Free Janette Oke by Laurel Oke Logan Page B

child was riding her and wanted to be taken some direction the pony did not want to go, she would stubbornly turn toward home. There were times, with Janette tugging at her reins, when Beauty won this battle.
    One of the games they devised to play with Beauty was delivering the mail. There was no rural mail delivery, and the children knew little about mail carriers, but they set about making their own postal system. Someone would ride Beauty under a tree and pick off several leaves. These would be sorted and delivered a few at a time to the other participants of the game who were posted at various stations around the farmyard. Each child was given a turn at being the carrier.

    Jack, being the only boy among six growing sisters, led a different life on the farm than the others and had less time to enjoy the games. Though each of the children had responsibilities, he carried an extra heavy load, even learning at an early age to drive a five-horse team to help in the fields. Choring early each morning and late each night, there was not as much time for fun.
    For a bit of income, Jack had been the school “fire maker” for a while. It meant that after his early morning chores were done, he would hurry the more than two miles, often running most of it, in order to start the fire in the big potbellied stove at school to take the chill off the room by the time the teacher and the rest of the pupils arrived.
    This position also required that he haul enough wood to feed the stove for the day and then clean out the ashes as needed. It was a difficult task and the pay was only a few dollars each month. To supplement this, Jack also sold pelts. Rabbits could fetch a few cents; a good weasel, perhaps a dollar or two. He set his traps and snares close to the path to school and would stop to check them as he hurried past.
    One slushy spring afternoon, when the ditches were full of snow and puddles, the children were on their way home from school. Acting on a strange impulse Janette impetuously yelled out, “There’s a muskrat!”
    She was surprised at the response by Jack. She knew he would be thinking of the fur and how much it would bring, but a muskrat was certainly uncommon in the area—though not preposterous.
    Jack was immediately excited and started asking, “Where? Where?” and Janette found herself lying, “There! There! Oh, it just went under that ice.”
    They chased the imaginary muskrat for about a quarter of a mile, all the way to the corner where the two roads crossed, and where Janette further said it went under the culvert. Jack posted Janette at one end and set himself on the other. When it was beginning to appear that they would stand their positions for the rest of the night, Janette decided it was time to confess that there had been no muskrat at all.
    Jack failed to see the humor in the little incident. He scolded her thoroughly for lying, but she could not help chuckling now and then on the way home. On the occasions that Jack was later reminded of the little incident, it continued to bring mixed responses. Janette still laughed. Jack still growled.
    There had been another brother, Kenneth, who would have been only two years younger than Jack. It had been especially difficult for Jack to accept the loss. He had been confused and hurt as a two-year-old when he lost his little brother, and for many years blamed the local minister, Reverend Dawson, who had come and taken the baby away from the farm home after Kenneth’s passing. Then after waiting for two long years for another baby brother, he got Janette. But as they grew older they found that they could usually enjoy each other.
    Some of the closeness was because Janette was the one who helped Jack with the farm duties. All the children had assigned chores, and Janette was responsible to fill pails of water from the deep, cold outside pump and carry enough wood to replenish the wood box in the entry.
    There were no electric