Chapter 1

Why is it that bad things seem to come in bunches? My ma died bringing me into this world and Pa remarried a year later. I liked my stepma. She treated me like I was her own son, even after she had Caroline. She treated me and Caroline the same. Well, except that Caroline’s a girl and I’m a boy, so some things were a little different.

Anyway, we had a pretty normal life as far as I knew. Ma taught us how to read and write and Pa taught us arithmetic. I helped Pa with the farming and Caroline helped Ma in the house. We each had our own friends, but the two of us did a lot together, too.

The year 1878 was one full of good memories for the first six months, but the last six months were mostly bad. That was the year I turned fourteen and Caroline turned twelve. We were both on the cusp of our most challenging growing up years, Ma liked to say. Then in June, Pa and Ma got real sick.

At first, my sister and I weren’t too concerned since they’d been sick before, but after a day of them progressively getting worse, Caroline asked me to get the doctor. He came out and examined them.

“They’ll either get better or they won’t,” he said. “No one is to come or go from this farm until a week after all the sick people are well or dead. I don’t want it spreading anywhere else.”

“Is there any medicine to help them?” I asked.

The doctor pursed his lips. “No, there isn’t.”

“How will you keep from spreading the disease?”

He sighed. “I’ll bathe when I get home and burn my clothes.”

I nodded. I did understand his concern about spreading whatever it was, but these were my parents. There had to be something we could do for them and he wasn’t doing anything. As the doctor walked out to his buggy and drove away without a backward glance, an uneasy shiver ran up and down my body. Did the doctor even care enough to have made the right decision?

I shook my head to clear the morbid thoughts. He was a doctor, so he had to—even if he didn’t like the Irish. I trudged back to the house.

Caroline gently closed the door behind me, a look of concern on her face as she gazed up at me.

“We’re on our own. He’s not coming back.”

She gasped and covered her mouth. “Why?”

“Whatever they have is catching and he’s afraid it could spread.”

Her eyes widened. “Does that mean we could get it?”

My insides went cold. I hadn’t even thought of that. We could. Would anyone even notice if we all died out here? Would anyone really miss us? I gulped down my fear. “Yes, I suppose it does mean that. But let’s not think about it. God’ll take care of us. Somehow.”

For the next few days, we fell into a strenuous routine. Caroline made breakfast while I took care of the animals. We ate together in silence, then I went out to do whatever I could in the fields. Pa had always made everything look so easy, but I quickly found out it wasn’t.

When the sun was high in the sky, I would go back to the house, throw something together for lunch, and take a turn caring for Pa and Ma. I sponged their warm foreheads, prayed, and tried to get them to sip some water or broth.

After about two hours, Caroline would take over for me and I would go back out to the fields where I spent more time praying than working. If anyone could spare Pa’s and Ma’s life, it was God.

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