Emily's Fortune by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor Read Free Book Online

head on his arm. Emily finished eating and burrowed deepdown in the hay next to the wall. She woke once when someone came into the barn to milk the cow and take it out to pasture. But when she woke again, the sun was up, and Jackson was shaking her by the shoulder.
    â€œGet yourself ready, Emily,” he said. “Get all the hay out of your hair, and remember: from now on, you’re my brother, but don’t say anything unless you have to. Stay here in the barn, and as soon as you hear the bugle, come running. We’ll be first in line for the coach.”
    He gave her the biscuit and apple he had brought for her, and then he left. Emily let Rufus crawl around while she ate her breakfast, for who knew when her little turtle would have the next chance to leave his box?
    Halfway through the morning, there it was: the stagecoach driver’s bugle. Emily jumped to her feet and grabbed the carpetbag with Rufus in it, and with the legs of Jackson’s britches smacking against each other as she ran, she managed to get to the front of the line beside her friend.
    The passengers who had traveled to Callaway got off, and Emily and Jackson got on. The driver checked their tickets and pointed to the backseat. An old man climbed on next and sat beside them.
    A plump woman and her grown sister pulled each other up into the coach and, seeing Emily and Jackson in back, said they hoped the children would behave themselves and sit quietly without a lot of squirming. Then they plopped themselves down in the middle seat.
    Finally three rumpled men took the front seat, facing backward toward the women, changing places with each other three times to decide who would get to sit by a window.
    How could she possibly sit still all the way to Redbud? Emily wondered. Her legs would go to sleep! Her feet would be numb! But she waited patiently as the other passengers shuffled their belongings. A bag bumped Emily on the head. A box fell off a shelf and banged her knees. The stagecoach creaked. It dipped and swayed as the passengers arranged themselves, and the horses, eager to be off,pawed at the ground and snorted impatiently.
    They want to get going as much as I do
, thought Emily.
Go! Just go!
    The driver in the blue jacket with the gold buttons climbed up to the seat atop the coach, and Emily waited for the bugle. People gathered on the porch of Callaway’s Inn to see them go, and a last-minute stack of mail was delivered to the back of the stagecoach to take to the people out west.
    The doors closed. The horses snorted again. But just before the stagecoach started to move, a man with silver-black hair and weasel eyes and a tiger tattoo on his forearm came running from the inn and leaped up onto the seat beside the driver. The bugle blew, and off they went.
    Emily felt as though she could not breathe.
    As the other passengers cried, “We’re off!” and waved goodbye, she turned and stared at Jackson. Was this a trick? Had he known all along that Uncle Victor was going with them? But Jackson looked worried too.
    â€œIt’s okay, Eli,” he whispered. “If he knew it wasyou, he would have grabbed you back at the inn.”
    â€œGracious sakes!” said one plump sister, her orange curls bobbing as she spoke. “Wonder who’s the handsome man in the black boots, riding up there beside the driver?”
    The first of the rumpled-looking men facing her answered, “It’s my guess he bribed the driver, because nobody rides up there without an invitation.”
    â€œBack at Callaway’s, he said he was looking for a runaway niece,” said the second man. “He thinks she might have got off at Fort Jawbone. Going to look for her there, I guess.”
    â€œBut, my! Doesn’t he have a fine mustache!” said the second grown sister, who had bright painted lips. “We’re on our way to Redbud. How far are you three men going?”
    â€œWe’re heading west to dig for