Up a Road Slowly by Irene Hunt Read Free Book Online

against the arm of the seat.
    Finally he spoke, almost as if to himself. “It happens the world over—we love ourselves more than we do the one we say we love. We all want to be Number One; we’ve got to be Number One or nothing! We can’t see that we could make ourselves loved and needed in the Number Two, or Three, or Four spot. No sir, we’ve got to be Number One, and if we can’t make it, we’ll rip and tear at the loved one till we’ve ruined every smidgin of love that was ever there.” He sighed. “I don’t know what to tell you, little lady.”
    He had to leave me then to go about his duties, and he didn’t return to my seat until it was almost time for the train to pull into the station where Father would be waiting for me. Then he leaned down and spoke to me almost in a whisper. “I believe that, was I you, I’d try growing up a little and giving some thought about what I could do for my big sister from the Number Three or Four spot.”
    The last days of that summer were troubled ones for me. I wondered if I had ripped and torn at Laura as the conductor had said people did, the world over, if I had destroyed all her love for me because of my anger at being somewhere other than in the “Number One spot.” I recalled all the brattish things I had said, though I wanted to forget them. The little Cathedral of Four Silver Birches became my hideaway during those troubled days, and the tears I shed were those of the true penitent.
    Aunt Cordelia noticed my preoccupation, and she was unusually kind. “Laura is young and healthy and under good medical care, Julia. I don’t think that we need to be fearful. In a few weeks she will be as happy as your mother used to be after each of you was born.”
    I nodded, but the dreariness inside me was undiminished. Even when Father called us early one morning in September to tell us that Laura and Bill had a little daughter, that Laura was well and happy, that the baby was healthy and beautiful—even then, I crawled off to my cathedral and wept because I didn’t believe that Laura could ever really love me again.
    A new year of school had begun and each day Aunt Cordelia and I marched off to the white schoolhouse, sometimes joined by Danny and Carlotta, all of us employing our diaphragms in deep breathing and obediently fixing our thoughts upon the beauty of September skies and the glory of wild asters and goldenrod—sometimes with sly grins at one another. Once again I lost my identity as Aunt Cordelia’s niece, put my mind upon the tasks she set for me, avoided Aggie Kilpin, became a devoted friend and then an avowed enemy of Carlotta Berry. But this year was different; I missed Chris sharply when I looked at the empty seat beside Danny, and I grieved, even as I learned to find the area and circumference of a circle, for my big sister’s love which I was sure that I had lost forever.
    Another telephone call came on the sixth of September. I shall never forget the date for it was the day of my return to happiness. Aunt Cordelia answered the telephone. I heard her address someone as “William”—that would be Bill, of course—heard her ask about Laura and the baby, heard her say thoughtfully that yes, she thought it could be arranged; no, the schoolwork could be made up easily; yes, she felt that it would be a good thing for both girls. Then she called me to the telephone and Bill’s voice, now grown very dear to me, told me that the baby’s name was “Julie,” that Laura was home from the hospital, that he had wanted to hire a woman to help her with the baby, but that Laura had said no, she wanted her sister with her for the next few days. He asked me if I would come, and I began to cry and told him between hiccoughs that, yes, I would be there.
    Aunt Cordelia found one of my old dolls that evening, and she showed me how to protect an infant’s head