Mama and Papa never knew about that, of course. She tried telling them once, but Mama only looked sad. "What did you do before your hair pulled itself, Finny?"
Finny clasped her hands behind her back and watched her toe while she made it trace circles on the floor.
"The big girls wouldn't have made your hair hurt if you hadn't made them angry," Papa said. "What did you do?"
"Agnes told me to go back along the row and hoe the weeds I'd missed," Finny said grudgingly.
"And did you do it?"
"No," Finny admitted.
"What did you do?" asked Papa.
"Told her she wasn't Mama," Finny grumbled.
"Now, that was wrong, Finny," Mama said. "When any of the older girls gives you an order, they're giving it for me—unless they order you to do something you're not supposed to do."
"The older you grow, the more people you can order," Papa agreed.
Finny decided she didn't like order very much.
"Dory gives orders to Rhea and Rhea, gives orders to Orma, and so on down the line," Mama told her. "Any of them can give orders to you, and I expect you to obey them. Do you understand?"
"Yes'm," Finny muttered, still tracing circles with her toe. Inside, a rebellious voice shouted, It's not fair!
"Don't worry, little one." Papa patted her on the shoulder. "When you grow to be big, you can give orders, too. For a year, you'll even be the oldest girl in the house, and you'll be able to give orders to any of the other girls!"
That was a nice thought. Finny looked up at Papa with adoring eyes and decided that someday she'd be the person who got to give orders to everybody else.
Little children accept what they're told is the order of the world, but as they grow, they begin to wonder about it. One day when the heat and humidity were oppressive, Finny stopped gathering berries and started to take off her dress. She might have succeeded, but Orma was in the next row and saw her. "Finny! You put that right back on!"
"But it's so much cooler without it," Finny whined.
"You'll get a sunburn without it, too," Orma said, "and it makes my heart ache to hear you crying. Put it back on, Finny."
Finny did, grumbling, "Why do we have to work, anyway?"
"Because if we don't work, we won't have anything to eat," Agnes said, proud of knowing something Finny didn't.
Finny felt a moment of pure hatred for the older girl, then a deep shame, for Agnes had said she loved Finny.
"You should feel ashamed," Orma said. "After all, you know more than the younger children, too—and she's right. If we don't help Papa plow and sow seeds, there won't be any wheat or barley. If we children don't plant potato eyes, there won't be any potatoes."
"But the hens will keep laying!"
"Only if we take care of the hens—and take care of the pigs and the sheep, too, or there won't be any meat to eat. Then we have to salt it and smoke it, and can the fruits and vegetables, or there won't be any food left to eat in the winter."
Understanding burst in Finny's mind. "That's right! We have to put seeds in the ground if we want wheat to reap in the fall!"
"And if we don't reap it and bind it and thresh it, it will rot in the fields." Orma nodded, happy that her little foster sister understood. "And if you don't go to school, you'll never learn enough to help make the King and Queen go away."
Finny had already started school, and learned about all the horrible things the King and Queen did, such as taking people's money and making laws to keep them from doing what they wanted and starting wars. She didn't understand how learning how to add and subtract was going to help get rid of the King and Queen, but she did understand that she had to learn to read if she wanted to know what people long ago had done to try to do away with crowns and how the Kings and Queens had stopped them. Of course, she'd have to learn to write if she wanted to be able to let people who came after her know what she had done for the fight in her own turn.
Somehow getting credit for what she did do seemed more important than letting other people know what didn't work. She liked it when people praised her, and since it didn't happen very often, she was trying to figure out every way she could of winning that praise.
Mama taught them in school that winning was very important, because they all had to try to win against the King and Queen, and that was very hard, because the King and Queen were very rich and had very, very many soldiers. They even had mind readers like Finny and her foster brothers and sisters helping them. Finny hated those other mind readers; they should all have been on the same side. Mama taught her a nice word for those royal mind readers: "traitors."
She also told them never to let the people in town know that they were planning to get rid of the King and Queen. Nobody had ever broken that rule, so the villagers thought Mama and Papa were fine people, generous and caring, because they took in so many unwanted children and taught them to work hard and even to read and write and cipher, which meant they would be able to earn a living without taking jobs away from anyone else.
The villagers didn't seem to have taught that to their own children, though. Finny remembered her first trip to town. She was very excited and could hardly hold still as Dory herself tied her bonnet on. "You have to remember now, Finny," she warned, "don't let those village children get you angry. Promise me that no matter what they say, you won't let them hear your thoughts or try to hurt them, no matter how badly you want to."
That took some of the excitement out of it. Finny stilled, staring up at her big sister round-eyed. "I promise, Dory."
"And you must promise me never, never to let anyone outside the house know that you can read minds or move things with your thoughts."
Finny stared. "Why not?"
"Because most people can't do it, and if they find out we can, they'll grow jealous and even afraid of us, and try to hurt us for it. Promise, now."
"I promise," Finny said, but the day seemed dimmer, somehow. She felt as though she had done something wrong already.
Then they went out and climbed into the wagon, though, and the excitement came back. Finny couldn't keep still; she found herself dancing. Dory laughed with joy to see her and drummed her heels in time to Finny's steps.
Finny had never seen so many houses so close together, and never any so tall. She clung tightly to Orma's hand as she looked about her, inhaling the mixture of strange fragrances and seeing all the bright and enticing things on the stands under the awnings along the streets. She could tell the lumpy green and yellow things were vegetables and the red and green ones were fruit, but she didn't know what to make of the stiff, colorful bundles in a third stall. "Orma. what's those?" She pointed.
"Those?" Orma followed the pointing finger. "Cloth. Finny. Many different kinds and colors of cloth."
"All that cloth?" Finny stared; it was ever so much prettier than the brown and gray homespun the big children wove at home.
"And look! The cabinetmaker!" Orma pointed and Finny looked, but it wasn't anywhere nearly as exciting—only an old man scraping curls from some sticks with a strange sort of double-handled knife, though she had to admit the chairs and tables about him were much prettier than the ones Papa made.
"Nyah-nyah! Little foundlings!"
Finny turned to stare at the four richly dressed boys who were thumbing their noses at the girls. Orma stood her straightest and turned Finny's head frontward. "Don't look, Finny. Don't pay them any attention at all!"
"Didn't have a father." two of the boys chanted in derisive singsong. "Never knew your mother!"