A Brother's Price

definitely wed on his birthday. If he fetched only two thousand crowns, Eldest and the others would have to wait until Doric was of age to get a husband. Six years would put Eldest into her thirties. If he didn’t fetch two thousand crowns, his family would have to pay one hundred crowns to back out of the deal. A heinous amount of money to throw away, but a small price to pay if the worst happened.
    Jerin added extra of the blue ribbon to their purchases; it would be pretty braided in his hair. He would need to look his best at Mayfair to fetch a high brother’s price; his family was counting on him.
     
    At least an hour remained before the packet arrived. Summer, Captain Tern, and Jerin went out to join Mother Erica and Corelle. They moved the wagon down to the village green and set out a light picnic lunch. Jerin got out his sewing kit and tacked the veil to his new hat between bites of his sandwich.
    Corelle and Summer were both pleased with the idea of becoming shopkeepers. The older sisters would take the store, they reasoned, because it would need minding right away.
    “No more getting up before dawn!” Corelle cried happily. “No more fighting with stock in the middle of snowstorms. No more watering fields during droughts using endless buckets of water. No more plowing, and planting, and seeding.”
    Mother Erica laughed at their logic, saying it made more sense for their aging, wiser mothers to mind the store, moving the younger sisters to the city to learn storekeeping as they grew up.
    “We at least have worked at our sisters’ store in An-naboro,” Mother Erica reminded them. “Besides, your baby sisters aren’t big enough to take on all that brute work, and your mothers can’t tend the farm alone. You know that it takes at least twenty able bodies to manage planting and harvest.”
    Summer frowned. “But there are only eleven of us. How are we going to work this?”
    “We’ll manage.” Mother Erica smiled. “There are so few opportunities like this. Unless a family ends like the Pickers, or loses everything in some disaster of bad judgment, farms and businesses just aren’t sold. Your aunts had to travel to Annaboro to find a business to buy.”
    “Look!” Summer stood and pointed upriver. A trail of gray smoke drifted above the treetops. A deep-throated whistle sounded, far off and echoing. “The packet is coming.”
    “Eldest will have to eat on the boat,” Mother Erica said, repacking the basket.
     
    The packet rounded the bend as they reached the sloped cobblestone of the landing. It was a triple-decked stern-wheeler with twin smokestacks. Now in sight of the landing, it blasted its whistle again, a deafening howl of near discord. The stevedores caught the mooring ropes and looped them about great pilings set into the stone-work of the levy, tying the stern-wheeler off by bow and stern. The swinging landing stage, fixed with ropes at the bow of the boat, was dropped down to form a gangplank up to the main deck.
    The smooth and practiced docking complete, the huge boat was suddenly laid still beside the stone landing, dwarfing all structures in town. Jerin stood in awe, though he had seen it many times before. What great works woman could create!
     
    Jerin recognized one of the women waiting to board, a small hill of bandboxes and steamer trunks beside her. Miss Abie Skinner taught the one-room schoolhouse that his school-aged sisters attended at the intersection of Whistler, Brindle, Fisher, and Brown land. She had been kind enough over the years to extend the classroom to Jerin and Doric by sending homework back with their sisters. Occasionally, she even came to the house to teach. Reed-thin, she dressed with the same artistic flair of her handwriting. When Jerin was very young, he had been madly in love with her. He recognized signs of it in Doric now. Their infatuation came, he decided, as a side effect of her being the only female they closely associated with who wasn’t blood related.
    “Miss Skinner.” He greeted her with a smile. “You’re going to be on this boat too?”
    His teacher turned in surprise, smiled with pleasure to see him, then frowned. “Master Whistler, you know that a proper young man never starts a conversation with a woman outside of his family when in public.”
    Jerin recoiled, hurt. “But I’ve talked to you lots of times.”
    “I know, lad, but I shouldn’t have let you. ‘Once’ leads to ‘always.’ You’re leaving Heron Landing,