title: A Gift from Home
author: Admirand, C.H.
description: The temporarily disbanded Committee for the Betterment of Emerson is at it again! This time they accuse Jessi Fahy of setting fire to Peterson's Stable, injuring Mr. Peterson, brawling in public and ruining the good name of the Flaherty's foreman, John Reilly.
  
  Jessi Fahy's heart broke when her childhood hero, John Reilly, left County Cork, Ireland for America. Five and a half years later when he doesn't come home as promised, Jessi and Mrs. Reilly put their heads together to hatch a plan that includes John's favorite recipes, the Reilly family Bible and Mrs. Reilly's secret...her middle son's chin is as fragile as her best china cake plate!
  
  John Reilly is expecting a package from home, something light as a feather and twice as sweet. Little does he realize the package isn't the baked goods he's been dreaming of (never thinking they'd be spoiled from all those weeks on the boat and traveling cross country) but a grownup version of the thirteen-year-old girl who used to follow him every where.
  
  When John Reilly doesn't return to County Cork, Ireland, Jessi Fahy boards a ship and tracks him down. She arrives in Emerson, Colorado, hot, tired, and dusty, but he doesn't recognize her. Five and a half years of waiting in vain, combined with a horrendous voyage and the realization that John doesn't remember her, have Jessi fisting her hand and testing Mrs. Reilly's secret weapon. With a wicked right cross, big John Reilly goes down like a stone.