The Star Garden Read Online Free

Harland. I was embarrassed, and for a moment thought he’d scold her, guests or no. Harland stared at our unfamiliar company. Chess knotted his chin and lips up in one hand. It was my brother’s place to chide his daughter, but he seemed lost in thought. The wind howled at the window, rattling the glass against the wooden frame.
    “Blessing Prine,” I said, “babies come from heaven in their own time. Little girls who say such things aloud will never get their wishes. You must only think it to yourself if you have a wish like that.”
    Blessing glared at me and ran to her father. Harland crushed her to himself. Tears spilled from his eyes. The poor man was still grieving too hard to be embarrassed over what his girl had said in front of strangers.
    I said, “Thank you, children, for your very nice recitations. I’m sure these folks will be glad to rest now.” I stood up, feeling odd in my own house. “As you can see, we have a full house and all the bedrooms are taken. You two professors, we’ll put beds in here for you, in the book room. Miss James, you can stay with me. Harland? If you’ll see to the children, let’s all get some sleep.”
    Harland sent the children to their room; the two oldest boys, Truth and Honor, shared a bed, Blessing slept on a settee made up with a blanket and pillow, and Story slept in a moving crate that we’d made a straw mattress for. It took us a half hour to set up pallets for the men in the book room. When we were done, Harland followed me toward the kitchen. My brother’s face, standing a head and then some taller than me, flickered in the dim light of a covered candle. As I fixed up the stove for morning, banking the coals down good and tight, he said, “Sarah, I want to talk to you.”
    “What’s on your mind?” I asked. He had been hinting for two weeks now that he could move to Tucson and hang out his shingle. He thinks a fancy San Francisco architect could make a good living in Tucson. I had told him Tucson was a rough old cob of a place, but he showed me where the
Weekly Star
says that Tucson is the most important city between St. Louis and Los Angeles. I’d told him, “Tucson may well be the best city between St. Louis and China, but it still isn’t much.” Why, he’d never make it there.
    “I’ve been thinking—now don’t get flustered, hear me out—about the children’s education.”
    “They’re learning so quick, I can hardly keep up with them,” I said. “Regular scholars.”
    “Sis, they’re pulling a switch on you. Story and Honor both had that poem a year ago in school. And Truth wrote that essay a while back, too. They all made believe they were new and pretended to learn them. And they’re not doing any arithmetic except a few sums.”
    What more do they need? My children and Albert’s had all come here for school. Every one of them had come up through my book room knowing all they needed to get into college. “They’re doing Latin and planetary motion.”
    “Their manners are atrocious. I’m raising a pack of rogues.”
    All four of them were pretty spoiled, that was true. I never felt it was my place to do more than fuss at them, though fussing surely didn’t change their behavior much. Harland barely noticed what they did, back-talking and laughing at grown folks, fighting with each other like wildcats. I said, “They won’t be better behaved in town. You won’t even have me to help you look after them and feed them. Are you going to have time to teach them etiquette and wash their duds and cook and sew,
and
draw diagrams of parlors and keeping rooms?”
    He put his arm around my shoulders. “You’ve taken great care of all of us. You feed us and keep everything clean and fine. The only thing that’s wrong here is that life is not what my children are accustomed to. There’s so little structure. So much is expected, you see, in a private school and home with a governess. Discipline and control …”
    I let out my breath.