“Grandmother?”
“Yes, child?”
“Why didn’t my mother give me to you?”
The duchess sighed. “I believe Ada was trying to do just that,” she said. “The morning you were found, a woman was struck and killed by an automobile. The story was in the Globe. After the accident, a woman of means found the child on her doorstep and offered to take her in.”
“Madame Dinglebush!” said Maggie.
“The dead woman was never identified. I never thought for a moment that she could be my Ada.”
“I’m sorry, Grandmother,” said Maggie. “I ask too many questions, don’t I?”
“Of course not!” said the duchess. “One can never ask too many questions. It’s how one learns. One would be quite stupid otherwise. Go on with your letter, my dear.”
With many stops and starts, and many questions about how to say what she wished to say, only fancier, Maggie continued.
When Grandmother saw my locket, she knew at once that I was her granddaughter. I tremble to think what might have happened had you not slipped it into my little pouch. I am most grateful to you for that. You watched over me and taught me how to be a good person, and for that I am grateful as well. When I count my many blessings, I will always count you.
Your friend,
Maggie McGinnis
Second Duchess of Landsaway
Heartfelt thanks to Reka Simonsen, who first saw the promise in Maggie and Oliver and got them on their way; to Noa Wheeler, who kept them alive; and to the brilliant Jennifer Thermes, who gave them faces, bodies, and a whole city to live in.
Henry Holt and Company, LLC
Publishers since 1866
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New York, New York 10010
mackids.com
Text copyright © 2011 by Valerie Hobbs
Illustrations copyright © 2011 by Jennifer Thermes
All rights reserved.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Hobbs, Valerie.
Maggie and Oliver or A bone of one’s own / Valerie Hobbs ; art by Jennifer Thermes. — 1st ed.
p. cm.
Summary: An orphaned dog and an orphaned ten-year-old girl find each other while enduring poverty and homelessness in early-twentieth-century Boston.
ISBN 978-0-8050-9294-3 (hc)
[1. Orphans—Fiction. 2. Dogs—Fiction. 3. Homeless children—Fiction. 4. Poverty—Fiction. 5. Boston (Mass.)—History—Fiction.] I. Thermes, Jennifer, ill. II. Title. III. Title: Maggie and Oliver. IV. Title: Bone of one’s own.
PZ7.H65237Mag 2011 [Fic]—dc22 2011005791
First Edition—2011
eISBN 978-1-4299-7564-3