“Not with soap,” I said.
The rough lye soap made my scrapes sting, but I felt the better for the wash.
After he’d scrubbed and I’d combed the tangles from his fur, Apollo brought water in for the cooking and cleaning, while I refilled the kerosene lamps. There was no indoor plumbing and the gas lines didn’t come out this far, although the houses down the road by the train station had their water and gas piped in, even if they weren’t rich folk, the cook told me with envy and pride.
I chopped wood for the cookstove and groaned with pain every time I raised the ax. Then I was sent to clean the grate and lay a fire in the parlor in case the night turned chilly in the wee hours, and my bad knee played up rotten when I knelt. As I set down a layer of kindling, the door opened and a pair of girls in summer frocks entered. The redhead, who appeared to be the younger of the pair, whispered in her blond companion’s ear and giggled.
“My name’s Lillie,” she said to me. “What’s yours?”
Surely this was not a woman of easy virtue—she couldn’t be older than me—but she was bold, I’d concede to that. “Abel Dandy, miss,” I said, and rose awkwardly to my feet. A twinge in my hip made me grimace.
“Oh, and he is dandy, isn’t he?” said the blond girl.
“Hush,” said Lillie, but she burst into laughter nevertheless.
“Are you a little stiff?” asked Lillie.
The blonde choked back a snort.
“Do you need to be … rubbed with liniment?” asked Lillie in a breathy way that suggested slippery caresses of the one muscle that hadn’t throbbed until now.
I wasn’t used to girls that forward. I didn’t know how I should act. I would have liked to be saucy in return, but words abandoned me. I stood there like a codfish out of water.
“Cat’s got his tongue,” said the blonde.
“Has it?” said Lillie huskily, drawing closer. “Let’s see.” She reached out a finger and grazed my lips, and my knees went weak.
“Lillie! Agatha! Leave that boy alone, you trollops,” said Mrs. Delaney, entering the room. “Save that for the paying guests. Off with you, Abel.”
I left on unsteady legs, and I don’t think I took a breath again until I reached the kitchen, where I was brought down to earth with a jolt right beside Apollo, cleaning chamber pots with carbolic soap.
“I don’t like working,” complained Apollo.
I had to agree with him in this instance.
Right before supper, when I was in the middle of filling the bedroom pitchers with fresh water, a maid called me to the kitchen door.
“I came to check on you, as I said I would,” said Mr. Northstar. “Do you think this situation will suit you?”
“Yes, sir,” I replied. “The staff are pleasant, and the work is tolerable.” I didn’t mention that cheeky red-haired girl I wished to see again.
“Well, keep in mind what your dear mother would want for you,” he said.
I hoped I didn’t blush. “Did you find any news of your boy in town?” I asked as I walked him down to his cart.
“I read an advertisement in the paper for a show of oddities in a town north of here, so that’s where I’m headed. Damn these unnatural exhibitions.”
Mr. Northstar had been nothing but generous, but his words bothered me. In the everyday world my parents would have been confined to the home at best, living on the charity of their parents, having none of the rewards of a normal life, never meeting each other, and seeing only those who either pitied or scorned them. “Even oddities deserve to make a living,” I said.
“And to live a normal
life,” he agreed. “But more than one person has offered to buy my son, as if he were chattel. My family had to struggle for their freedom; I’m not about to sell my son back into slavery.”
“No, sir,” I said. His point was clear.
“I’ll come back to see how you fare,” he said. “I’ll be on my way home if I find my son, and retracing my steps to pick up another trail if I don’t. Say good-bye to young Apollo for me, and be sure to cherish and protect him. Don’t let him fall into evil hands.”
“Yes, sir,” I answered, and held out my hand. “I wish you luck.”