the corner behind the stove, until everyone had bathed.
    Frances held up her dress. Would it need an extra washing with the lye soap Ma had made? It had dried, and she rubbed the skirt briskly, dusting away the streaks of mud. When she was satisfied that the stains from her drenching the day before no longer showed, she hurried into a corner of the room, dressed quickly, and brushed her long dark hair, loving the soft heaviness of it as it spilled over her hands. Frances was proud of her hair, because Ma loved it. “So dark and fine, like my own mother’s hair,” Ma had said.
    As she came to the table, Mike was reading a tattered copy of a dime novel,
Seth Jones, Or Captive of the Frontier.
He looked up at Frances and said, “Now this is an exciting story! If you want to read it again, you’ll have to wait.”
    Frances laughed. “I’ve read it and I told you, I don’tlike the story much. I don’t want to read about the frontier.” She dropped into the nearest chair. Petey immediately crawled on her lap, and Frances nuzzled his cropped blond curls.
    “I don’t