Patricia Wrede - Thirteenth Child

“Mrs. Grey and my wife will be waiting for us,” Mr. Farley said. “They were concerned that the train would come in late and you’d have a hard time getting your children fed and settled before dark.”

“That’s very neighborly of them,” Mama said.

“Folks here look out for one another,” Mr. Farley told her. “We have to. That is—it’s not that the city isn’t safe, being on the east bank and all, but we’ve got into the habit.”

“Just so.” Papa’s voice was a little dry. “When is my appointment with Mr. Grey? I would like to present my credentials as soon as possible.”

“Well, he’d planned to meet your train himself,” Mr. Farley said. “He’s very pleased at having a proper educated East Coast magician on staff at last. But one of the outer-ring farm settlements was having a little problem, and he was the only one able to go and see about it.”

“I understood that Mr. Grey was a magician,” Papa said. “Is he also an agricultural expert, then?”

“Oh, no—that is, no more than any of the rest of us outside the agricultural department,” Mr. Farley said hastily. “But magicians are in short supply here, and since magic is the only thing that will hold back the wildlife, we take turns maintaining the barriers for folks west of the river. Well, except when there’s a major breach; then it has to be the best man we have.” He paused. “I fear from the description we received that Gannertown will lose most of this year’s crop.”

“I—see,” Papa said, in the tone that meant he was going to give whatever he’d just heard a good hard think before he said anything else about it.

“Mr. Farley,” Mama put in, “I do hate to interrupt, but would you mind telling me what that very interesting building over there is? The one with the gold pillars on either side of the door.”

“That’s the North Plains Territory Homestead Claim and Settlement Office,” Mr. Farley replied. “The hotel for settlers making claims is that big square building, and the courthouse is across the street, with the clock tower. Farther down, just there, you can see the Farmers’ Bank; that’s really the town center. We have two general stores ...”

Since I couldn’t see what Mr. Farley was pointing at, I stopped listening, and after a while I dozed off. The next thing I knew, Papa was lifting me down in front of an enormous stone house with a wide porch and a dirt yard. A small, worried-looking woman came out to greet Mama, while the boys ran in all directions.

We had reached our new home at last.

THE HOUSE THAT THE COLLEGE HAD PROVIDED FOR US WAS LARGE enough to satisfy even Nan (we each got a room of our very own). The Board of Directors had bought it from a lumber baron who’d made a fortune in the timberlands to the north and then gone back East to flaunt his fortune in front of the folks there. They’d intended to use it for classrooms until they got their new buildings built, and putting us into it instead left them a mite short of space. So for the first three years, Papa’s classes met in the front parlor, and Professor Graham’s classes met in the sitting room next to it.

Professor Graham was the college’s other professor of magic. One of the families who owned the big grain mills had sent him East to school on the understanding that he was to bring his knowledge back to the territory, and though he’d been quick enough to agree when he left, you could see plain as plain that he wasn’t pleased now that he was back. He lorded it over everyone, on account of his schooling, and at first he couldn’t make up his mind whether Papa was his competition or his ally. He was considerably put out when he discovered that Papa wasn’t much interested in being either.

I was too young then to pay heed to Professor Graham or his notions, and I probably would have known nothing about them if it hadn’t been for his son, William. William was just one year younger than Lan and me, a thin, sandy-haired miniature of his father. William’s mother was an invalid, so his father had the raising of him, which meant more rules than you could shake a stick at. We were the first friends he’d ever really had, because his father didn’t want him mixing with less-educated folk, and none of the other college families had children his age.

He almost didn’t get to mix with us, either, after Professor Graham found out that Mama and Papa were sending us to the day school instead of giving us special tutoring at home. But in the end the professor decided that William would be a good influence on us, and let him stop by to play when he wasn’t studying.

William took his influencing seriously, though he was mainly parroting the things his father said. He’d go on about the responsibilities of magic and the importance of proper learning at the slightest excuse, usually whenever Lan or Robbie came up with an idea for a prank he didn’t approve of.

Once in a while, I even took his side. Truth to tell, I thought it was funny to see Lan and Robbie come in for something like the lectures I’d had all my life. Then, too, I felt sorry for William, stuck in the house with the professor and a sick mother most days and with no friends but us.

My brothers and sisters and I all made friends at school right away. The upper school was even larger than the one back in Helvan Shores, which was a relief to Hugh and Rennie and Nan. Jack didn’t care, and Allie and Robbie were still down in the day school with Lan and me. Lan and I were in the same class, along with nine others. They were fascinated by us because we were twins, and of course no one knew that I was a thirteenth child or that Lan was a double-seventh son. I would have hung back, since I knew that sooner or later the other children would find out about me, but Lan dove right in and dragged me along with him. And the topic of family size and birth order just never came up.

For the next three years, Lan and I had basic schooling—reading, writing, arithmetic, history, and natural history. We weren’t taught any magic theory until we turned nine and went into the fourth grade; that was the way all the schools handled it then. Still, being around the house with the college students in and out for classes meant that we all picked up a bit, even though William was the only one who got lessons. Professor Graham had advanced ideas about training children in magic, and he was a little put out that Papa wasn’t eager to run educational experiments on us.

The first class of the Northern Plains Riverbank College graduated just before Lan and I turned nine. There were seventeen students who finished, out of the twenty-two who’d started. Our whole family had to get dressed up and go to the ceremony because six of the seventeen were taking degrees in magic, three with Papa as their sponsor. I could have done without the honor. All I remember of the graduation itself was that it was long and hot and boring, and that even though it was still early in the spring, the bugs were out with a vengeance, buzzing around our sweaty necks and landing to sting any bare bit of skin they could find.

After the ceremony, things brightened up. We joined the crowd on the lawn, where punch and cakes had been set out on long tables draped in white. Half of Mill City seemed to be there, and most of them didn’t know any of us, so as soon as we could, we slipped away from our parents and started through the lines over and over. Robbie was especially good at wheedling an extra piece of cake from the ladies who were serving, so he got nearly twice as much as the rest of us.

I was coming away from the tables with my third piece of cake, feeling very daring, when a voice behind me said, “Well, if it isn’t young Eff! Didn’t I see you a few minutes back with a plateful of sweets? What happened, one of your brothers knock it over?”