A Smile Across the Wheat
Barbara Farr Kelley
Molly did not wait for an answer. She spun around and raced out of the death room. Nore was close behind her. The kerosene lantern dashed streaks of light into the blackened corridor.
Molly did not stop until she reached her cabin.
"Molly, my child," Papa soothed, and held her close to his chest. "What in the world has happened to you?"
"Please, Papa. come. with. me," she sobbed.
"Papa turned to the rest of his family and said, "I'll be right back. You all stay in the cabin."
"I'm going with you," Katy insisted.
Molly stared at Katy's determined face and raced toward her. She threw her arms around her oldest sister.
"It'll be all right, Molly dear," Katy promised.
"What's wrong with Molly?" Maggie asked. "Can I come, too?"
"No!" Molly cried in horror.
As though she were about to cry, Maggie pouted her little lips.
Molly said, "I don't ever want you to see what I've been seein' tonight, Maggie. It would scare you. You stay here and take care of Mama."
Maggie puffed her little chest out, and like a big girl promised, "I won't let anything happen to Mama and the children."
If this situation had not been so serious, Molly would have laughed. Eight-year-old Maggie taking care of the children! Danielle was the only child younger than Maggie.
Molly twirled away from her family and led Papa and Katy toward the death room. Nore bounded ahead of Molly, and was the first one to enter the room.
Papa and Katy both gasped with the same kind of horror that Molly had.
"They've been locked in here for six weeks, Papa," Molly reported. "How could Captain Smitty allow this to happen?"
"I'm sure I don't know, but I'll be findin' out right away," Papa swore.
The woman who had spoken to Molly, now spoke to Papa O'Kelley. "None of you should be here. I tried telling the young lass, but she wouldn't listen. We're a sick lot, on the brink of death. Three have died, already, including a newborn baby. It could be the plague."
"More than likely, you're all dying of hunger, not the plague," Katy said. "I'm sure Captain Smitty will bring food as soon as Papa speaks to him."
"What good will it do?" the woman patiently sighed. "We have not eaten since Belfast, and we starved there. At this point in our journey, food would surely kill us all anyway."
"What are you doing in here?" a voice shouted from the doorway. It was the crewman and there was a scowl on his face.
"I could ask you the same thing, young man," Papa stubbornly said. "How dare you put people on this ship and not feed them."
"They're indigents! They're getting a free ride to America," the Englishman retorted.
"And what if they all die before we reach America?" Papa drilled.
"What if they do? I'm sure America doesn't need them any more than Ireland did," the young man said with an ugly tone of voice.
"We'll see about that!" Papa fumed.
Papa, Molly, Katy, and Nore marched their way from the secret room of death, down the long corridor toward the navigation bridge. Molly knew her papa would straighten out the problem below. He always straightened out wrong doings.
When they reached the upper deck of the ship, they noticed it was no longer dark. The sun shone across the frothy waters of the Atlantic Ocean, the tips of the waves glistening like glitter.
They rounded the captain's cabin and entered the navigation bridge. They all stopped. The captain was directly in front of them, but he would never solve the problem of the death room. Captain Smitty lay draped across the steering wheel, a hand clutching his heart.
Molly noticed the compass was now working. They were heading west/southwest. Perhaps
Captain Smitty had gotten them back on track toward Boston before his heart gave out on him.
Molly stared toward the snowy tips of the ocean waves, the deeper blue of the Atlantic below the waves. She was afraid of what the crewman would do to her and her family now that they knew about the secret room. Captain Smitty would not be around to protect them. But Molly did not need to worry about what the crewman would do to them.
God had led them out of the darkness. He had deemed the sun to shine. He had let Molly find the dying people in the secret room. Now they would all die, for right in front of them, deep in the Atlantic, stood a giant iceberg, and they would not be able to miss hitting it.
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