Brookland by Emily Barton Page A

serve, and the bank, in which I keep your future fortune.”
    The way Roxana blew air out her nostrils made it seem
fortune
was an exaggeration. “We’ll head home before they all tire out,” she said. “We can’t very well carry six of them.” Prue saw then that her mother’s cheer was superficial; it had not erased the sad lines at the corners of her eyes.
    â€œBen and I can carry ourselves,” Isaiah said. “And I can carry Maggie.”
    His sister shot away from him, as if this were a punishment.
    â€œShall we, then?” Matty asked.
    â€œTo Fly Market!” Ben cried. He grabbed Isaiah in a playful stranglehold, unseating his hat, and Isaiah struggled to throw him off. Ben sometimes reminded Prue of a setter pup—good-spirited, but somewhat lacking in sense. Still, she wouldn’t turn up her nose if her father brought a puppy home from the market instead of a book. Ben dragged Isaiah on, both of them yelping, and took the lead. Prue picked up Isaiah’s hat, and Pearl, having given up on Maggie, whistled a tune to herself and slipped her sticky mitten in Prue’s free hand. Matty put his arm around Roxana’s shoulders.
    â€œWhat do you think, Roxy?” he asked quietly. “A boy’d be fine.”
    Prue pricked up her ears. “I’ve enough to do with the three little beasties,” Roxana answered. “Those Horsfields’ll burn their father’s house down, mark me.”
    â€œBut a boy—to carry on the business.”
    â€œWe’ve already tried. Three is enough. Maybe if the one wasn’t tainted.”
    Prue pointed out to Pearl a white horse trotting past, its rider with a plume in his hat. Pearl continued to whistle and nodded her head with what looked like interest, but Prue knew she’d heard every word. The Horsfield boys sped ahead.
    â€œMmm,” Matty said. Prue may have been a week shy of ten years old, but she could hear he wasn’t finished on the topic.
    â€œLet’s catch up with them,” she told Pearl, and began to run. Tem grabbed her other hand and the hat, and they galloped on until they were a few paces shy of the boys. Maggie was crying at being left behind, and Prue thought she caught Pearl smiling about it. None of the children knew where they were going, but Ben stopped at every street corner to look back to Matty Winship for guidance. Then he’d set off at a run again, dragging Isaiah with him, skirting around the bonfires and dodging the traffic and other pedestrians. In this fashion, perhaps a quarter hour later, they arrived at a much larger market, its wooden stalls thronged with Thursday shoppers despite the miracle of the weather. Prue was delighted to see such a crowd, though surprised to see so few black faces among the white. (“They only farm a good ways north of the market,” her father told her the next day. “They’ve less of a need for slaves.”) AsPrue looked out to the water, she saw it was indeed Losee’s dull green boat tethered to the wharf, where he’d left it the evening before.
    â€œFly Market!” Ben said, his blue eyes casting greedily around. “Iz, do you have any money?”
    Prue picked Pearl up so she might see better, and exclaimed with interest whenever her sister pointed or whistled at some attractive dainty. There was so much for sale here, Prue wondered why she saw Mrs. van Nostrand at market every week, buying Brooklyn meat and cheese like anyone else; her husband could have brought home delicacies of every order for the asking. Prue’s own father could have done the same, and she wondered why he didn’t. The children wove among the stalls and saw smoked meats, eggs the pale colors of spring flowers, entire stalls full of cheese, bolts of fabric to rival any in Mrs. Tilley’s store, and row upon row of books. Prue could imagine her father perusing them and asking the bookseller questions.