A Time to Bloom (Leah's Garden #2)(42)

“My sons and daughter can read and write a fair hand and do enough figurin’ to get by. Buildin’ up the farm is what counts just now for our family. Even for this soon-to-be state, as you say. A homestead isn’t held down by fancy letters, is it now? And since that plague o’ locusts, we need every hand we can to replant what little we can.”

Rev. Pritchard stepped forward, hands lifted. “But suppose some of your children want more than farming in the future. Would you deny them that chance? When you’ve come so far and sacrificed so much for them to have a life in this new land?”

“Listen here now, Reverend.” Mr. O’Rourke held up his hand, voice quiet but deadly. “Don’t ye go tellin’ me how far I’ve come or what I’ve given up. Ye don’t know nothin’ about it. Book learnin’ might be all right for a fancy preacher man, but it didn’t make a bit o’ difference for some of my friends who came over from Ireland with us. Didn’t matter a titch that some of them were scholars, teachers, or even priests back home. No, all people saw in that city was that we were Irish. And ‘No Irish need apply.’ We had to take work where we could get it, down at the docks or buildin’ the sewers. And no amount of book learnin’ kept my friends from breakin’ their backs in the filth like the rest of us.”

“Liam—”

Mr. O’Rourke quelled his wife’s timid remonstrance with a glance. “’Twasn’t till I got work on the railroad and could bring my family out here, and had the chance to homestead, that I’ve been free for the first time in me life. Not back home, and not here in your supposed land of the free. Only when I can work with me own two hands on what will be me own land. And that’s the only chance I can be sure of for me boys as well, grasshoppers or no grasshoppers. So, fine, Iris can go if her ma can spare her. But my boys need no more schoolin’, and that’s final.”

“I’m truly sorry for the ill-treatment you have endured.” Rev. Pritchard pressed forward, undaunted if slightly flustered. “But shouldn’t your sons have the chance for a different path if they should so choose? The beauty of America is that anyone can climb high from low, anyone can be anything, if they put in the effort—”

Mr. O’Rourke erupted into chortles of laughter.

Rev. Pritchard stopped, looking nonplussed.

“Anyone?” The Irishman looked around the room, making a sweep with his arm. “Did ye all hear that? He actually said anyone.” The laughter halted, and Mr. O’Rourke stepped closer to the pastor, towering over him. “D’ye really believe that, Reverend? That anyone can get ahead if they merely try? Tell that to my kinsmen still toiling away in the sludge. Tell that to your supposed freedmen now crowding the cities of the North, competing with the Irish for the jobs no one else wants to do, that no one wants to pay proper wages for. Go tell them, with your spectacles and your books someone else probably paid for you to learn from. Then come and talk to me about ‘anyone.’”

Rev. Pritchard swallowed and pushed his spectacles up his nose.

“Mr. O’Rourke,” Del began. Then she stopped. She really wasn’t sure what else to say. Lord, we could use your help here. “We mean no disrespect, Mr. O’Rourke. Of course it is your right to choose whether to send your children to school. We merely want to ensure that you know they are welcome, and if there is anything we can do to help smooth the way, we wish to do so.” She hesitated, then continued. “You speak truly that not all are free in this land, whatever we purport it to be. But at my school, all will truly be welcome. You may count on that.”

“Da?” A small voice came from the doorway.

Mr. O’Rourke stepped back from the preacher. They all turned toward the door.

A slight lad stood silhouetted in the evening sunlight. When he stepped inside, where Mrs. O’Rourke had lit a kerosene lamp, Del could see his hair was dark, nearly black, in contrast to the red of his mother and sister. His eyes, though, shone the same bright blue, and his work shirt and trousers were worn and smudged. He looked about twelve or thirteen, though she sensed him small for his age.

Del stepped toward him. “Are you Timothy?”

“Yes, miss.” He lifted his chin and looked at his father. “Da, I want to go to school.”

Mr. O’Rourke sighed and rubbed his hand over his face. “We’ve talked about this, Tim. It’s no good for you, ye must come to terms with that. And ye’re needed here on the farm. We need all hands if we’re to make it through the winter now—’tis a whole new world of farmin’ compared to Ireland.”

“I’ll still help, Da, I promise.” Timothy stepped closer, though he had to crane his neck to see his father’s face. “I’ll get up extra early to work before school, and then I’ll hurry home after.”

“Why do you want to go to school, Timothy?” Del took another step closer, her heart tugging toward the boy.

Timothy met her gaze directly. “I want to learn, miss.”

His words hung a moment in the soddy, potent.

“You can learn here, son.” Mr. O’Rourke’s voice came rough. “Haven’t I taught ye all ye need to know for life so far?”

“But I want more, Da. What we learned back at school in New York—’twas like I only got a tiny taste of a Christmas feast.” He hesitated, seeming to search for a better argument. “And William and Patrick say they’ll work twice as hard as me if I’m gone. They do anyhow, bein’ so much bigger’n me.”