Someone to watch over me

Mary’s cart, stopped in the road. The mule had his ears back and was braying and snorting and starting to buck. The cart was rocked by men trying to get around and even under it. Mary looked terrified.
    Jack climbed up beside her. “There’s a rumor that police and troops are putting men out in the streets in the city. We have to get turned around and go the other way.”
    Mary gazed with horror at the tide of people behind them. “We’ll both have to steady the mule,“ she said, in a remarkably sensible voice.
    He helped her down from the cart after she’d secured the baby in its cot in the back and warned her older child on pain of death not to get out of the wagon. She and Jack went to gentle the mule and Mary said quietly, while she patted the animal, “I think Grampa is dead. He’s not snoring anymore.“
    “If that’s so, we can’t do anything but get you and the children out of here. Let’s lead the mule to the right side of the road and try to get turned around.”
    They kept trying to get to the right, but it took a long time. As they were forced closer and closer to the bridge, Jack could see that the crowd was stopping. He stood up on the seat of the wagon, barely able to keep his balance long enough to see that the bridge was barricaded by three tanks with turret guns aimed at the oncomers.
    When they finally got to the right of the road, Jack said, “Get down in the back and hold tight to the children.”
    As Mary did as she was told, Jack discovered there was a whip in a metal holder at his side. It hadn’t been used for so long it was almost rusted in place. He wrenched it loose, pulled violently on the right rein, and smacked the rump of the mule with the whip as hard as he could.

Chapter 15

    The gardening expedition visited several fine gardens. At the last one, the house looked a bit sad and shabby, but the gardens were spectacular. This, they assumed, was the mansion most likely to sell plants. Robert strolled off and found the head gardener and with effusive compliments and the exchange of very little money made a deal that would allow Mrs. Prinney to take home a few perennials. “Just to get her started,“ Robert told the gardener.
    Mrs. Prinney purchased for Grace and Favor two substantial bushel baskets of cuttings and seedlings wrapped in damp newspapers. Mimi had been assigned to write down the names and stick them with the right items. Lily had merely roamed around, gawking and thinking how very pretty everything was. There were little islands of colorful things edged with what Mrs. Prinney said was boxwood. Lily had spotted the gardener trimming it to boxlike perfection with nail scissors.
    On the way back, they had to stop twice to get a glass of water to refresh the little seedlings. On the second stop—at a gasoline station—Mrs. Prinney met with resistance, and while she negotiated with the owner, Robert, who was still thinking about his mummy, said to Lily, “I wish there was someone who knew when the icehouse in the woods was abandoned.”
    Mimi, in the backseat, filing her nails intently, said, “Nineteen twenty-six.”
    Robert’s head snapped around. “Are you sure of that?”
    Mimi nodded, holding out her hand to see if her nails were all even lengths. “It was the year Miss Flora, your great-uncle Horatio’s aunt, died. Her father had had the icehouse in the woods built years before, I think. But the butler was nearly as old as Miss Flora was, and he put his big of foot down and said he wasn’t going clear into the woods to get the ice no more.”
    Robert had to resist slapping his head for his stupidity. He should have realized long ago that Mimi would know the most about the history of Grace and Favor. Her mother had been housekeeper and nurse for Miss Flora when Mimi was a child, and when Mimi’s mother died, Mimi herself took over until the old woman’s death. When Robert and Lily’s great-uncle, Horatio Brewster, moved into the house he brought his own staff and let Mimi and the butler go.
    Mrs. Prinney came back to the Duesie with her glass of water.
    “Isn’t that going to make the ink run on the labels?“ Lily said.
    Mimi had put away her nail file and was helping Mrs. Prinney move the seedlings around so they all got a drink. “No, I did them in pencil.“
    “Robert, we must hurry home,“ Mrs. Prinney said, after returning the glass to the proprietor. “I don’t want them to dry out. I don’t suppose you’d be willing to put your