May 3rd, 1891

"Moooooooooooooommm!" Clara's voice echoed down the staircase as she sprinted up the three flights of stairs to their apartment, prompting several of their newer neighbors to crack open their doors to see what on earth was the matter. Those that knew Clara already didn't bother. She flung the door of their own apartment open and dumped her school bag on the floor as she ran into the parlor. "Ma, Ma, Ma, Ma, Ma!"

"Clara! Clara! Clara! Clara! Clara!" Elizabeth dropped her sewing into her lap to look with exasperation at her daughter. "Whatever is the matter?! And does it really necessitate yelling in the stairwell?"

"Look!" Clara ignored her mother's chastisement and instead reached into her pocket to unfold the picture Hannah had given her and shove it nearly into Elizabeth's nose. She scarcely paused to take a breath between words and Elizabeth had to stifle a laugh at her bright red face. "This is a picture of the tenements from a book that Hannah showed me and Andrew said that it's really not that bad which means he lives in a place worse than that and has even less than they do and just look at that picture it's not ok and we need to do something about it!"

"Do we?"

"Yes!"

"How do you plan to do that?"

Clara deflated slightly. "I don't know, you're the adult, and you work with the charity. Couldn't you come up with something?" She knew from her mother's knowing look that her answer wouldn't suffice even before she spoke.

"He's your friend, isn't he? Why don't you want to help him and his family?"

Clara flounced down onto the chair opposite her mother and rested her head in her hands to think. "I do want to help. That's why I told you. I can't do anything on my own. I'm just a kid."

Her mother only raised an eyebrow at her.

"I guess I can help with the charity dinners but that's only once a week and that's not enough. He said that they don't have spare shoes, and that his parents didn't even come to America with a trunk for their things, but I can't just find them a trunk either. And I don't have a job so I can't give them money or donate to the charity like you and Dad do."

A job. Andrews parents had to have jobs. What about his older brothers? Clara knew of older children in the school that did odd jobs around town for a small allowance – and Hannah was already applying for a secretary position for when she graduated from high school. Even if there weren't jobs to be had at the tailors or the newspaper, maybe she could help them find work someplace else. But where?

"If you can come up with something, I'll help you make it a reality," Elizabeth offered, "but it has to be your doing, Clara. You can't always expect adults to do the work, and you'll be an adult one day soon too. It's important to take leadership sooner rather than later."

Clara sighed and nodded at her mother's familiar lecture. She liked to believe that after hearing it for the hundredth time, she might have taken it to heart, but ideas proved as elusive as butterflies and such a nebulous quality as "leadership" would be easier said than done for a nine-year-old. She looked absentmindedly out the window at the orphanage building that stood across from their apartment. The bright red paint was peeling off in patches, and some of the windows were missing their shutters. She barely noticed her father coming into the apartment as she let her eyes dance over the sight of the dilapidated home and listened idly to her parent's conversation.

"How was work today, Mark?" Elizabeth asked her husband.

"Well enough at the clinic," he answered. "I stopped by Graham Windham on the way home – I got a notice that some of the children weren't feeling well, so I checked on them."

"And they're doing ok?"

"Just spring sickness, with the trees dropping their pollen the nurses thought the children had caught cold again, but it's nothing rest and warmth won't fix. Their rooms were so drafty you wouldn't know if the windows were open or not, so I told the nurse to move them to the kitchens until they felt better. And to keep them from climbing in the park."

Clara wondered what Andrew was doing now. If both his parents were working, they wouldn't take him on outings or errands, like Ma did with her some days. He'd probably just be sitting at his apartment, or doing chores with his brothers. She looked at the picture again. If this "wasn't too bad" how drafty and cold must their apartment be in the winter? Yes, spring had come, but its still must be horribly boring to sit around for hours without toys or anything.

She started to push back her chair before noticing her board games and other dolls sitting in the corner of the room. She glanced from them, then to her perpetually busy parents, and then back to the games as an idea finally came to her. Clara jumped up from the table so quickly that her chair toppled back to land with a crash on the floor. Her father spun around at the sound and her mother gave her a disapproving look before starting to say something about being careful, but Clara cut her off in her excitement.

"I know how I can help!"

"You're coming to my house today." It wasn't a question. Andrew looked up from his game of marbles to squint at his friend silhouetted against the sun. They'd drawn the circle in the schoolyard and hoped to get a few games in before they had to go back to class, but Andrew would be happy to include Clara if she wanted to play too. But what was this about her house?

"Well hello to you too Clara," said the other boy. Clara glanced at him before turning back to Andrew. Was he Jaaaammes? She thought he looked like a James.

"Hi," she said shortly, "Andrew, Ma says you can come home with me today to play, and then we'll go to the dinner later so you can meet up with your family."

"Ok!" Andrew answered cheerily. That would be fun! He wondered what Clara's house would be like, but just grinned at the chance at getting to spend the afternoon at his friends instead of helping his brothers with chores at their own apartment. "Are you going to play marbles with John and I?"

John! That was his name - weren't there three John's in their class? "I don't play," she gave a slight shrug. "Besides, Hannah and I were going to go to the library instead."

John shrugged. "Sounds boring, but suit yourself."

Andrew ignored the jab and continued their discussion instead, "I can meet you out front after school so we can walk back to your place."

Clara nodded her agreement. "Sounds good, it's not far from here."

"Are you working on a new project with Hannah? Have fun at the library!"

"Yeah, I'll tell you about it later! And I will, thank you!" Hannah called from the side of the yard, and Clara spun on her heel to join her older friend, giving Andrew a wave as she left. He waved back to her before turning again to the marble circle.

John waited until Clara was out of earshot and turned to Andrew. "Wheew, Good luck with that."

Andrew only shot him a smug smile back. "I don't think I'll need it."

"I have a job for you two to do." Elizabeth Lemay's voice from above their heads caught Clara and Andrew's attention and they put down their school books to look up at her expectantly. "Come along."

Clara scrambled up from her place on the floor and marched to the kitchen after her mother, followed closely by Andrew. "What are we making?"

"Molasses Gingerbread cookies for the dinner tonight. They'll take some time to cook and I'm finishing the poster design for the next charity game night so I can't make them now. If you start soon, they'll be done in time for us to leave. I'll be in the parlor if you need me but Clara you should know how to make them, you've helped me enough times."

"Yes, ma!"

"Good girl. The recipe is in our box, and call me when you're ready to bake them, I don't want you playing with the oven. Show Andrew how to help if he has questions."

"Thanks Ms. Lemay!" Andrew called after her, and she gave him a smile before retreating back into the other room. Clara gave a decisive nod and clambered up onto a chair to fetch the recipe box and molasses from the top shelf of the cabinet and pull them out.

"This should count as school, shouldn't it?" Andrew asked. "This means we don't have to do the math homework?"

"No," Clara said, balancing herself as she jump-stepped from one counter to the next to retrieve the sugar from the other top shelf. "We still have to turn the problems in, don't we? I suppose cooking is math, if you consider the fractions, but I'm sure Ms. Spalding wouldn't approve."

He shrugged and pushed a chair over to the counter so she could climb down, before taking the heavy flour bag from her to set it on the ground. "Fair enough."

"I think this is better math after all."

"Yeah! You get to eat it!" Andrew laughed. "Where are the measuring cups?"

"In the cabinet underneath the counter. No not that one, the other one. That one, yes. Grab a bowl too. The big ones should be in the same drawer."

He returned to the table with the requested items. "I call dibs on licking it at the end."

Clara started to object but remembered that with two older brothers and probably no molasses or sugar of his own at home to taste, he probably didn't have the chance to lick a cookie batter bowl very often. She shrugged and grabbed a wooden spoon from the container on the counter. "Ok, fine, but I get to lick the spoon."

"Deal."

She smiled, and they shook on it, and Clara happily jumped down from the chair with the anticipation of a nice quiet afternoon in the kitchen.

She did not expect to have to bat his fingers away from the bowl every three seconds. Nor did she anticipate chasing him around the table in breathless laughter because he'd successfully made off with the ginger. She finally skidded to a stop and glanced back to the parlor where her mother was still quietly working.

"shhhhh," Andrew mouthed. She giggled.

"Go ahead and taste some, see if I care," she countered. He grinned triumphantly and tried some, before wincing and nearly dropping the bottle.

"I thought it was supposed to taste good!" He whispered.

"Yeah! In the batter! With the Sugar!" Clara laughed. Andrew shrugged and put it down, only to promptly pick up the cinnamon instead, which only made her shake her head. He tasted it anyway.

"That's not any better!"

"You're never going to learn, are you?"

"Nope. One of these things has to taste good on its own eventually, right?"

"Maybe this should be our science class instead," Clara teased, pulling the sugar bowl closer to her. She wasn't going to take any risks.

Quite a while later, once they'd sufficiently tried every ingredient of the recipe, Clara had confiscated the molasses, they licked the bowl and spoons nearly clean as the cookies were baking, and packaged them neatly into a basket, it was finally time to head out to the park. The kids didn't waste any time in leaving Mrs. Lemay with their afternoon's work and rushing out to the field to play blindman's bluff, and Mrs. Lemay didn't waste any time in finding Ms. Morris. She was pleased to hear that Andrew enjoyed his time, and soon it was arranged that he stay over in the afternoons every week.

"Is there anything we can do in return for you?" Elanor asked. "You've done so much for our family and the community as it is."

Elizabeth let her eyes wander around the park as she thought, and let her gaze come to rest on the orphanage in the distance. "As a matter of fact, I have an idea of how you could help."

A/N:

I'm so glad you all are liking this story so far and I hope you enjoy this update too! I had a lot of fun writing it!

To Keys the fansie: Thank you so so much for your kind words! They really mean a lot to me! I would love to check out your blog, however fanfiction . net has an annoying habit of censoring out links and web addresses, so I can't actually see what it is beside " - . com – ". Sorry about that! If you could send that again but include spaces in between the words and . com part then hopefully I'll be able to see it again and read your stuff! :) Thank you again for your kind review!