A Northern Light by Jennifer Donnelly Page A

drinking tea, and I was in the parlor. I was supposed to be dusting, but I'd been eavesdropping instead.
    "That huge farm ... all the
work,
Ellen," my aunt said. "Seven babies ... three buried because they weren't strong enough, because
you
weren't strong enough... and now another one coming. What on earth can you be thinking? You're not a field hand, you know. You're going to ruin your health."
    "What would you like me to do, Josie?"
    "Tell him no, for goodness' sake. He shouldn't make you."
    There was a long, cold silence. Then my mamma said, "He doesn't
make
me." And then the parlor door almost hit me in the head as she burst into the room to fetch me home even though I hadn't finished dusting. They didn't speak for weeks after that, and when they finally did make up, there were no more words against my pa.
    My aunt could be very trying and she made me angry at times, but mostly I felt sorry for her. She thought that figurines on your shelves and white sugar in your tea and lace trim on your underthings were what mattered, but that was only because she and Uncle Vernon didn't sleep in the same room like my mother and father had, and Uncle Vernon never kissed her on the lips when he thought no one was looking, or sang her songs that made her cry, like the one about Miss Clara Verner and her true love, Monroe, who lost his life clearing a logjam.
    I put John the Baptist down and picked up Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane. The quality wasn't so good on that one. Jesus had an odd expression and a greenish cast to his face. He looked more like a man with stomach trouble than one who was about to be crucified. I squeezed him tightly to get his attention, then sent him a quick prayer to make my aunt amenable.
    As I polished him, I wondered why on earth someone would collect such junk. Words were so much better to collect. They didn't take up space and you never had to dust them. Although I had to admit I hadn't had much luck with my word of the day that morning.
Uriah the Hittite
was the first word the dictionary had yielded, followed by
stinkpot,
then
warthog.
And then I'd slammed the book shut, disgusted.
    After Jesus, there was a bible with THE GOOD BOOK written on it in real fourteen-karat gold. I picked it up and was just going to tell my aunt about Barnard and ask her for the money, when she spoke first.
    "Watch you don't polish the gold off that," she cautioned me.
    "Yes, Aunt Josie."
    "You reading your bible, Mattie?"
    "Some."
    "You should spend more time reading the Good Book and less reading all those novels. What are you going to tell the Lord on Judgement Day when He asks you why you didn't read your bible? Hmm?"
    I will tell Him that His press agents could have done with a writing lesson or two,
I said. To myself.
    I did not think the Good Book was all that good. There was too much begetting, too much smoting. Not much of a plot, either. Some of the stories were all right—like Moses parting the Red Sea, and Job, and Noah and his ark—but whoever wrote them down could have done a lot more with them. I would like to have known, for example, what Mrs. Job thought about God destroying her entire family over a stupid bet. Or how Mrs. Noah felt to have her children safe on the ark with her while she watched everyone else's children drown. Or how Mary stood it when the Romans drove nails straight through her boy's hands. I know the ones writing were prophets and saints and all, but it wouldn't have helped them any in Miss Wilcox's classroom. She still would have given them a D.
    I put the bible back and started in on the Seven Deadly Sins: Pride, Envy, Wrath, Lust, Gluttony, Sloth, Greed. I had to stand on the step stool to reach them. They were on a shelf over one of the parlor's two windows.
    "There's Margaret Pruyn," my aunt said, peering out the window and across the street to Dr. Wallace's house. "That's the second time this week she's been to the doctor's. She's not saying what's wrong, but she doesn't have to. I