Ellis Island by Kate Kerrigan Read Free Book Online Page A

like hens in a box. My father has five hundred acres of fine farmland—we don’t need to live in the town.”
    “And dirt under his nails like a savage!” Sheila retorted, shockingly.
    For a moment I was frightened of being in the middle of these two scrappers. Frightened mostly that all the other girls would find me out—realize that I was the one no one liked. Perhaps Sheila, with her daft hair and her frank manner, was Kathleen Condon, and I’d be stuck with her in a corner with the whole school hating us, day-into-night, for the next five years.
    “I’m Maeve. What’s your name?” The farmer’s daughter poked me.
    “Ellie.”
    “And where are you from?”
    “Kilmoy.” I added quickly: “It’s only a small town—and my father’s a big man in the government office.”
    The girls looked at me and then at each other. I wasn’t sure if they were impressed or appalled, neither culchie nor townie. Then Sheila pinched me in the arm—“Clever girl you are!”—and I laughed out loud as a young nun called, “Silence for the Reverend Mother!”
    My life had changed completely and I embraced it. Each day began with Mass, and even though the church was cold, and the prayers no different from the ones we said at home, there was a feeling of holiness that I liked. Our priest, Father Matthew, was softly spoken, so that the ceremony became a seamless stream of words and actions, spilling off the altar like the morning mist rolling across the fields outside.
    Breakfast was simple, but it was the best meal of the day because you felt hungry and deserving. Warm porridge with honey and creamy milk, brown bread with plenty of butter, and hot tea—sweetened with sugar on a Sunday. The nuns kept a small farm and they grew all their own fruit and vegetables; there were plenty of them and they weren’t afraid to work, so we enjoyed the fruits of their labor. Sugar was limited generally, but the nuns could afford it and they were passionate bakers. They fed us like princesses with a different dessert after each meal: apple sponge; bread-and-butter pudding; soda cake dripping with raspberry jam. And in case their food turned us hungry girls into hogs, they drummed etiquette into us at every turn. In our first household-management class, Sister Agnes called the girls around to watch me set a place for dinner. “Very good, Eileen.” I glowed with pride as my knowledge of correct cutlery placement, taught to me by my mother, finally came into its own.
    A lot of things fell into place for me that first year. The etiquette and good manners that had made me feel stilted and punished as a child now stood me in good stead. A devotion to the Virgin Mary deepened inside me with the nightly rosary, in a way it had never done before, despite my father’s daily efforts. The twenty girls in my dormitory all knelt by their beds, knees softened by the blankets that we were allowed to put under them, our bellies warmed with hot milk as we chanted by the light of Sister Agnes’s lamp.

Chapter Nine
    The first school year flew by and, before I knew it, I was facing three long months with my parents again. This time I was armed with books to help me against the boredom. Knowing I was an only child, Sister Stephanie had packed me a box from the school library, including Little Women and the adventure stories of H. Rider Haggard. She also packed some religious works, as a consolation to my father, who disapproved of fiction.
    I had not seen my mother in nine months and, when the carriage driver left us at the gate, I saw she was standing, waiting for us at the door. Her hair was pinned back, but escaped tendrils were flickering about her face. As the car pulled up, she brushed her hands down her front to straighten her dress and I realized she was still wearing her apron. She began frantically to untie it, and I felt a clip of love. I held on to the feeling so that when she greeted me with her cheek, I embraced her with my two arms and put a