Emma Field Book I - coming of age in the changing times of the mid-19th century

Chapter XIX - Smallpox

"Jane Morgan will not be present. She has the smallpox and high fevers. Those of you in the First Reader..." Mr. Brown proceeded as though he had 
 just said the wind would be coming from the southwest today.

Smallpox! Jane had smallpox!

Emma looked from Mr. Brown to the door, to her feet, and back to Mr. Brown. She needed to escape, fast! Smallpox! Jane! She'd be dead before the Christmas concert – dead and lying in the Bloomfield cemetery under the hard clumps of cold dirt!

"I wonder if they bury children as deeply as adults. Do bugs and worms eat at a body when it is this cold? Will Jane be buried in her new dress?"

Abruptly she brought these thoughts to a halt, like a horse being pulled up short from a full gallop. Surely Jane would live. She mustn't die.

"But maybe she'll be blind; maybe her face will be marked like a ploughed field. Then she'll never marry; she'll have to live out her days as a spinster, while the family feeds and clothes and puts up with her. She's so pretty it would be really hard for her to be disfigured, and how hard it would be for Jane, of all people, to never marry."

All morning Emma struggled to concentrate on her lessons. The letters on her slate were tight and cramped. She was relieved that Mr. Brown stayed in his chair, hour after hour. When she had at last choked down her dry bread for dinner and Mr. Brown had dismissed the girls for recess, Emma bolted.

"Where are you going?" called Mary Victoria. "Emma! Where are you going?"

Emma didn't reply. She knew she wasn't allowed to leave the school grounds at midday, but she had to – she simply had to get as far away from everyone as possible.

•

Her father sat bolt upright in his bed in the corner.

"Oh! You're here," accused Emma, startled. "I didn't think you'd be here." She started for the door again.

"Just catching a few winks...I didn't sleep well last night. What is it, Emma?"

"Nothing!" Emma raced out to the barn to find solitude, but it was dark inside, and felt foreign and stifling today. Besides, Father would know she was here and would scold her for missing school. She turned and fled toward the Danforth Road, glancing back over her shoulder toward the cabin. The door remained closed. Father hadn't followed her after all.

Emma thought about the Christmas Frolic without Jane. She knew it would be a terrible evening because Jane was the one who always made it beautiful. She not only had the main part, but she also carried every tune through the disarray of other voices. Jane was the one who supervised the decorating of the school with evergreen boughs. She looked like a Christmas decoration herself. No one looked at anyone but Jane – even when she didn't have a new dress. And now, Emma's belly felt hollow with the thought that Jane might not be there.

She turned east on the Danforth Road. Her feet dragged in the snow as she got closer to Jane's house. Emma remembered how thrilled she had been the time Jane had given her peach-coloured candles – until she learned that Jane had taken them while the candles were hanging to cool in the summer kitchen. The wicks had pulled out just as Jane had handed it to her.

"Why didn't you tie a knot in the bottom?" Emma had accused. "If you had tied a knot, the wick wouldn't have slipped through and I'd have been able to use it."

"I didn't make them – Pauline did."

"Did she give it to you then?"

"Pauline is just a servant, silly. She doesn't own anything she could give me. I thought you'd like the colour. I thought you'd like it!"