The Dragon in the Cliff by Sheila Cole Page B

asked when Joseph informed her of his plan. He was silent and she answered herself, “None that pays. If you leave Hale’s we will only have another hungry mouth to feed here. Our only hope is for you to become an upholsterer. Then you’ll be earning good money steadily. Summer is almost here, if we can hold out until then, we’ll make it up with the curiosities.”
    All Mama’s hopes seemed to be concentrated on summer. “Things are always better in summer,” Mama said to me day after day as we sat down to our dinner of bread and porridge, a monotonous diet which was only occasionally broken by a watery soup made with a few tired vegetables. We had not seen meat on our table since Papa died. “We shan’t have to spend as much on coal when summer comes, and of course you shall be bringing in more,” she repeated. “Your poor, dear Papa always did better with the curiosities in summer, what with the travelers and all.”
    I listened and did not reply. Though I continued to search the beach for curiosities day after day, I had collected little. There were no good slides that spring, and I did not have a good geological hammer or heavy chisels for breaking fossils out of the rocks. I could not bring myself to tell Mama, poor, dear Mama who had suffered so much and who still had faith and hope despite it all, that it was hopeless.
    But one day when there was no money to buy bread and we had nothing to eat but porridge, which we had been eating for several days, I could not bear to listen to her go on about her hopes for the summer any longer. How could she be so blind? Didn’t she see that I was not bringing home many curiosities? She passed through the workshop several times a day. Didn’t she see that the tools were missing? Why did she keep saying the same foolish things again and again when we were cold and hungry and summer’s coming would change little. I ran from the room, bolting down the stairs.
    â€œMary,” Mama called down the stairs after me. “Mary, what is the matter, child?”
    I did not answer. I ran frantically from shelf to work table and back to the shelves again, taking the curiosities from the shelves and carrying them to the workbench.
    Alarmed, Mama came down to the workshop. “What are you doing?” she asked.
    I counted the curiosities on the workbench, “One, two, three …” There were about thirty curiosities in all. “Thirty,” I said, turning to face Mama. “Not enough, Mama. Not enough to make a difference when the visitors come next month. We cannot count on the curiosities to pay our debts or to buy our food.” I turned away to rush from the shop, but before I got to the door, Mama caught me in her arms and swung me around. Pressing me to her, she held me, as I cried with shame.
    When I finally stopped crying, I told her how I lost my tools. Mama was quiet when I finished my story. She held me to her and swayed gently, rocking me back and forth, back and forth. “It was wrong of me to place such a burden on one so young,” she said. I wanted to say that it wasn’t a burden, that it was just that I forgot myself, but Mama hushed me and held me in her arms while I cried.
    We did not speak of the lost tools again. It was decided that I would go into service in a big house, where my food and bed would be provided. Mama would sell our belongings and go live with her sister, Aunt Letty Hunnicutt, and her husband, Mr. Hunnicutt, in Axminster until Joseph finished his term with Hale and was able to set up as an upholsterer. Then, God willing, we would set up house again.
    Mama started a letter to Aunt Letty and Uncle Hunnicutt to ask if she might come live with them, but put the pen down after the first sentence telling of Ann and John’s deaths. She left the letter lying on the table unfinished and went to sit at the window with her lacework, but she did not work. She stared out the