Page 5 of Because I Could Not Stop for Death

“I think of us both too. I have a plan that will make us rich. You will no longer have to clean up after people like the Dickinsons. You will have you very own home.”

I suppressed a sigh. This was not the first time that my brother had made such a pronouncement. In the end, nothing good came of it. He spent a night in jail over his last great idea to make money. I would have never been able to get him out if it hadn’t been for Matthew Thomas, an old friend of our family who was a police officer. Matthew put in a good word for Henry. Without that, I feared my brother might still be in prison to this day.

“Henry, you know what happened last time. We can’t ask Matthew to help you again if you find yourself in trouble. We have indebted ourselves to him too much already.”

“You say that because you don’t want to fawn over him if I need his assistance.” He mimicked a woman swooning.

I folded my arms. “I do not fawn. I have never fawned.”

He laughed. “Believe what you must, but Matthew cares for you. You could do worse. Do you want to end up a spinster like the Dickinson girls?”

I had had enough of this. “It’s time for you to go.” I pushed him lightly toward the window.

“No, not yet. I haven’t been able to tell you what I came all this way in the driving rain to say.”

I stepped back. “Very well.”

“You left your old job and I left mine too,” he said with pride.

“You left your job? But the warehouse let you sleep there. Where are you living now?” I squeezed my hands together. “Do you have a place to stay? I won’t be paid for another week. I can give you money then to rent a room.”

“Don’t worry about me, Sister.” He jumped onto the only chair in the room. “I always come out on top.”

“Henry, shh,” I hissed. “You’re being far too loud. Someone will come.”

He grinned and it showed off the gap in his front teeth. “I came here to tell you the good news, Sister.”

“Fine, fine.” I watched the doorknob, certain that Miss O’Brien would turn it and come through the door at any moment. “Tell me and then leave. I will see you on Sunday when I have the day off.”

He hopped off the chair and pulled it toward me. He straddled the chair and leaned on the back. “I have found work too.”

A breath of air went out of me. “You have?”

He nodded. “And Sister, I will make more money than you can ever imagine. You don’t have to be in this house and clean for people. Why should you be a servant when you should be a queen?”

“I’m not a queen.”

“Mother told us that we were royalty, a prince and princess.”

“Henry, that was a fairy tale to make us sleep at night.”

He leaned forward. “It was not.”

I closed my eyes for a moment. I couldn’t get into an argument now. If I did, Henry would only become louder. He always believed that the way to win an argument was to be louder and more obstinate than your opponent. “Perhaps there is royalty in Europe, but there are no queens in America.”

“There may be someday,” he said. “Mark my words, Sister, this country is about to tear itself apart. I have heard rumblings. The British will come back and pick up the pieces of it all. We will be like Canada, forever tethered to the monarchy.”

I swallowed. “Those are just people that want to make trouble.”

He shook his head as if he could not believe how naive I was being.

“Tell me about the job,” I said, refusing to get into another argument with my brother about politics. I preferred to leave such debates to the officials in Washington. They knew what they were doing; they would not be there otherwise.

He narrowed his eyes and seemed to consider my request. I knew my brother well; he would rather continue the argument than put it to rest. There were days when I wondered how we could even be flesh and blood. I ran away from confrontation, not toward it like he did.

“I have work at the village livery as a stable boy. Then I will move up to apprentice and coach driver. I have been there nearly a month.”

“A month? And you are just telling me now?”

---