Louisa and the Country Bachelor : A Louisa May Alcott Mystery (9781101547564) by Anna Maclean Page B

her own front parlor.
    â€œOh, dear.” Ida turned back to us. Tears seeped from her eyes. “And I was just saying horrid things about that poor girl. I sympathize with her, I really do. It is awful to lose a loved one. I know, I know.”
    We all sat for a moment in silence and brooded, as people do when a death has been announced. Mrs. Tupper dabbed at her eyes.
    â€œDon’t cry,” said Abba, going over to her and patting her hand. “I’m sure the town will do what it can for Lilli Nooteboom. There will be a raffle and a dinner to raise money for her, once the viewing and funeral are over.”
    â€œYes,” said Ida Tupper. “Tonight I will go through my trunks and find what I can give her myself. You are right, Abba. We must all be very brave.”
    It seemed to me that Lilli Nooteboom was the one who must be brave, and the thought of short, buxom Ida Tupper’s castoff dresses on tall, thin Lilli Nooteboom was almost enough to make me smile.
    Father came in just then for his cup of tea, and to discover what delayed the arrival of his seed packets. He found the four of us sitting at the kitchen table.
    â€œYou look like someone has died,” he said.
    â€œSomeone has.” I took off my plain straw bonnet and placed it on the table next to Ida’s confection. “Ernst Nooteboom, one of the Dutch workers. He fell into the ravine.”
    Father folded his arms over his white work shirt and squinted. He had been so delighted to have a vegetable patch again that he had taken to dressing in farm clothes and coming to tea with his suspenders drooping. If anything, such informal attire made his thin, aesthetic face look even nobler.
    â€œI hope it was not worse than an accident,” he said. “I mean, this has nothing to do with the ill will between the Irish and the Dutch laborers, I’m sure.”
    I was not. I thought of Ernst Nooteboom’s smooth-soled shoes, his sister’s conviction that he could not have fallen because he was too practiced at climbing, and this young man’s death acquired a sinister quality. Well, climbers do sometimes fall , I thought. But the thought nagged rather than reassured.
    â€œTomorrow we shall call on Lilli Nooteboom and pay our respects,” said Abba.
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    LILLI NOOTEBOOM, WE learned from Eliza, lived in rooms in Mrs. Roder’s boardinghouse, the big gray house at the east end of Westminster Street. The following afternoon the entire Alcott family, including Sylvia, donned their formal calling clothes, left the little cottage, and turned in the direction of that street. Anna and Abba talked quietly about household matters; Father and Lizzie murmured occasionally about family friends—dear Mr. Henry Thoreau had sent a letter from Concord, where he was working as a gardener and continuing his study of Greek. But the conversations were muffled and we walked largely in silence, a reminder of the serious purpose of our visit.
    Soon the more densely placed houses and stores of Walpole thinned into irregular lots, affording a view of the Connecticut River and, just before that, the huge scar in the earth where the ground had been dug and leveled for the railroad tracks. When in employment, Ernst Nooteboom must have been able to make it from his door to his work site in less than two minutes. A practical man, I thought, willing to give up the amenities of living close to the village square in order to save time. Practical men do not hike in town shoes.
    Mrs. Roder opened the door to my knocking and greeted us with a stormy expression and a broom in her arms.
    â€œThought you were those ruffians,” she explained, placing the broom back in the corner and smoothing her apron. Her explanation did not flatter what we had considered to be our best attire. The landlady was an elderly woman, tall and strong and formidable-looking. New England stock.
    â€œRuffians?” asked Father, interested.
    â€œThe