By Any Other Name

Chapter 6

It quickly became apparent that Oliver's excitement to learn was shared by most of the others. They simply couldn't wait to get started. I was more nervous than I would have imagined. I couldn't help thinking that I was a fraud who had no right to attempt to teach anything to anyone, but I couldn't refuse now.

I'd have been completely lost if not for the books that Minnie loaned me, and I was surprised by how many she had. There were several primary readers and novels, two history books, and a few arithmetic books, some of which seemed to be too advanced for me. There was even a science book and one that taught the basics of the French language.

The children's enthusiasm must have been spreading, because when I had a chance to flip through the books, I felt some of their excitement at the prospect of learning new things.

My mother had done the best she could, and since my father was a business man, I had more of an education than most other children with an immigrant parent. Even so, I learned only those things my mother already knew or was able to glean throughout my childhood. So I knew enough arithmetic to keep the books in my father's store and how to read. I could speak some of my mother's native tongue and knew a little history from both Ireland and England.

I knew virtually nothing of American history. The things I'd heard were probably mostly rumors. All I could be certain about was that there was a war nearly twenty years ago. But I didn't know a thing about it and it wasn't very relevant to me now.

Science was a complete mystery to me as was anything regarding learning French. I had a feeling that the majority of my free time was going to be devoted to absorbing as much information as I could from these precious books. For my own sake, but also for the children's.

Possessing those books with so much information that I didn't know, underscored my own ignorance and made me feel that much more incompetent and unprepared. But if the children felt that way, even a little, I couldn't tell. They seemed so accepting and positive that I knew just about everything. In only a few days, I felt accepted into their unique little family and I was able to get to know each of their personalities fairly well.

Cassie was the bossy one, as I'd noticed at the breakfast table. She was proud that she was the oldest and reminded everyone of that fact frequently. Fortunately, feeling that it was her duty, she was also more responsible than the others and was quite helpful with the younger children.

Jack seemed pretty laid back, but I suspected he could be mischievous too. Hannah was so shy that I wasn't sure I'd even know her name if not for Phoebe telling me what it was before. Joshua was the obvious trouble-maker, Phoebe seemed to be the sweet one, dying to help me with absolutely everything, and Oliver was as outspoken and cheeky as he appeared when I first met him.

The small ones, Lilah and Susan were little more than babies. They'd been so busy taking in all the activity around them that they hadn't displayed much of their personalities yet. But I gathered that Lilah was relatively easygoing, content to sit and watch everyone around her and overjoyed to be included, while Susan was more reserved. She wasn't shy so much as hesitant. She seemed unusually somber for a child of her age and I wondered if that was just her natural disposition or if something or someone had caused her to be that way.

I didn't know anywhere near as much about children as Minnie did, of course, but I could tell that they were beginning to look to me as almost a mother figure. Or at least they wanted to. They still seemed hesitant to get too close or too comfortable in case I wasn't going to be around for very long. I hoped it wouldn't take long for that to change. If possible, I didn't ever want to leave this place that was beginning to feel like home. I knew it would be extremely easy to fall in love with each of the children, even factoring in their seemingly constant fighting and need for attention. The younger ones especially could be so energetic and when they really got worked up about something, it was difficult understand a word of what they said.