“I get fractious too.”

“Yes, you do.”

“Auntie Jennet is so big she waddles.”

“And just why does that bother you? It’s a natural thing.”

“It bothers me because that baby is sure to come on the Fourth of July and then that party will be ruined.”

“She’s pretty close,” Curiosity agreed. “Might could be on the Fourth.”

“It’s not that I don’t want her to have the baby. I’ll be just as happy about the baby as everybody else, but first you and Ma and Hannah will close yourself up with her and you won’t come out for a whole night or maybe even longer, and that will be that, no more Fourth of July.”

“You always borrowing trouble. Why is that?”

“I’m just being pragmatic,” Birdie said. She pronounced the word carefully, as she had only written it down in her notebook yesterday. “And there is real trouble. Daniel got a letter from Manhattan. The new teacher isn’t coming.”

That got Curiosity’s attention. She put down the magnifying glass and the book she was trying to read, and looked at Birdie more closely.

“Do tell.”

“His ma is sickly and he can’t leave Manhattan.”

“Now that is a disappointment. What does Daniel say?”

Birdie fluttered her fingers in the air as if to shoo the idea of her brother away.

“He’s going to put a new advertisement in the newspapers, but you remember how long it took last time? I just know when school starts we’ll all be crammed back into the one classroom. He won’t even talk to Martha about taking the class. I asked him and he got all stony-faced.”

“Not in front of you, he won’t talk to Martha. That business is between him and her, and you had best stay out of it.”

“So you think he might ask her?”

“Mayhap,” Curiosity said.

It gave Birdie some hope. Some very little hope.

“You think she’d rather stay home all day looking after the house? That doesn’t sound like Martha to me.”

Curiosity pursed her mouth while she thought. Then she said, “Other things might keep her at home.”

“Not another baby.”

“I don’t know about that one way or the other,” Curiosity said. “But it’s just a matter of time. That’s all I’m saying.”

Birdie said, “I wish people would stop having babies.”

“You won’t feel that way in another ten years or so.”

“I will too,” Birdie said. “I’m never going to have any.”

Curiosity raised her brows, two strong white wings against her dark skin. “You say so?”

Birdie nodded. “I’m going to go places and do things, and babies just get in the way.”

“Well, then,” Curiosity said. “Duly noted.”

Birdie looked at her closely and saw nothing of amusement in that familiar face. Curiosity wouldn’t make fun when it was something really important, and it was a comfort to her.

“Tell me,” Curiosity said to Birdie. “Was there any other mail?”

“Nothing for you. Ma got a letter from somebody famous about something she wrote in a newspaper; it came all the way from Germany. Luke got letters from his office on Whitehall Street.”

Curiosity said, “Would you just go ahead and spit out whatever it is you come in here to talk about?”

Birdie said, “All right. Every grown-up has been whispering in corners for weeks, it seems like. Nobody will tell me what about, but it’s something important. I asked Da straight out and he told me that it was serious business and none of my concern. Can you imagine that? None of my concern, as if I was one of the little people. If everybody is worried, then I have got the right to be worried too.”

“Sound to me like you already worried,” Curiosity said.

“You know what I mean. If there’s something wrong I could help.”

Curiosity’s expression softened. “Your folks just trying to keep you safe.”

“Safe from what?”

“Maybe nothing,” Curiosity said.

“Jemima,” Birdie said. “I know it’s Jemima everybody is whispering about. Can’t you just tell me that much?”

“Of course it’s Jemima,” Curiosity said. “She’s that bad penny you always hear folks talking about. I can tell you this much—”

Birdie sat up straighter.

“It ain’t none of my business, and none of yours either.”

When Curiosity got a certain look in her eye, it was best to leave things be. Birdie got up and went to find her mother.

Nathaniel Bonner pushed back from the breakfast table late on the morning of the Fourth of July and ran a handkerchief over his damp brow. Elizabeth glanced at him from the newspaper she was reading, revealing ink marks on either side of the bridge of her nose.

She said, “You’re grinning. I take it I have ink on my face?” And she held out her hand for his handkerchief.

“I’m guessing you got a headache if you’re pinching the bridge of your nose.”

“A little one. I’ll ask Hannah for one of her powders.”

He leaned over and kissed her on the brow. “Boots, it’s time you admitted you need spectacles for reading.”

Over the years she had seen at least a dozen people fitted for spectacles—at her own expense too—but now she avoided doing the same for herself.