The Twelfth Child by Bette Lee Crosby

had been standing there wanting to take it all in, shrugged as if to indicate she had no idea what her father’s actions meant.
    Judith Troy stepped down from the surrey and started toward the barn.
    “Get back in the buggy and get off my farm!” William said as he came out of the barn with his shotgun leveled at her head.
    “Now, Mister Lannigan, there’s no need…”
    “Get off my farm,” he repeated.
    “Mister Lannigan, the girl needs…”
    “Needs? I’m the one who decides what she needs and don’t need.”
    “But…”
    William fired a shot into the air. “I’m warning you!”
    Abigail went running over to her father, “Stop, Papa! Please stop! Miss Troy don’t mean no harm. She’s just trying to help.”
    “I ain’t in need of any schoolteacher’s help raising my family!” William lowered the barrel of his shotgun just enough to show he was willing to allow Miss Troy to walk safely back to the surrey.
    “Please, Miss Troy,” Abigail pleaded, “…it’s best you go.”
    Now, Judith Troy was willful and stubborn but she wasn’t foolish enough to take on a twenty-two gauge shotgun, so she climbed back into the buggy and left. But after she’d turned the surrey around and had gotten no more than a few feet along the road she looked back and shouted, “You think about it, Mister Lannigan. Think about it!”
    William fired another shot into the air.
     
    A fter the confrontation with Judith Troy, William flew into a rage the likes of which Abigail had not seen for three years. He grabbed the girl by the arm, yanked her into the house and pushed her down into a straight-backed kitchen chair. “You sit there,” he shouted, “sit there ‘till I say you can get up!” Then he stomped back and forth across the room ranting on and on about how he would not have some meddlesome busybody telling him what to do with his children. “You’ll not go to that schoolhouse another day!” he told Abigail and that’s when she started to cry. Of course, she could have shed enough tears to fill the RappahannockRiver and it wouldn’t have made a difference to William, for at this point his mind was made up. 
    “Papa, please…” Abigail sobbed, but she was told to shut up.
    “I’m not interested in anything you’ve got to say,” he stormed, then kicked at the stove with a vengeance. “You ought to be ashamed of yourself, blabbing our family business to that know-it-all teacher! What on this earth possessed you?” he asked, but when Abigail started to stammer out an answer, he said, “I told you to shut up!”
    After this had gone on for well over an hour, Abigail whispered, “I’m sorry, Papa.  I know I had no right.”
    “You ought to be sorry,” William replied, but this time he wasn’t shouting the way he had been. “I’m your papa, girl. I’m looking out for your welfare. It’s what your mama wanted; and I’m trying to do the best I can.”
    “I know, Papa.  I know.”
    “Then why do you fight me, every step of the way?” William stopped pacing and sat down at the table. He took hold of Abigail’s hand. “Why?”
    “I’m sorry, Papa.  I won’t fight you anymore. If you let me finish the school year, I’ll marry Henry Keller like you want.”
    “It goes against my grain to let you go back to that schoolhouse,” he said. “That teacher is a bad influence on you.”
    “I won’t tell her another thing about our family business, Papa.  I swear I won’t. For certain she’ll never bother you again.”
    “Well, if you’re dead set on finishing, I suppose I can tolerate five more months.”
    “Oh, thank you, Papa. Thank you so much!”
    “Just you make sure that schoolwork don’t get in the way of your chores!”
    “No sir! I’ll make sure of that!”
    That was how William’s tirade finally ended. It didn’t actually end; it just sort of evolved into a peace agreement based on the contingency that Abigail marry Henry Keller.     
     
    A bigail knew she’d made