Excerpt from Stories from Suffragette City by M.J. Rose, Fiona Davis, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

Those strange places, seen only in pictures, tease Ash's mind now as she guides the mule past farmsteads with tall red barns and through villages where all sorts of treasures wink from store windows. The twins lean over the sides of the wagon, their hands clutching the worn siderails, their thin bottoms balanced on boards propped up over the apple bushels.

"My tummy wants somethin'," Blue complains, and rubs his middle with a hand that's cleaner than usual after being scrubbed with the horsehair brush. Before they left home in the barely dawn hours of morning, Ash had made sure they were all washed up and their hair was combed. Nobody wants to buy apples from dirty children, Ma used to say in the before-time, when they'd do this very thing—go down the mountain to find the sort of people who had money to trade for apples.

"Get some walnuts from the lunch bucket, Blue, but just six," Ash tells him. "And six for Dab, and six for Clarey." She's been teaching the twins to count when she has the chance, and this'll keep them busy awhile. Other than apples, the walnuts and a few persimmons are all they could find that'd carry well on today's trip. "Once we sell all these apples, we'll buy something better."

Ash feels Clarey look over with her slow-moving, careful eyes, hears her say something in that odd, thick-sounding language. Puckering her lips, Clarey presses all five fingertips against them.

"She says you oughta get six walnuts, too," Dabine pipes up. Since they started the apple harvest and Clarey found her voice again, Little Sister has taken to talking for their strange stepma.

"You don't know what she said," Ash snaps.

"I do so." Dab rises up a little and locks her bony arms over her chest, then sits back down hard. It's troublesome, the way Dab has clung close to Clarey lately, like Dab was just waiting for their stepmother to rise from the bed and take over being Ma.

Ash snorts. "Dabine Wolters, you better stop that lying or I'll pop you across the mouth. That's what dirty, rotten liars get." It's what Pa would say, if he were the one driving the wagon. Ash hears him in the words, and even though it's her own voice saying it, she feels her chin tuck and her head cower between her shoulders, like a big hand is sure to come out of the air and smack her hard enough that her ears ring. "Besides, Clarey can't tell me when to eat. She's not our ma. Only your ma can tell you that." Ash adds this, a little more quietly, as they pass by a farmhouse, where a woman hanging wash shades her eyes to watch.

"You want some apples to buy?" Ash calls out. "Golden Russets, Kingston Blacks, Ashmeads, Dabinettes, Blue Pearmains. Good for eating or baking!" Those were the words Ma would yell when they'd go down the mountain to sell apples, back in the times before Big Brother died and things went bad.

"Finest apples in three counties!" Dabine adds, and Ash's throat prickles and tears well up in her eyes. She didn't even know Dab had learned those words from Ma. Seems like Dab would've been too young to remember Ma used to say that of the apples. "'Specially the Dabinettes!" Dab tosses in.

Blue throws back his head, his red-brown hair catching the sun. "And the Blue Pearmains!" They've played this game a hundred times in the orchard. Each of them has a special love for the trees Ma picked to be their particular namesakes.

The farm wife waits until they're almost past the yard fence before she cups a hand to her mouth and answers, "Well … maybe a few."

Ash pulls the reins, but as usual, the mule responds in his own time. They're halfway down the farm field before the wagon finally comes to a stop.

The woman buys apples, anyway. They each hand her some, except Clarey, who sits stiffly in the wagon seat and holds the reins, keeping her eyes forward, like she's afraid she might spoil things by watching.

"Your sister all right?" the woman asks, and slides a glance Clarey's way.

Excerpted from Stories from Suffragette City by M.J. Rose and Fiona Davis. Copyright © 2020 by M.J. Rose and Fiona Davis. Excerpted by permission of Henry Holt and Company. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.