“If he’s justice of the peace, doesn’t that mean—couldn’t he stop any trouble—”

“That’s what I’m talking about! You cause trouble and we’ll never be able to make a success in this town, you know that!” Papa was shouting now. She figured that she had one last chance before he stopped listening altogether.

“Mama wanted me to graduate.”

She held her breath. Sometimes mentioning Mama helped . . . but not always. Papa had often clashed with Mama, even toward the end, when she could speak only a few words between snatched breaths. Hanna had inherited a good bit of Mama’s stubbornness, as well as her straight black hair, tan skin, dark curved eyes.

He stared down into his teacup. “She wanted a lot of things,” he mumbled.

“Things she could never have. This one, I can still do for her.”

At last he looked up, glaring. “Funny you should mention Harris,” he said. “Turns out he’s on the school board as well. So he’s the one I’ll have to speak to. But I’m not making any promises, you hear?”

“Yes. Thank you, Papa.”

She fetched the kettle and freshened his tea.

Hanna realized too late that she hadn’t gotten Papa to promise when he would speak to Mr. Harris. She wanted to start school right away, but by the end of the week, no more had been said about it. A dozen times she’d had to bite her tongue to keep from asking. She knew that if he felt she was nagging, he might change his mind about the whole thing.

He’s been busy, she told herself yet again. He was spending his days at the depot, the lumberyard, the hardware store, buying and ordering and hauling supplies for the building of the shop.

Hanna was busy as well. A pile of clothes to be mended waited on one chair, with an even bigger pile of laundry on another. At her request, Papa had brought her lengths of muslin from one of the dry-goods stores to make bed linens. She couldn’t wait to sleep in clean new sheets after so many grubby nights in the wagon.

All that had to wait, though. First she needed to sieve the flour and the cornmeal. She found the box that held the sifter, a ring of tin with a mesh bottom, and brought out the flour sack. A few cupfuls at a time, she poured flour into the sifter and shook it over her largest cooking pot. The flour fell through the mesh, leaving behind an assortment of weevils, pantry moths, and flour worms. After she finished, she went outside to empty the sieve by flinging the insects into the yard. The sieved flour went into a big crock with a good tight lid. No pests could get into the crock; it would stay free of bugs, provided she made sure it held only clean flour.