Page 52 of A New World for the Irish Daughter

“Straight back to the Indian village, I should say!” the landlady declared. “There’s no call to bring her inhere.”

“They wouldn’t take her,” Maggie told her in a low voice. She hated to think of the little girl overhearing these conversations and understanding that nobody wanted her. By now it must have become obvious, whether she understood English or not.

“They wouldn’t, huh? And yet here you are, expectin’ me to!”

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Compton, but I couldn’t just leave her in the street. It will only be for one night.”

Mrs. Compton’s expression was grim, and Maggie suspected the landlady believed shecouldhave left the little girl in the street—and should have.

“Please,” she whispered. “She’s so small.”

Mrs. Compton glanced down at the girl, her expression softening only a fraction, before she sighed. “For theonenight,” she relented. “But you gotta understand, Miss O’Halloran. I runa boarding house and I gotta keep my boarders happy. And I can tell you sure as sure they ain’t going to be happy with an Indian kid hangin’ around.” She held up one callused finger in warning. “Onenight. That’s it.”

“Thank you,” Maggie whispered.

“And you’ll take your supper upstairs,” Mrs. Compton continued. “I can’t have that girl eatin’ with these God-fearin’ men, all right?”

“Yes.” Maggie nodded, although privately she wondered just how God-fearing the miners who resided at Mrs. Compton’s boarding house truly were. “One night.”

Upstairs, she washed the girl’s face, surprised she had no difficulty, until, after she’d dried her off, the little girl curled up on the bed, her knees tucked up right to her chin and fell asleep. She’d been exhausted, Maggie realized, and understandably so. She would have to save her some supper for later.

When Danny and her da came home a short while later, dirty and tired from a day in the mines, they were surprised, to say the least, to see the girl curled up on Maggie’s bed.

“Whaddya thinkin’, bringin’ an Indian kid here?” Danny exclaimed, as incredulous as Mrs. Compton had been. “People ain’t going to like it.”

“I know,” Maggie replied, “but I didn’t have any other choice.”

“Poor little mite,” her father said, his weathered face creasing into a smile as he gazed down at the girl. Maggie had already told him and Danny what had happened to the girl’s mother, as well as down in the Indian village. “The little thing’s got no one in the world.”

“I hope her mother will recover in a few days,” Maggie told them. “But after that…” Where had the Tlingit woman been living, if not with her people? Where, she wondered, was the white father?

They were questions she could not answer, at least not tonight, but tomorrow Maggie vowed she’d return to St. Ann’s and get some answers, for both the mother and child’s sake.

She ate supper up in her room, leaving some for the girl for when she woke up, and when Danny and her da returned, they were full of the gossip that had been swirling around the boarding house’s dining room about her.

“Some said it’syourkid,” Danny told her with a laugh, and Maggie rolled her eyes, determined not to let such talk get to her.

“I don’t know how that would be possible, since I arrived in Alaska a mere two months ago,” she replied tartly. “It appears some of the residents here don’t have a basic grasp of biology.”

“I think they’d rather the girl was your bastard baby than an Indian,” Danny replied frankly and Maggie glared at him.

“Hush your mouth, Danny O’Halloran,” she snapped. “I hear plenty of that language downstairs, but I don’t need to hear it up here in our private quarters.”

“That’s right,” someone from the room next to theirs called out and then burst into cackles of laughter.

Maggie sighed. Sometimes she forgot how thin the walls were—just boards and cotton. No one’s business was ever private, and certainly not this.

“Now, now,” their father said placatingly. “It’s only the one night.” He raised his voice a little so those far and wide could hear. “The girl will be gone tomorrow.” He winked at Maggie, and she pretended not to see as she got ready for bed.

A few minutes later, she slid beneath the sheets next to the girl, who hadn’t stirred all evening, so deeply had she been asleep. Gently, Maggie brushed a strand of dark hair away from the girl’s face, her rosebud lips pursed in a sleepy pout. What, she wondered sadly, would happen to her and her mother? Would the Indian village accept them, when the mother recovered?

Tomorrow, Maggie reminded herself, she would find those answers. She would do something to help them both, even if she couldn’t imagine what it might be yet.

Danny and Da settled into their beds, and through the thin walls of the boarding house, Maggie heard the creaks and squeaks, sighs, groans and snores of the other residents all heading to their own beds. She glanced out the window; even though it was now past ten o’clock, the sun had barely set, the world cast in a twilit, dusky light. It had been strange, to get used to these long summer days when the sun still shone brightly in the sky well past suppertime.

She settled back down into bed, and the movement disturbed the little girl, who rolled over, and then, to Maggie’s surprise, snuggled in against her, one skinny arm thrown about her waist. Maggie stiffened instinctively and then relaxed, drawing the girl even closer, so her chin was resting on top of her head, her warm little body curled into hers.

The girl let out a soft sigh and her body relaxed against Maggie’s in total trust. Maggie closed her eyes. Lying there snuggled up, it felt as if something hard and brittle that had encased her heart had cracked, like a shell breaking open and exposing the tender, vulnerable softness within. The girl let out another sigh, and, her whole body relaxing with a peace she hadn’t felt in a long, long while, Maggie slept.