Julia's Last Hope Read Online Free Page A

reassuring, but her own voice broke as she answered, “I guess we’ll have to go elsewhere. Start over.”
    “Start over?” questioned the first, her voice quivering. “We’re too old to start over.”
    “What you plannin’?” a man asked his neighbor.
    “Don’t know. Just don’t know,” answered the second. “Right now my wife is sick. I came to pick up some medicine. Doc says the change might be good for her. The smoke here has always bothered her.”
    The first man nodded. “Maybe it will,” he agreed, but there was doubt in his eyes. What good was a change if there was no money with which to buy the needed medicine?
    “Came at a bad time,” said a third man.
    “For everyone,” agreed the first, his eyes heavy with the worry of it.
    As they listened to the people talk, Jennifer and Felicity sensed more than ever the seriousness of the situation. Their problem was not an isolated one. The whole town was affected, just as their father had said. What would happen to all of them? Was there anything two young girls could do?
    It was Jennifer who shook them from their despair.
    “If we are going to find jobs, we’d better hurry,” she whispered to Felicity. “Everyone our age might soon be looking for work.”
    Felicity stopped flirting with the young man stocking the drugstore shelves and jumped to her feet. Jennifer was right.
    “You take this side of the street and I’ll take the other side,” she ordered Jennifer and then quickly reversed her decision. “No, you take the other side, I’ll take this side.” It would be wonderful if the druggist needed more help to fill his shelves, she was thinking.
    But the druggist was not interested in another clerk—not even a soda jerk. He smiled at Felicity and shook his head sadly.
    “Don’t know how much longer I’ll be here,” he admitted. “Not the right time to be hiring.”
    All of the merchants along the little street said much the same thing. No one was hiring. Felicity pushed back her hair from her warm face and trudged on. She hoped that Jennifer was having better luck. When the girls met at the end of the main street, however, Jennifer’s report was no more encouraging than Felicity’s.
    “We’d better get home before Mama starts to worry,” said Jennifer.
    Felicity reluctantly agreed. Besides, she was thirsty, and they had spent all of her money on the soda.
    “We mustn’t say anything about the mill closing when we get home,” Jennifer warned. “Mama and Papa will want to tell us at the proper time.”
    Felicity nodded and waved to a friend across the street.
    Everything was quiet when the girls reached home. They found Hettie in the kitchen serving late-morning coffee to Tom, her husband, who worked the gardens and was general caretaker around the manor. Both looked unusually serious but brightened when the girls walked in.
    “You lookin’ for a snack?” asked Hettie. Although she had never had children of her own, Hettie had a knack for understanding them. She always knew what the girls wanted and needed.
    “Do you have more lemonade?” asked Jennifer, hoping that her voice sounded unconcerned and normal.
    “I sure do,” answered the older woman, patting Felicity’s golden head as she passed her.
    “And you, missie?” she asked Felicity.
    “The same,” responded Felicity without much enthusiasm. Tom lifted his head as though curious, but made no comment.
    “Cookies?” asked Hettie. “Got some fresh gingerbread.”
    “Just lemonade,” said Felicity.
    “So what has taken the starch outta you?” asked Tom, his hands cradling his coffee.
    “We just shared a soda,” Felicity answered. “Where’s Mama?” She almost asked for Papa as well, but caught herself in time.
    “In the garden,” Tom answered.
    The two girls thanked Hettie for the lemonade and left for the garden. It seemed important to see their mother. They had to know how she was.
    Julia was attacking the rose bed with all of the energy in her slim