Free Undaunted Hope by Jody Hedlund Page B

enjoyed seeing her every morning when he walked the children to school, even if she hadn’t paid him much attention.
    He hadn’t forgotten that he wanted to win her affection. Now maybe he needed to carry through with his plan and lay claim to her before Michael beat him to it.

Chapter 7
    P lease, Nadine,” Tessa said as she washed the table after dinner. “Please let Edward and Will Junior attend class tonight.”
    Nadine shifted the baby, moving the little one out of reach of the towel she was using to dry forks—the same dirty gray towel that everyone in the household used for wiping their hands and faces, and the Lord only knew what else.
    Tessa tried not to think about the state of cleanliness of the plates and utensils during meals. Although that evening, Tessa hadn’t thought about the lack of cleanliness even one time. She’d been too consumed with her revulsion of the giblets Nadine had served, especially when her hostess explained that the giblets were the feet, head, and bill of the goose they’d recently butchered. Apparently giblets were a special treat. Either that or the children had no taste buds. They’d devoured the waste pieces disguised with gravy faster than Nadine could serve them.
    â€œEdward and Will Junior will benefit from the class,” Tessasaid again as she peered into the noisy front room where the children had raced after gobbling up the giblets.
    â€œThey’re happy enough in the mine, that they are.”
    Tessa turned back to the table and swiped at a splotch of gravy that had congealed on the sticky plank. The floor, the walls, and the stove were just as sticky with a layer of grease and dust that was impossible to wash away, even though Tessa had tried. “But it’s dangerous, dirty work. Wouldn’t you like to see them have the chance to do something different if they want to?” Tessa had already had the same conversation with Nadine several times since she’d made the decision to have the evening school.
    Nadine sighed, and her shoulders slumped under the weight of the baby. Her brownish-gray hair hung in stringy strands around her face. In the overcast October evening, the light from the oil lantern at the center of the table cast shadows upon the woman’s face, adding another ten years’ worth of wrinkles. “Today’s not a good day for it, Tessa,” she insisted. “Not with Mr. Rawlings in so much pain.”
    Tessa bit back a tart response. Those of the Rawlings family who worked in the mine were always coming home with injuries: cuts from falling pieces of rock, scraped knees and elbows, burns from the wax that dripped from the candles affixed to their hats. Will Junior had lost his thumbnail last week when a sledgehammer had nicked him. They’d all exclaimed how lucky he was not to have lost his whole thumb.
    This time Mr. Rawlings was in pain from having his tooth pulled at the dentist earlier in the day, not a mining accident. As Tessa made her way through the house, she tried to mask her disappointment that she hadn’t been able to convince Nadine to let the boys attend school in the evenings. She stopped nextto the settee in the front room where Mr. Rawlings was resting and debated pestering him instead.
    But with his arm draped across his eyes and a bloody wet rag hanging half out of his swollen mouth, she spun away and finished buttoning her heavy wool coat. She ducked to avoid being hit by a ball and was careful not to trip over the younger children racing toy horses around on the floor.
    â€œJosie,” she called over the galloping, bouncing, and screeching.
    Josie sat on the edge of a chair, peeking between the drab curtains. She let the curtain fall and gave Tessa her attention. With her long hair styled into a coil that Tessa had taught her how to arrange and her face freshly washed, Josie looked less like a girl and more like the woman she was becoming. Josie had been