Free Brooklyn Rose by Ann Rinaldi

live on the third floor, be available to drive the carriage, attend to his needs, and, when around, answer the door. And did he know horses?
    I crept away as Charley said yes, he could handle horses as well.
    Rene hired him. So now we have five servants.
June 24
    WE HAVE beautiful roses, both in front of the house and in back. The gardener, whose name is Joseph, knows a lot about flowers and lawn care. He comes twice a week, and Rene told me I am to tell him what I want with the flowers. The first thing I wanted was window boxes, like we have at home, so he made some and put them in front and on the side of the house. They look lovely.
June 27
    THIS EVENING we went to a supper at the Knickerbocker Club. Although it is men only, the women are invited for social occasions. I was much impressed with their clubhouse and their dining room. At home, Daddy belongs to a club, so I am quite accustomed to it.
June 30
    TODAY A VERY large delivery-wagon-type vehicle pulled up in front of our house. In it were our horses. They arrived at the docks yesterday, having come by steamboat. Tom Jones was glad to see me, and I, him. With him was the mare Rene had bought from Daddy in what seems so long ago now. Can it be that six months ago I'd just met Rene? It seems impossible.
July 5
    YESTERDAY, EARLY , I awoke and crept downstairs, where I knew Mrs. Moore was making a picnic lunch for us. I came up with the idea two days ago. I would make a picnic lunch and go with Rene to the end of our trolley line, where the salt marshes are. He always wanted to picnic there.
    When I saw that the lunch was all packed, I went back upstairs and awoke him for breakfast and wished him a happy Fourth of July. Then I told him what I had planned. He smiled and said he'd love to go. "Nobody has ever thought to do anything like that for me before," he said.
    There is an underlying sadness in Rene, which I cannot figure out. Is it the reason he does not speak of his past? To think that he has all this money and all this authority, and yet he seems sad. I wonder if I shall ever find out why.

15
July 5 (continued)
    ANYWAY , the picnic was a huge success. I am so glad I thought of it. Rene and I sat on a blanket on the sand dunes and watched the water and the gulls and had quite an afternoon of it, all by ourselves. We watched fireworks in the distance at the end of the day, then caught the last trolley back home.
July 10
    I NEVER recorded it here, but Rene allowed Bridget to keep the contents of her garden for her family. That is Rene. He is stern and sometimes seems very stiff-necked, yet under it all he has a kindness that he doesn't like to bandy about.
July 12
    I HAVE NOT yet ridden Tom Jones, although I have taken him around the yard. Rene says he hopes I'll wait for when he can ride his Peaches. But he has had Tom Jones out and says the horse absolutely cannot abide Mr. Ford's horseless carriage, and we must be very careful of him in the streets.
July 17
    BRIDGET HAS told me that her maternal grandfather was killed in the draft riots of '63. How terrible. I told her I thought the riots were the mayor's fault, because he sent all the city's police and soldiers to Gettysburg to fight and left the city defenseless. Bridget says I have a lot of opinions for a woman, and I told her that back home we were all expected to have opinions, that I'm not the little Southern belle with nothing but honeysuckle for brains.
    Then she told me about her father's father, who fought in the war. She says that although he is crippled he can still carve the most beautiful things out of wood. I asked what and she said anything. Rene's birthday is coming up soon and maybe I will get him something Bridget's grandfather has carved. But first I will have to go and pick it out.
July 20
    MRS. MOORE doesn't approve of my going into their neighborhood. "Now, Bridget," she said, "why would you be wantin to take this child to where we live? You know she's quality and don't belong there." But I