Wilderness Days (23 page)
Authors: Jennifer L. Holm
“How’s he going to support you puttering around in that wee boat?” another man shouted.
“How do ya know he hasn’t got a wife in some other port? Now, an oysterman like me’ll stay put,” a man with a missing tooth assured me with a lopsided smile.
“He ain’t worth love,” Red Chancy cackled. “The only thing worth that kind of hankering is Old Rye!”
“Good day,” I said firmly, and continued on, dragging my now muddy skirts behind me.
Farther down the street I arrived at the Frink Hotel. Outside it stood a horse-drawn wagon piled high with trunks, and helping to unload the wagon was the dark-haired sailor Red Charley had been talking about.
“Jehu!” I called happily.
He turned to me, his eyes lighting up, his smile tugging at my heart. He was so handsome, with his shock of curly black hair, his blue eyes, the scar that ran jaggedly along his cheek.
“Jane,” he said.
At that moment the door to the hotel opened and Sally Biddle appeared, wearing a rose silk dress and a smug expression.
“Why, if it isn’t Jane Peck! What a marvelous coincidence!” Sally trilled, her gold curls shining in the sun.
Jehu grinned at me, setting down the trunk he was carrying. “It’ll be good to have an old friend out here, won’t it, Jane?”
I had never spoken to Jehu of Sally Biddle. In truth, I had hoped to forget her completely.
“Yes, Jane. I was just telling Mr. Scudder what great friends we were in Philadelphia,” Sally said sweetly, the very model of a kind girlfriend, her gaze lingering just a moment too long on Jehu’s handsome features. “We had such wonderful times together, didn’t we?”
I saw the look in Sally’s eyes daring me to contradict her, and my stomach roiled. Katy was right to have warned me. Sally Biddle was just as dangerous as any
memelose
—and no one but me could see her true self. I felt my face go cold, my skin prickle with sweat.
“Jane,” Sally said, her eyes mock-solicitous. “Are you feeling well? You look rather … drawn.”
“Jane?” Jehu asked, concern in his voice.
But I couldn’t answer. I turned and fled up the stairs of the hotel to my room.
This is a work of fiction. All incidents and dialogue, and all characters with the exception of some well-known historical and public figures, are products of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Where real-life historical or public figures appear, the situations, incidents, and dialogues concerning those persons are fictional and are not intended to depict actual events or to change the fictional nature of the work. In all other respects, any resemblance to persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2002 by Jennifer L. Holm
All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Yearling, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York. Originally published in hardcover in the United States by HarperCollins Children’s Books, a division of HarperCollins Publishers, New York, in 2002.
Yearling and the jumping horse design are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Holm, Jennifer L.
Boston Jane : wilderness days / by Jennifer L. Holm. — 1st trade pbk. ed.
p. cm.
Sequel to: Boston Jane: an adventure.
Sequel: Boston Jane: the claim.
Summary: Far from her native Philadelphia, Miss Jane Peck continues to prove that she is more than an etiquette-schooled graduate of Miss Hepplewhite’s Young Ladies Academy as she braves the untamed wilderness of Washington Territory in the mid 1850s.
eISBN: 978-0-375-89400-8
[1. Frontier and pioneer life—Washington (State)—Fiction. 2. Washington Territory—History—19th century—Fiction. 3. Etiquette—Fiction. 4. Orphans—Fiction. 5. Chinook Indians—Fiction. 6. Indians of North America—Washington (State)—Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.H732226Bs 2010
[Fic]—dc22
2009005107
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