The Wishing Star Read Online Free

“Amos, are ye callin’ it quits? Scaredy cat!” The dust settled to reveal the victor—the new student, Joe. Jenny saw the grin on his battered lips as he flexed his arms and shoved at his sleeves.
    â€œCome on, who’s next?” he shouted. The ring of fellows eyed him cautiously as he tossed his bright hair, but no one would accept the challenge.
    Jenny chuckled silently. Joe didn’t seem to be much of a student, but he sure could fight.
    Since that autumn day when she and Tom had discovered the twenty-year-old lad hunkered beside the trail with his face buried in his battered white hat, she had been paying sharp attention to him.
    Granted, he was an on-again, off-again student. Since the day Jenny had first seen his bulk crammed between six-year-old Emily and ten-year-old Nat, with that wild beak of a nose humbled two inches from his slate, she had watched him. At first he could barely push the pencil over his sums, and her awe of him changed to scorn, particularly when she listened to him read.
    But later the scorn was salted with respect when she saw him lick every youth in town. And later still her feelings were spiced with a nameless fascination as she watched Nancy bat her eyes at him and Prudence follow him about the school yard like an absolute ninny.
    At this moment, the thought of those silly girls carrying extra cookies to him and offering to do his sums for him made Jenny snort with impatience. As if Mrs. Stowell wasn’t feeding him right and his head didn’t need to learn his own sums.
    Jenny applied her scorn to Prudence, the lass who had tossed her long blonde curls, batted her eyelashes, smoothed her flowered apron, and said, “Jennifer Timmons, you are jealous!” Her eyes shrewdly surveyed Jenny and she added spitefully, “ You’ve plenty of call to be. Scrawny as a scarecrow and brown as a gypsy, you are.” She flounced away, swinging her skirts until her petticoats showed.
    It wouldn’t have been so bad, Jenny decided, thinking about it later, but the fellow who was filling in for Mr. Searles, the regular teacher, had taken it upon himself to smooth her ruffled feathers.
    Just remembering had Jenny muttering to herself. “Didn’t hurt, her bein’ so uppity and proud, ’til he had to come and fuss over me.”
    At the end of this October day, Jenny was still busy thinking as she and Tom walked toward home. She found herself stripping away the pretty pictures her mind had built and facing things as they really were.
    It hurt to admit that Prudence was right. Even Joe had said she was ugly. Life was bad. And Tom—she looked up at her brother and tried to see him clearly.
    Tom was one of those on-again and off-again students, too. Jenny suspected he was more on-again recently because of the new fellow. “That Joe,” she muttered. “Seems both of you go because of the other. Either that or it’s better’n diggin’ stumps in Mr. Stowell’s field all day.”
    She turned on him. “You’d better be listenin’ to Ma about forgettin’ the ideas circulating. She says there’s no way on this earth a man’s goin’ to get rich except by workin’ hard at life. Tom, you know she’s tryin’ her best for us, not wantin’ us to turn out like Pa.”
    â€œDreamin’ on rainbows,” Tom said shortly as he hunched his shoulders and shuffled his feet in the leaves along the path.
    â€œIs that it?” For a moment Jenny stopped, kicking at the leaves thoughtfully. When she looked up at Tom, she was searching his face for confirmation. “There’s some who believe they can change things just by thinkin’ hard and willing it so, and by makin’ charms and chantin’.”
    â€œThey are the ones who think they have power.”
    â€œDo they?”
    â€œSome do, some don’t.” He stopped to grasp her arm. But his eyes were looking