Echo Mountain - Lauren Wolk Page 0,24

leave just the stinger behind, so they had to leave some of themselves behind, too. And died. As the ones on my glove had. As the one who had stung my cheek had. Which made no sense to me.

I hadn’t taken a drop of honey. I was well away. And now a bee had died, regardless.

My cheek was on fire, no less when I pulled the soft, fuzzy bit of bee off my skin, but somewhat better when I pulled open the kerchief full of mud and pressed it against my face.

I told the bees I was sorry as I flicked their sad remains off my glove and dragged it through the dirt until it was clean.

Samuel came back down the path toward me.

“What’s wrong?” he said. “Why didn’t you come with me? And why do you have mud on your face?”

“Bee sting,” I said, wincing with the pain of it.

He came close, peering at my cheek. “You’ve got a big bump there.”

I nodded. “It’ll go away.”

“Why aren’t you crying?”

I shrugged. “Won’t help me to cry.” Though there were times when tears did me some good.

He looked thoughtful. Reached out to wipe away some mud that was dripping down my jaw. “Where’s the honey?”

“I didn’t take any.”

“What?! Why not? You got stung for nothing?”

I headed up the path. “The bees didn’t have enough to spare. Not yet.”

But Samuel wasn’t impressed. “You could have got a little for our porridge,” he said bitterly. Porridge without something sweet was unfortunate.

I didn’t tell him that the honey had not been meant for porridge. Instead, I told him what my father had told me. “The bees need it more than we do, especially in the winter and the spring. For their babies. And their queen. And themselves.”

I thought again of the egg I’d fed to Maisie instead of using it to gather stink.

“Let’s trade one of the fish to Mrs. Anderson for some eggs,” I said.

Samuel said, “As long as it’s your fish.”

But, as it turned out, a snake came first.

Chapter Eighteen

When we reached the yard, we found my mother and Esther taking turns at the butter churn.

“I caught fish for supper!” Samuel cried, rushing toward them while I lugged our catch the last of the way up from the river, tired now, wiping traces of mud from my cheek.

“We didn’t know where you’d gone,” Esther barked, but not at Samuel. At me. “We were worried, Ellie. You should tell us if you take him with you.”

I might have said any number of things to that. Always, at the end of every list, was the one answer I couldn’t give her: You were the one who was supposed to be watching Samuel the day Daddy got hurt.

“And why did you go fishing when we have venison?” she said.

“I’ll dry the fish so it will keep,” I said. “Or we can use it to make broth for Daddy.”

But she just shook her head. “You know Samuel can’t swim. You shouldn’t have taken him with you. And you should have told us.”

“He followed me. I didn’t mean to take him along.”

“And Mother didn’t mean to trade Maisie’s puppies to Mr. Anderson for one of his milk cows.”

“Esther!” my mother snapped. “That’s enough.”

But she was wrong. It was not enough. “You gave the puppies away?” I said in a voice that was far too small for the big thing that rose in my throat.

“Promised them, yes. As soon as they’re old enough,” my mother said. “We need that cow. She’s much younger than Jupiter and Venus. We can’t expect them to give milk forever.”

“But all the puppies?”

“Mr. Anderson is a hunter,” she said, churning so hard now that she was in danger of busting the dasher into kindling. “He’s the main reason we have meat on our plates. He needs new dogs, coming of age behind his old ones.”

“But all of them? You gave him Quiet?”

She didn’t look at me. “We have barely enough food to spare for Maisie. We don’t need another dog. Another cow, we need.”

“But you wouldn’t even have Quiet if it weren’t for Ellie,” Samuel said, close by my side. “She saved him.”

“And she’ll drink the milk we get from this new cow. And the cream. Eat the butter. The cheese.” My mother still wouldn’t look at me. And I had no desire to look at her. Or at Esther, who wasn’t smiling exactly but didn’t look the least bit sorry. “You can visit Quiet anytime you like,” my mother said.

But that was