Excerpt:

“Tell me another story, Jack.”

Pegeen’s voice lilted softly through the air, caressing Jack’s ears as he stabbed another flake of hay with his pitch fork. His lips quirked into a smile as he sent the fresh hay flying into the horse’s stall, sweat trickling down his neck and back as he worked.

“Don’t you think you’ve heard enough stories?” Jack asked as he took his handkerchief from his pocket and mopped his face with it.

“Please, tell me another story. Tell me about your life in the workhouses.”

Jack shook his head, looking up at Pegeen, and resting his hands over the top of the pitchfork’s handle. “Now why would you want to hear about that, hmm? Besides, shouldn’t you be tending to your studies with Marjorie?”

Pegeen scrunched her nose in disgust. “I’m dreadfully bored with all of that nonsense. ‘A lady sits with her ankles crossed, and her hands folded daintily in her lap,’” she said; her normally soft tones rising in pitch to imitate Marjorie’s shrill voice to perfection. “What do I need that stuff and nonsense for anyway? I like being up here, reading. And listening to your stories,” she hinted, a twinkle sparkling in her bright, blue eyes.

“You need to learn to do what your mother wishes, Pegeen. She wants you to act like the proper young lady you are, not a ragamuffin who doesn’t know how to properly behave. There’s a reason we were born into the roles of life that we were.”

Pegeen rolled her eyes at Jack and rolled over on her back, staring out the big window the farm hands used to hoist hay bales up to the loft for storage. She sighed wistfully as a large bird flew past.