Worth

by A. LaFaye Narrated by Tommy Fleming

Overview

Life for a family on a Nebraska homestead is difficult, with illness and weather causing worries about crops and finances, and conflicts between ranchers and farmers. For 11-year-old Nate's family, the days grow even darker when he gets his leg crushed in a farm accident. To help out, Nate's father brings home John Worth, just off the Orphan Train and dealing with the loss of his own family in a New York City tenement fire. With Nate's honest telling of the story comes a fascinating narrative of family life during the late nineteenth century: the overwhelming responsibility children endured; the grueling, daily chores; the family's struggle to hold onto their land and deal with their losses; the importance of community and the mores of the time. The richly drawn characters and their courageous, candid story present an important slice of history and a compelling exploration of friendship.

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly

LaFaye takes an unusual perspective on the Orphan Train, focusing on the adoptive family, in what PW called a "spare, lyrical novel." Ages 9-12. (July) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

School Library Journal

Gr 3–6
Crippled by a freak farming accident, 11-year-old Nathaniel is bitter, helpless, frustrated, and angry when his father brings John Worth, an Orphan Train boy, into their home to help with the chores Nate can no longer manage in A. LeFaye's novel (S & S, 2004). But the two boys, each wounded in a different yet similar way, discover they have more in common than initially apparent and slowly begin to develop a friendship based on their joint desire to save the family's farm. LaFaye's unsparing look at the grueling hardships of day-to-day farm life during the late 19th-century and the ongoing battle between farmers and ranchers for control of the land is matched by the narrator Tommy Fleming's skill at portraying the starkness of the emotions felt by each of the characters in this short, spare, and beautifully told winner of the Scott O'Dell Award for historical fiction. Speaking with an authentic Nebraska accent, Fleming captures the poignancy of Nate's battle to overcome his disability, learn to read, and reinvent himself within his unhappy family. A compelling and historically accurate story beautifully rendered.—Cindy Lombardo, Tuscarawas County Public Library, New Philadelphia, OH

Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

"A steer you'd have to pay for, but a boy you could adopt for free," says Nathaniel after he injures his leg and his father adopts John Worth to help work their Nebraska land. Nathaniel is jealous of John, but there's enough bad feeling to go around. Ma and Pa have lost their little girl; John lost his family in a New York City fire (the reason he's an orphan); and Nathaniel fears he'll never walk properly again. Yet John proves his worth, and the two boys become like brothers as Nathaniel realizes the need to make do with what they have and get on with life. It's a lively story of two boys set against a backdrop of the Orphan Trains, range wars, lynchings, drownings, and sheep killings. Something for everyone. (Historical fiction. 8-12)

From the Publisher

"[The] Narrative is brutally honest."
— Booklist, starred review

"Lyrical."
— Publishers Weekly

Product Details

BN ID:	2940178719510
Publisher:	Live Oak Media
Publication date:	01/01/2006
Edition description:	Unabridged
Age Range:	8 - 11 Years

Read an Excerpt

Chapter Three: What a Boy Is Worth

The sound of his boots told me Pa planned to go into town. Heard the crisp clomp-clomp of his Sunday boots. I counted back on my fingers — no Sunday hadn't come again. It was only Saturday. When he stepped into the kitchen, Ma spoke in how-dare-you whispers. I knew them well.

Back when Pa came home with his homestead papers, saying we'd be moving to Nebraska come spring, Ma'd let her anger out in short hot bursts only Pa could hear. We all slept in the same room back then, but Ma could whisper so slow and quick, I couldn't hear a word of it. But the pitch of it said she didn't take to the idea at all. And whatever had Pa going to town on a Saturday didn't please her any.

As Pa stepped outside, I heard Ma say, "He won't be sleeping in this house."

Who did she mean? The jingle of tack and the rumble of the wagon said Pa headed out for town so I wouldn't see him until noon to know just who Ma meant. Months in bed had made me half-crazy. The idea of not knowing itched in my brain until I was ready to scream.

"Pa taking on hired help?" I called out to her.

"No." The quick snip of her voice and the way she punched at the dough in the bowl I heard knocking against the table told me just how mad she really felt.

"Who's he bringing back then?"

"No one I've approved of."

"Would I approve of him?"

She fell silent for a bit, then I heard her snuffle in a breath — she'd been crying.

"Ma?"

I heard her step toward my room, but she didn't come in. I could see the shadow she cast across the doorway, her shoulders stooped, her head bowed. Made me feel thin. She whispered, "He's bringing home a boy."

I didn't understand. She'd already said he wasn't bringing home a farmhand. "What boy?"

"An orphan boy."

Could've been neck deep in snow for how cold I felt right then. I'd heard tell of those orphan trains that brought in city kids to be picked out of a herd on a church stage and brought home like a new steer. The Campbells got a new son that way after their boy was taken by the measles, but I wasn't dead.

"He adopted a son?"

Ma rushed into the room, her face shiny with tears. "No. Not a son. Just a boy to help around here."

Held my breath like it'd keep me from bursting.

"Nathaniel, your father and I have only one son. We'll always only have one." She tried to brush my hair, but I swatted her away.

"I'm not Pa's son anymore. He hasn't so much as said how do."

She folded her hands in her lap. "He has his eye on you, Nate. Comes in and watches you nights."

"He does?"

She nodded, pointing. "From the doorway."

"When it's dark and he can't see me."

Ma shook her head. "Nathaniel, Pa just needs another set of hands around the place. This is the only way he could afford it."

Funny. A steer you'd have to pay for, but a boy you could adopt for free. Not worth much.

Worth. That was his name. John Worth. He stood in front of my bed all bit up by mosquitoes and scratching through a new suit. Pa didn't buy him that, did he? The kid wouldn't even look at me. He just stared at the floor.

Pa turned him roughlike to face the bed. "This is our son, Nathaniel." Looking over my head, instead of at me, Pa said, "Nathaniel, this is John Worth."

We mumbled our hellos, then Pa turned him around to march him out of the room. "I'll show you the lay of the land around here."

Ma stood in the door, her arms folded over her chest, her eyes dead set on the boy, just pouring out the hate like she did every time she set eyes on Verna Crawford, the woman who said she'd watch over Missy while Ma and Pa worked down at the thread factory.

Missy choked on a piece of bread. Died while that woman was doing piece work for a shirtwaist factory. And all that woman could say was, "I've raised nine children and didn't none of them choke when I put them down with a little bread to chew."

Ma near about tore that woman's face off before Pa dragged her out the door. The whole of it froze me to the spot, felt like a ghost standing there staring at that woman bleeding on the floor, the drawer she'd had Missy sleeping in dropped sideways behind her, empty except for the old pocket of Ma's apron Missy kept with her.

Mr. Crawford shooed me out the door and closed it behind me. Don't know how long I stood in that hallway before Pa came to collect me.

This time Pa had turned me into a ghost, sitting there staring at the spot on the floor where John Worth had stood.

But I wasn't going to let that no account city boy bury me alive. I'd show Pa just what I could do. Since Doc Kelly had finally cut me loose from that contraption, I could start moving around a bit, building up the strength in my leg.

The thing looked evil wrong. My left thigh had shriveled up to be as thin as my right shin. My left shin looked no bigger than the bones inside it. Had a big purple scar where the bone broke through the skin. And the whole leg burned like wildfire when I so much as curled up a toe. And shake. That thing shook like a leaf in the wind. Not that the rest of me did much better. I'd been moving my arms, my right leg, and turning my body best as I could to keep up the muscles, but you can't do much with your left leg trussed up.

Had the strength of a butterfly. Near about passed out just swinging my legs over the edge of the bed. "Take her easy there, son." Doc Kelly ran to sit next to me. "You rush this and you're liable to just break the leg again."

"Heaven forbid," Ma gasped, covering her mouth.

"We won't let that happen, Mary Eve."

Wouldn't much happen if I didn't get stronger, but I couldn't do a bit that day except fall back into the bed and let sleep take me off. I dreamed of birds. Pigeons all clustered up on a ledge clucking away like only pigeons can, but the noise continued even after I opened my eyes in the darkness of night. Took me a bit to figure out I heard crying, someone crying on the other side of my bedroom wall. But the only thing back there was the lean-to where we kept the wood for the fireplace. Then I remembered Ma's words, "He won't be sleeping in this house."

She had that boy sleeping in the lean-to like a dog. Well, as far as I was concerned, that's where he belonged.

Copyright © 2004 by A. LaFaye

Videos