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Sample Chapter: |
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| PART 1 | |
| CHAPTER 2 | |
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DAN'S CHOICE
The group quickly disbanded and Sophie saw Dan’s back disappearing down Chamber’s Alley, fast as greased lightning. She knew he was figuring on talking to Ma, so she took off after him, calling back over her shoulder to Emma. “Sorry, gotta go!”
Emma understood and watched Sophie run after her brother.
“Dan, Dan!” Sophie yelled. She had nearly caught up with him.
Hearing his sister, Dan hung back until she fell in step beside him.
“What makes you think Pa will allow you to go?”
“There’s no choice!” His blue eyes were bright with excitement, his face flushed, and his curly brown hair tousled. “You heard the professor, it’s my duty.” He shifted his schoolbooks from one hand to the other before continuing. “Come on, Sophie, you have to help me convince Ma to let me go. I have to answer tonight at that meeting, and Pa’s not going to be home. Anyway, if I get Ma on my side, it will be easier to get Pa to say okay later.”
Sophie glanced back toward the schoolhouse. The porch was empty now; everyone was gone. She couldn’t quite believe what had happened—so much, so fast.
Sophie turned back to Dan, his face still flushed and his new linen shirt drenched with sweat. “I hate to tell you this, Dan, but I know that Ma is not going to hold with the idea of you going to war; and, what about college?”
“What about college, Sophie? You heard Professor Patterson, the war is more important!” he spat back.
“The professor thinks it is, but what will Ma and Pa have to say? You’ve heard the stories. It might seem glorious but it’s really dangerous! You could get sick or be hurt or even be killed!”
Dan shifted his books again. “That’s not going to happen to me, and I am going! Sophie, I have to be part of this.”
Absorbed in Dan’s words, Sophie didn’t see the stone that tripped her and sent her sprawling onto the dusty road. For a moment, time stood still and sound disappeared—no clucking from old man Galbraith’s chickens . . . no singing of the birds in the trees—but she felt no calm . . . only the stifling heat of the midday sun that matched the heat of their argument.
Dan extended his hand to Sophie to help her back to her feet, but she pushed him away. “It’s all wrong!” she screamed while rubbing a spot on her head. When she finally got to her feet, she faced him eye to eye, hands on her hips, and snapped. “The morning started out so fine, Daniel Keller! Now look at my new dress, dirty and torn, and my precious books, ruined. And, there’s no school this year . . . and you have the nerve to ask me to help you convince our mother to let you go to a place where you could be killed?”
He pleaded again while picking up Sophie’s books and brushing the dust from their covers. “You have to help me, Sophie! Don’t you understand that I can’t hide from my duty?”
“But, you have duty here: duty to our father and our mother—and to me.”
“This is different, Sophie. This is bigger than any of us!”
The conviction in his voice, the fierce determination in his eyes, and the strength in his bold features told Sophie that any further argument was a waste of time. He had always been there for her and now he needed her and so she softened. Brushing the dust from her skirt, she admitted, “It is bigger than any of us, but Dan, for you to go to war could be wrong.”
“It’s not wrong, Sophie, it’s my duty,” Dan asserted.
“I don’t know, Dan . . . I don’t know,” Sophie countered. “You haven’t convinced me, so how can I help you persuade Ma?”
“You can do it, Sophie. I know you can!”
“Well, maybe I could try—but only because you think it’s right and because you’re so determined.”
“It’s the most important and exciting day of my life!” He beamed, the tension draining from his face. A gigantic smile revealed perfect teeth, white against his tanned face. “I need you today, just like you needed me that day when you skinned your leg.”
“I remember,” Sophie continued, “and you used your sock to bind it. But what will I do without you, Danny? Everything will change and what will we do?”
He switched his books, again, to the other hand and threw his strong arm around Sophie’s shoulder, his demeanor grown-up and confident. At that moment, Sophie felt that somehow her brother would be okay and that somehow they’d manage while he was gone. The day brightened: it didn’t seem so hot, the birds chirped loudly in the trees, a squirrel scurried up a towering chestnut, and hens clucked while searching for seeds from the hollyhock by the fence.
With her anger abated, brother and sister strolled home, scheming how to convince Ma that Dan should go to war.
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