A Pearl Among Princes Read Online Free

not so sure,” Nuff says. “Those are some serious ears.”

    The morning wears on, eight more ships dock. Eight more captains present letters. Eight more trumpetings. Eight more royals announced. We make notes on each prince in training. I’ll have the chance to gather more impressions working the banquet tomorrow night.
    The PIT from Maple is muscular and strong. “I’d give him three stars,” Nuff says.
    Sir Blake of Birch looks studious but weak. “Two,” Lu says.
    â€œThree,” Nuff counters. “I’d take brains over brawn any day.”
    â€œBut he looks like one gusty gale could send him flying home,” I say, then feel a twinge of guilt. I know, Mother, it’s wrong of me , casting judgments on first impressions, but what’s that they say about love at first sight? I think maybe you know from the start. Mackree. Where is Mackree? I step up on my toes, look all about, but he is not here.
    There’s a swill of loud chattering as the thirteenth boat makes its final approach. Everyone is excited to see who this arrival will be, for surely he cannot be a prince, all twelve branches being accounted for.
    The boat washes in against the dock. The captain, an old man, at least Nora Baker’s age, with a sea-roughened face, wild gray hair and beard, is wearing an unusual green leather cape. He waves off the Welcome Guard.
    â€œJust me, Cap’n Jessie . . . Jessie Tru,” he says. “No royals aboard. I’m here on business of the Order is all.”
    Lu, Nuff, and I exchange looks. How very curious. We watch as Captain Jessie slings a canvas bag on his back and heads up the hill, his left leg limping a bit.

CHAPTER 4
    The Rhymes
    Mary, Mary quite contrary,
How does your garden grow?
With silver bells, and cockleshells,
And pretty maids all in a row.
    â€œAs I was going along, long, long, singing a comical song, song, song, the lane that I took was so long, long, long, and so I went singing along.” I sing as I head to the gardens the next morning to gather the vegetables Father needs for the banquet.
    Mother taught me all the rhymes. First how to sing them, then how to read them. The one we loved best was Old King Cole. The name was like our name, Coal, for the black lumps that fuel our fires. Father played his fiddle with joyous glee as Mother and I danced happily, whee!!!
    When Lu and Nuff came for tea parties, Mother taught them the rhymes as well. The little ditties became like our own special language. When Sally Tailor, the seamstress’s daughter, and her friends started acting silly around boys, making believe they were scared of spiders and such to get the boys’ attention, we named them the Muffets like Little Miss Muffet. Those girls seem to care for nothing except primping their hair and fussing with clothes, spinning webs to snare a husband, preferably a prince.
    Maybe someday I will pass on Mother’s frayed-edged book of rhymes to my own child—teaching the words and the melodies, turning the pages my mother’s hands turned, touching the very words she touched. I always assumed that one day, far in the future, Mackree would be my husband and we would have children, a girl and a boy. But now . . .
    As I pass the carrot patch, two sets of furry ears perk up. “No worries, little friends,” I call to them. “No carrots on Cook’s menu today.”
    First to the tomatoes. How pretty they are, rows and rows of tall, thick, prickly vines straining with fat garnet jewels. The sun heats my back as I bend to pluck the first of thirty as Father instructed. In celebration of the PITs’ arrival, tonight’s Welcome Banquet will be especially fine. Father is thrilled that he’ll be cooking for such a large class this year. “The more the merrier,” he always says.
    Those royal boys may be used to the finest food in all the world, Humpty Dumpty Sir Humbert especially, as evidenced by his