“You remind me of my little brother, Thomas.” Rebekah chuckled and accepted the paper. “Peter can you pay this young man please?”
“Certainly.” Peter gave the young man a dime, and he dropped it into his pouch. It tinkled musically.
“Thankth you very much, mithter.” He turned away, a holding a fresh paper aloft. “Extra, extra! Read all about it! Nellie Bly theths thail for England!”
The paper was warm in Rebekah’s hands. “Um...Peter, Joseph.”
Peter looked after the little boy in the gray cap. “He reminds me of me, when I was a boy.”
“Peter, you need to see this.” Rebekah held it out to her brother. “Look at the picture on the cover.”
The three of them stared at the front page of the New York World newspaper. Katie, in a fancy English dress and feathered hat, just like the ones Rebekah saw walking by, stared back at them. Rebekah read the title. “‘Nellie Bly, Out of The Madhouse.’”
Joseph continued reading the smaller print underneath. “‘Takes the World by Storm—In Under 80 Days. Set to Depart for London Tomorrow Morning!’”
“Tomorrow morning,” Peter said. “Then we have tonight to find her. Joseph?”
“Yes?”
“Does it say where they’re departing from?”
Joseph skimmed the paper. As he read and mumbled the words, Rebekah looked around. A woman draped in rags with her arm around a small child scuttled up to a barrel on the corner of one of the dirt streets. Without so much as a look toward her or any of the other well-dressed people on the street, the woman dug her hand into the barrel and began scoop mushy, half-eaten food into her mouth. The child began to whine and tug on the woman’s rags, but a handful of mushy food from the woman quieted him.
Rebekah gasped. “Did you see that? The woman and the child?” She pointed into the throng of people. “Nobody even stopped to help them!”
Joseph shook his head. “No. No mention of the ship they’re taking in this paper anywhere. As a matter of fact, it says—”
“It’s starting to rain,” Peter muttered. “Come on, let’s get out of the middle of everything and under some kind of cover.” He looked around, shielding his eyes. “Goodness me, not even one tree in sight to take cover under.”
Though nobody was listening to anybody else, Joseph continued. “They are specifically not telling anyone what ship they are leaving on, until tomorrow’s edition!” He slapped the newspaper, freshly cooled, closed. “Feels like they’re just trying to get another of our dimes!”
Peter, with one hand on her back and the other on Joseph’s, shoved them through the people, now rushing to get out of the soupy drizzle. “Come on, let’s get under some shelter!” In their haste, they dashed right passed the woman and child, who had nowhere to do. At least, nowhere more important than the rubbish bin that was providing them their fill of food.
Rebekah’s jaw dropped. What’s happening to my family? We are all here together, in close quarters, talking, but not to each other. And certainly not hearing each other. It’s like we are living three separate lives, right here together. What has the English world done to us already? “How can anyone live like this?”
***
Rebekah stood in the overhanging doorway as the rain drizzled on, not fully raining and certainly not dry, looking out at the city that had yet to impress her. The woman and child still ate from the trash barrel, not thirty feet in front of them. If they were back in Gasthof Village, at least three families would have invited them in to sup with them by now. “So why haven’t we?”
Joseph’s body was turned toward Rebekah in their crammed in space, with Peter on the other side of her. “Why haven’t we what, Rebekah?”
Her quilting bag clutched to her middle, she steeled her jaw. “Peter, how much money do we have left?”
“Enough, I suppose.” He shifted his body, then shook his head. “I can’t rightly get to my wallet right now, being all cramped in this place and all, or I’d count it out and give you an exact amount.”
“Look in front of us.”
Finally, Joseph and Peter looked, at the plight that Rebekah spotted that was playing out right before them.
“Surely we can afford a meal for that family.” Rebekah poked her head out into the street. “There must be a restaurant or diner of some sort around here.”
“Too bad we didn’t bring one of your famous cinnamon cakes,” Joseph whispered into her hair. “Then we wouldn’t have to find someone else to cook for us. I must say, the food on this journey so far has been quite disappointing.”
Peter nodded in agreement as he scanned the street and read the signs of the shops.
Joseph thought for a moment before leaning in close and dropping his voice to a whisper. “I do hope you’ll be making several for our wedding celebration.”
Rebekah’s eyes widened. His warm breath on her ear and neck brought a skip to her heart. “Not much longer now.”
“December 3,” Joseph agreed.
“I’m glad we think with the same mind on matters such as these,” Rebekah said, cutting her eyes to the woman and child. “Those matters are the most important.”
“Did Jesus not give the Great Commandment, above all else, love each other as I have loved you?” Joseph stepped out into the drizzle. “Not many folks around here seem to be living that one, now are they?”
Rebekah followed him, craning her neck to study the street signs. No restaurant near here? That is odd. “No. No they don’t seem to.” Rebekah started over to the woman. “Perhaps they haven’t been properly shown how. After all, faith without works is dead, is it not?”
Peter stepped quickly to meet his sister’s stride. “Good thinking. We may as well do what we Amish do best and leave it better than we found it.”
Rebekah glanced up at Peter, catching his double entendre. We Amish. Despite the poor sleep she’d gotten and the less-than-ideal conditions at present, her face softened into a sincere smile. “Yes. What we do best.”
The woman whirled as Rebekah, Peter, and Joseph approached. “I have a knife,” she warned in a thick, rolling accent. “And I’ll use it, I will.” Her trembling hand attempted to conceal the child behind her. “I’ve no money and no possessions. And the food in this bin is mine. Go find your own.”
Rebekah sucked in a breath. “You won’t need to use your knife on us, Miss.” She stuck out her hand. “I’m Rebekah. Rebekah Stoll.”
The woman stared at her with large, distrusting eyes. She didn’t extend her hand, so Rebekah gently brought hers back to her middle and cupped it at her stomach.
“This here is my brother Peter Wagler.” Rebekah thought she caught a flicker of a grin pass over Peter’s face. At least, that’s how it looked from the corner of her eye.
