A Proper Pursuit by Lynn Austin Page A

needles and plenty of yarn. I could use all the help I can get.”
    I sat watching the women work. The only sounds were the steady ticking of the clock in the hallway, Grandmother’s knitting needles clacking rhythmically, and Aunt Birdie’s pen scratching across the page. I wondered if I’d made a terrible mistake in coming to Chicago to live with a spinster and two widows. Was every evening going to be as boring as this one? I missed my friend Ruth from school, and I especially missed her exotic reading material.
    I would have to come up with a plan to find my mother soon— before I died of boredom.

Chapter
    5

    Tuesday, June 6, 1893
    I slept late the next day. By the time I came downstairs for breakfast, the others already had eaten. “Where’s my grandmother?” I asked Aunt Matt. She was trying to fasten a hat to her head with a long hatpin, stabbing it into the straw so fiercely I feared she would draw blood.
    “Florence left the house hours ago to do her charity work,” she said. “She told me to let you sleep, so I did. She also told me to fix you some breakfast when you finally woke up, so what do you want?”
    Judging by Aunt Matt’s expression and tone of voice, it was going to be a terrible imposition for her to wait on me. She obviously had more important things to do.
    “Thank you, but I’m not hungry. I never eat much for breakfast.”
    “All right, then. I’m off to do the shopping.” She strode through the back door as if heading off to war, marching to the grocery store to conquer the cabbages. Once again, I was alone with Aunt Birdie.
    I found her in the parlor, daintily scattering dust as she skimmed a feather duster over the room’s bric-a-brac. Neither she nor the feathers did much good, as far as I could see. Dust motes danced in the slanted sunbeams for a few seconds, then settled back into place on the cluttered furnishings. When Birdie saw me she hurried over to embrace me, as if I had just arrived home from a very long journey.
    “Good morning, dear. Did you sleep well?”
    “Yes, very well.”
    It wasn’t exactly true. I hadn’t slept well at all. But Madame Beauchamps had insisted that most people really didn’t want to know the answer to polite questions such as “How are you?” or “Did you sleep well?” The inquirers were simply making small talk, and so the proper reply should always be something like, “Fine, thank you. And yourself?”
    In truth, my grandmother’s refusal to discuss my mother had upset me a great deal. I had spent a portion of the night tossing and turning on the lumpy guest-room bed, trying to devise a way to escape from the house so I could search for my mother. I then wasted a few more hours trying to figure out how I could get Aunt Matt to deliver her lecture on remaining free from domineering husbands to Maude O’Neill. When I finally did fall asleep, I dreamed that Chicago was on fire again and my father and I were racing through the flames to find my mother.
    “I’m so glad you slept well, dear,” Aunt Birdie said. “We have a big day ahead of us, you know. It’s a good thing you got your rest.”
    “Pardon me … ? Um, what is it, exactly, that we’re supposed to be doing today?”
    Aunt Birdie leaned close to me and whispered, “It’s a secret!” She winked.
    I had no idea if she was making sense or not. My grandmother hadn’t mentioned a “big day” or a secret. A moment later, Birdie returned to her dusting, and I spotted the wedding picture she had shown me last night still lying on the parlor sofa. I picked it up and studied this younger and surprisingly pretty Aunt Birdie.
    “Do you have any more pictures, Aunt Birdie? Maybe a scrapbook of photographs that we could look at together?” I would recognize my parents, even if Aunt Birdie didn’t.
    “Oh, yes. I have quite a collection of photographs. They’re not in a scrapbook, though.”
    “That’s okay. I would still like to see them.”
    “You would?” She smiled