The School Mistress (Emerson Pass Book 1) Page 10

  Fiona snuggled against my chest. “Love my papa.”

  I kissed them both on top of their sweet-smelling heads as I darted a glance at Miss Cooper. She was looking into the fire with glassy eyes.

  Chapter 11

  Quinn

  On Monday morning, my students appeared bundled in coats, hats, and scarves. They brought the scent of the outdoors and woodsmoke. Most carried their lunch in a bucket or wooden box. I greeted them with a slight smile, too nervous to take in the details of their faces or ages, and gave them specific instructions to hang their coats, put their lunches on the table near the door, and take a seat. “Tallest in the back, please.” I used my formal teacher voice and held my head high, as if I were used to positions of authority. Given my age and slight figure, I knew it was important that I present as mature and strict.

  My legs wobbled as I took my place in front of the room. I wore my teacher uniform, a black skirt paired with a jacket of the same fabric over a crisp white blouse, sewn by my clever sister. She’d sewn a necktie as well, made of a smart black-and-white-checkered fabric, wide enough to cover my throat and chest.

  I did a quick count of pupils. Besides the Barnes children, there were nine others, making a total of thirteen. Wasn’t thirteen an unlucky number? I hid behind my desk for a second and scanned the faces until I found Josephine. She gave me an encouraging smile.

  No one else moved or made a sound. Have courage, I told myself. Lord Barnes is counting on you.

  I took a deep breath and began.

  “We’ll start each day promptly at nine. I’ll expect the older ones to keep the fire stoked and bring in firewood as needed. The younger of you will take turns cleaning the blackboard and erasers. We’ll have two fifteen-minute recesses and one hour for lunch. Those of you who live close enough may walk home for lunch. The rest of you may eat at your desks and then go outside to play if it suits you. You may not speak unless I call your name. If you have a question, you may raise your hand.”

  I stood in front of the chalkboard and looked out at the innocent faces of the children of Emerson Pass. “I expect obedience and respect while you’re here at school. However, there are only three rules that matter most in here and out in the world.” I wrote in big letters on the board: BE CURIOUS. BE KIND. PROTECT ONE ANOTHER. “If you conduct yourselves in this manner, we will be worthy of praise in my classroom. If you deport yourselves this way throughout your life, you will have lived a life worthy of the sacrifices your parents have made to get you to this classroom.” I glanced around the room. “Is this clear?”

  Other than Poppy and Josephine, who nodded, the children stared at me.

  “When I ask a question, I would like you to answer with, ‘Yes, Miss Cooper.’ Shall we try it? One, two, three.”

  “Yes, Miss Cooper.”

  I stifled a smile. Their voices sounded good as a unit. “Does anyone have any questions before we begin?” I asked.

  Poppy raised her hand.

  “Yes, Poppy?”

  “Why do we have to protect one another?”

  “Because we’re a team now,” I said. “Teams are a group of people with a common goal or purpose. Together we are stronger than we are alone.”

  Flynn raised his hand.

  “Flynn?”

  “Why should we be curious? I thought we were supposed to learn boring things.”

  This child was going to give me a permanent sore from having to bite the inside of my mouth to keep from laughing. “Because curiosity leads to questions, which lead to answers, which is what learning is all about.”

  He tilted his head, as if truly contemplating such an idea. Whatever conclusion he came to, he kept that to himself. Thank God for small favors, I thought.

  I continued with the business of the day. “I’ll have you come up one at a time to my desk so that I might learn a little about your former education and reading levels. While you wait your turn, you will sit quietly and read or look at one of the picture books from the shelf. We’re very lucky to have a library, and I’ll expect you to treat the books as you would a precious baby.”

  Cymbeline giggled. Josephine shook her head at her little sister and put her finger against her mouth.

  I moved over to the bookshelf and asked them to form a line. For the older children, I gave them chapter books. The younger ones were given ones with pictures. When all had books, I sent them back to their desks.

  I asked Martha and Elsa Johnson up first. It was obvious they were sisters, given their matching yellow braids and wide blue eyes. Martha was sixteen and Elsa fourteen.

  They could read well, having gone to school in their former town in Minnesota before their parents moved them to Emerson Pass. Second-generation Swedes, they spoke and read English fluently and had a reasonable grasp of arithmetic. Both were tall with good posture and proud, sturdy shoulders. I imagined there wasn’t much they couldn’t accomplish given the opportunity.

  Martha reminded me that her parents owned the dry goods store.

  “Do you like it here?” I asked.

  She nodded, smiling. “I like wherever my family is.”

  “And you?” I asked her sister Elsa.

  “Me too.”

  “The only thing we miss from Minnesota are the town dances,” Martha said.

  “We’d looked forward to dances when we were old enough,” Elsa said. “But here, there are none.”

  I could certainly understand why two young ladies would pine for a dance. “I think if we put our heads together, we might be able to come up with a few ideas for a town dance.”

  “Really?” Martha asked.

  “Give me a little while. If you two study hard and are good girls, I’ll speak with Lord Barnes about having one here at the schoolhouse.”

  Their faces lit up as they nodded enthusiastically. “Yes, Miss Cooper. We’ll do our best,” Elsa said.

  I asked the bigger of the two blond boys to come up next. He approached, looking terrified. Pale blue eyes watched me from under a fringe of hair so fair it was almost white.

  “What’s your name?” I asked.

  “Isak Olofsson,” he said in a thick Swedish accent. He pointed toward another of the students. “My brother. Can he come now?”

  “Yes.”

  Isak, in Swedish, asked his brother to join us. The younger of the two ambled up to the desk, looking equally frightened. “This is Viktor.” Viktor’s hair was the color of dried straw, a little darker than his older brother’s. Green eyes peered at me from his square face. I could already see the handsome men they would become.

  “We want to learn English,” Isak said. “And to read from English books.”

  Through an awkward exchange, I learned Isak and Viktor were recent immigrants from Sweden. They could not read but seemed to understand English when spoken to and could answer my questions for the most part. It was enough to work with, especially given their obvious keen desire to learn.

  Next up were three sisters, who took it upon themselves to come up as a group. I didn’t chastise them. We learn from watching others, after all. The Cassidy sisters were Nora, age six; Shannon, age eight; and Alma, age ten. The girls shared the same green eyes and fair skin, but Shannon had dark curls whereas the other two had honey-colored hair as straight as a board.

  “Have you been to school before?” I asked.

  Alma spoke for them all in a lilting Irish accent. “I went for one year before we moved to America. Since then, no. But our mother taught us to read.”

  “Not me,” Nora said. “Just my letters.”

  “Letters are a great place to start,” I said.

  The other two read competently from the first reader but struggled with a few words. They knew almost no arithmetic. I had a feeling they would learn quickly.

  The Barnes children filed up one after the other. There wasn’t a surprise among them. They all read way beyond their grade level, even Cymbeline, who knew all the words from the early-reader textbook. Josephine read at
an adult level, with Theo and Flynn not far behind.

  “Are you going to make me read boring stories?” Flynn asked before returning to his desk.

  “What kind of stories do you like?”

  “Ones about wars and bears and catching fish and boy things.”

  “If I find you books like that, will you read more?” I asked.

  He shrugged and wrinkled his freckled nose. “I could, I guess. Why do you want me to?”

  “Because people who read a lot have more to think about.”

  “I do like thinking,” Flynn said. “Mostly about building forts and catching fish.”

  “While you’re doing those things or thinking about them, you can read about them. Won’t that be fun?”

  “When you put it like that, yeah.”

  “Yes, not yeah. Yeah is not a word.”

  “But you knew what I meant, so how is it not a word?” He raised one eyebrow and smirked, so much like his father, I had to cover my mouth to hide my smile.

  “I expect proper grammar from you, young man. Return to your seat, please.”

  “Yes, Miss Cooper,” he said.

  Harley’s sister was next. Poppy shared his same sparkle and pretty eyes as well as dark complexion. Skinny and petite for thirteen, she looked much younger than her age. Soft brown curls were pinned back with a bow.

  “I’ve never been to school before,” she said before I could ask.

  “Have you lived here all your life?” I asked.

  “No, before this Harley and me lived in France.” She leaned close and talked just above a whisper.

  “Harley and I, not me. ‘Harley and I.’ That’s proper grammar.”

  She blinked. “Yes, Miss Cooper. Before this Harley and I lived in France with my dad and mom, but they died so we came to America to see about some gold or silver. But Harley didn’t find any of that because he says the mines are all mined out. He works for Lord Barnes and we moved into a cottage on the property and I keep house. Lord Barnes is very good to us. That’s what Harley says. Now I can go to school instead of making deliveries from the drugstore.” I might not have noticed the little shudder she made had I not been watching her so closely. I saw it sure enough, and I knew what it meant. My heart nearly stopped. I made a mental note to inquire about this drugstore owner and whether or not he always hired little girls to work for him. For a split second, I thought of my sister. I’d left her all alone in the slums where danger lurked around every corner.

  “Miss Cooper, I have a secret.” She leaned close and spoke softly in my ear. “No one knows, but I already know how to read English.”

  “Why doesn’t anyone know?”

  “Because Harley can only read in French, and I don’t want him to feel bad.”

  “Who taught you?”

  “Josephine.”

  Josephine taught her? When had they found time for that? “That’s great news,” I said.

  “She lends me books, too, but that’s also a secret.”

  “I feel quite sure your brother would be proud of you.”

  “Josephine said you’re going to teach the townsfolk if they come to you.”

  “That’s correct.”

  “Would you teach Harley?”

  “I’ll teach any person willing to learn.”

  She smiled. “I’ll have to convince him. He’s stubborn as a mule.”

  “That’s all right,” I said. “So am I.”

  The last was nine-year-old Louisa Kellam. Dressed in a thin, frayed dress with holes in the toes of her boots, she was so shy she couldn’t look at me when I asked her for her name and age. She could pick out a few words from the primary reader but didn’t know any of her numbers.

  “Have you ever been to school before?” I asked.

  “No, miss. When we lived in Nebraska, Pa says he ain’t got time to take me to school and that he needed my help at home.”

  “What about your mother?”

  “She’s dead,” she said, without emotion.

  “How did you get here this morning?” I asked.

  “I walked. Our house is just a ways down the road.”

  I remembered a shack I’d spotted in the woods on the way into town. I had a feeling she lived there. How could she walk all that way in the snow? She’d freeze to death in that thin coat and those boots with the holes in the toes.

  “I really, really want to go to school and Pa don’t like it. But if I sneak out before he wakes up, I figure he can’t stop me.”

  Before he woke up? I knew what that meant. Her pa must be a frequent patron at the saloon.

  “Do you think your pa would mind if I came out to talk with him about why it’s important you be here?”

  She shook her head so violently I thought it might fall off her skinny neck. “No, please don’t do that.”

  “Won’t he notice when you’re not there all day?”

  “He sleeps most of the day. I don’t figure he’ll know.”

  “All right, then.” I’d have to sort through this later. “You can go back to your seat.”

  I looked down at my class roster. My first class. I hoped I would do them justice.

  Martha Johnson, 16

  Elsa Johnson, 14

  Josephine Barnes, 13

  Poppy Depaul, 13

  Isak Olofsson, 11

  Alma Cassidy, 10

  Theo Barnes, 9

  Flynn Barnes, 9

  Louisa Kellam, 9

  Viktor Olofsson, 9

  Shannon Cassidy, 8

  Nora Cassidy, 6

  Cymbeline Barnes, 6

  By this time, we’d missed our first recess and gone straight into lunchtime. The children had been remarkably good, even Flynn and Cymbeline, all sitting quietly with their books. Many of whom couldn’t read much of them. Life had been hard for them, even the Barnes children who had everything except what mattered most—a mother. Martha and Elsa appeared to be the most fortunate. They had both parents and a father with a good livelihood. I might rely on them to help me with some of the little ones.

  “You’ve been very good, and we worked through our first recess, so you may all have an extra fifteen minutes for lunch.”

  Flynn’s hand popped up.

  “Yes, Flynn?”

  “Do we have to eat first before we go outside?”

  “Yes, please. Now you may all return your books to the shelf, get your lunch, and come back to your seats to eat.”

  I watched as they put their books away and grabbed their lunch pails and returned to their seats. All but Louisa. She had no lunch. My own stomach, so often empty during my childhood, rumbled in sympathy. Without a word, I fetched mine, intending to give her half. I’d learned to live on little, and I’d had that large breakfast. I halted by the window, watching a pair of winter sparrows flirting on the tree in front of the school. By the time I returned to the front, the situation had been taken care of by the children. Sitting before Louisa were two half sandwiches—not of the same sandwich, as one was on thick brown bread and the other white—an apple, and a boiled egg. I took a look around the room, but everyone’s head was down. Josephine only had one half of her sandwich left. Theo was missing an apple. Alma was taking a bite out of one half of a dark bread sandwich. She couldn’t have eaten the other half that fast, given the size of the bread. Elsa had an egg on her desk, but Martha did not. It didn’t take much sleuthing to figure out Louisa’s benefactors.

  Louisa looked up at me, the question in her eyes—was she allowed to take the food? I nodded and went back to my desk. Choked up, I kept my head down so the children wouldn’t see how moved I was by their kindness. They’d taken my rules seriously, it seemed.

  We all ate in silence. Louisa scarfed every morsel of her gifted lunch. The others finished theirs, and I dismissed them to play outside. Everyone bolted from their seats, clearly joyful to get outside for some exercise. They all clambered into their coats and headed outdoors. Shouts of glee followed.

  I looked up to see that Louisa
remained at her seat. There were dark quarter moons under her eyes.

  “Don’t you want to play?” I asked.

  “Would it be all right if I took a nap over by the stove?”

  “Didn’t you sleep last night?” I asked.

  A look of such misery crossed her face that it chilled me to the core. “Pa had things for me to do the last few nights, so I haven’t been able to sleep much.”

  “You may lie down by the fire,” I said as I walked over to the coatrack. “But here, sleep on my coat. The floor’s dirty.”

  She looked down at the front of her dirty dress. “No, Miss Cooper. I’ll sleep on the floor.”

  I nodded and said no more. I knew all about shame.

  Chapter 12

  Alexander

  When we came home from our first day of school, the older children tumbled from the sleigh and ran to play in the last few minutes of light. This time of year, the days were short. Miss Cooper, tucked beside me, lifted the blanket from around her lap and allowed me to assist her out of the sleigh. Cymbeline, pretty as a picture in her red coat and matching hat, was fast asleep in the middle seat. With her hat askew and her thick black lashes splayed over her cheekbones, she looked more like the baby she’d once been. Whereas when I’d picked them all up at school, she’d marched right behind the twins looking pleased with herself and quite grown up. My heart ached a little, thinking of her childhood slipping away before my eyes. Soon, my house would be empty of all the noise and chaos. What would I have left then?

  “Poor mite,” I said. “Tired out from her first day of school.”

  “She did very well for being so young,” Miss Cooper said. “Toward the end of the day, she grew tired and unable to sit still, so I had her clean the erasers and bring in kindling.”

  I chuckled. “Giving her tasks is a great solution to her naughtiness.”

  I lifted Cymbeline from the sleigh and carried her toward the door.

  Jasper stepped outside to greet us. “Welcome home.” He held open the door, and Miss Cooper passed through with me right behind her.

  The moment we entered the house, Cymbeline’s eyes flew open. “Papa, I was very good at school.”