The Tucker's Home, Cantile, Old Rose Harbor
“See?” Nellie said cheerfully. “There’s a trick to it, really. It’s not so hard.”
It was a warm, sunny afternoon in late spring, the sort when the world seemed alive with promise. It was the time of year when even the scraggly weeds that grew in the Rose seemed to glow a healthy, vibrant green. The sun streamed through mended curtains into the kitchen, not cowed by the distant clouds steadily thickening on the horizon and the promise of the rainy season to come. It wasn’t yet so hot and humid that the little girls couldn’t stand to be in the kitchen with a pot of soup bubbling on the wood-fired stove.
The soup was Nellie’s responsibility, as the oldest, and after a moment at the table she hopped to her feet and went to the stove, stirring a spoon through the pot, pushing hard at something on the bottom when it stuck. There was a quiet scraping, and then the spoon moved freely again, the smell of vegetables tinged with meat wafting through the air. Nellie grabbed a pot holder and shoved the soup pot to the back of the stove, the rapid bubbling slowing to a gentle simmer.
Flo was giggling, and she nudged Caina with her elbow. “Didja see that? She did her face just like Mrs. Wells,” Flo said, tone hushed and admiring.
Nellie came back to the table and sat again. She settled comfortably against the chair, resting her elbows on the table and propping her chin on her hands, looking at the two younger girls sitting across from her. Caina was a regular enough visitor to the house, even since their move now almost two years ago from King’s Court to Cantile; generously, Nellie thought of her like another cousin.
“Do another?” Flo asked, hopefully. “Oh, Nell, do the witch again!”
Nellie grinned, glancing back over her shoulder at the doorway into the rest of the house, then back at Flo and Caina. Her mother and aunt weren’t in sight and, Nellie hoped, maybe they were too busy with the mending upstairs to be keeping an ear out for things Nellie wasn’t supposed to be doing.
Nellie cleared her throat. “It ent hard,” Nellie said, casually. Her accent broadened, childish timbre deepening a little. “You jus’ gotter use a coupla new words, s’all, ‘n jus’ - slur it all a bit. Fair benny.”
“NELLIE TUCKER!” The voice of Ava’s aunt and Flo’s mother echoed down the stairs, sharp and angry. “None of that spokes tongue in this house, you hear me? Flo, you best not be listening!”
“Aw,” Flo said, softly. She huffed, putting her arms on the table and resting her cheek on them. “She always knows...”
Nellie chewed on her lip, studying the two little figures in front of her. “Well – if she don’t want it in the house - let’s go out,” Nellie’s big dark eyes widened, and she grinned again, uncowed by the (not uncommon) scolding. “We’ll tell them we’re running errands for your dad. He won’t mind,” Nellie said, confidently, climbing to her feet.
“He might,” Flo objected, small face pinching tight.
“Not if he don’t know about it,” Nellie explained.
Flo smoothed out, and she grinned, standing and shoving the chair back with a little clattering noise. “Oh, yes! Can we see the tumblers again, Nell?”
“Of course,” Nellie said, generosity ringing in her voice. “I heard there’re good ones, down by the Waterfront. We’ll go and find them.” Nellie went to the doorway, looking up the stairs, grabbing the skirt of her little blue dress to whisk it out of the way of the old wooden door frame, the warped wood gleaming clean from a thorough cleaning. “Ma, Auntie, the soup is simmering! We’ve gotta go run an errand for Uncle!”
“All right! Be good!” Nellie’s mother was the one to call down the stairs this time, her voice lighter and friendlier than the scolding from Nellie’s aunt.
Nellie turned back to Flo and Caina both, and grinned. “There, all sorted.” She raised a little eyebrow at Caina. She looked bright and cheerful, with a mess of frizzy dark hair pulled half-heartedly back with a little white ribbon. She was small for twelve, but bigger than Flo and especially Caina, with a broad smile that spread effortlessly from ear to ear. Just now, she also had a thoroughly mischievous glint in her dark eyes. “Coming, Caina Rose?”