Brightest and Best (31 page)

The fury on Mr. Brownley’s face had punched the breath out of Ella, and now Mr. Eggar was suggesting she formalize her role as a teacher. She had only promised Gideon a few weeks. Her permanent promise to him was to be his wife.

Less than an inch of Gideon’s hand touched Ella’s, and for only a few seconds, yet she took comfort. He was near. He understood. Perhaps James had neglected to mention her betrothed state to Mr. Eggar. Even an
English
attorney would know that a woman would not continue to teach after her marriage.

“Miss Hilty has only begun teaching. Do I understand correctly?” Percival said, glancing at Ella.

Ella nodded.

“Other than formal education,” Gideon said, “she is well suited to the task. Before beginning to teach here, she taught my daughters at my home for several weeks, and I saw daily the leaps in their learning.”

Percival nodded. “We may need you to testify to that effect.”

Testify?
Ella’s brows furrowed against her will.

“My girls love her,” John Hershberger said. “Lizzy and Katya said Miss Hilty is every bit as good as Miss Coates was.”

“Miss Coates?” Percival said.

“The
English
teacher we had until a few months ago,” Gideon explained. “John is right. Ella has a curious mind and understands the needs of our children.”

“Ella has done nothing wrong,” Isaiah Borntrager said. “She hasn’t lied about credentials she does not hold. All she has done is choose what is best for our community, something the state has no interest in.”

“The state would argue they have the best interest of your children in mind,” Percival reminded the group.

“Has the state met our children?” Isaiah countered. “Has the state worshipped in our services? How can the state have the best interest of our children in mind?”

“All good points.” Percival nodded. “And we may be able to raise them in an argument about the exercise of religious liberty. At the moment, though, the superintendent would argue that as an untrained teacher, Ella is in over her head.”

Ella’s breath came in gasps at irregular intervals when she could no longer hold it in. She
was
in over her head, with only her instincts and love of learning to rely on. The day would come when a bright student would ask a question to which she did not know the answer, or a second grader would be unable to grasp the basics of borrowing to subtract and Ella would have no new strategies to help him master the concept. She supposed that teachers who attended the teachers college learned how to handle these challenges. They learned methods of instruction and ways of making proper lesson plans that kept them ahead of the questions their students would ask.

In truth, Ella was not sure she had made the situation better by agreeing to teach temporarily. In the eyes of the law, the Amish families had dubious standing as it was. If Chester Mast had not begun building the schoolhouse in which they all now sat, perhaps this moment would not have come.

“But if we focus on finding a state-qualified teacher willing to teach Amish children according to our values,” James said, “Ella will not have to face these hurdles at all.”

Thank you, James.
Ella relaxed her spine
. Let’s stay focused.

Gideon shifted his weight in his chair and lifted his hand, ready to ask the looming question. “What can the state really do if we do not send our children to the schools in town—especially the older ones who already completed the eighth grade?”

“I pledged to Mr. Lehman that I would be candid and honest with all of you,” Percival said. “It’s almost certain that the fines will grow increasingly burdensome. I know that some of you already choose to keep your children in the town schools for that reason, so I will look for grounds to challenge the legality of the fines.”

“And beyond the fines?” Gideon asked.

Percival gave a slight shrug. “The laws are new. This kind of case is untested. I can only tell you what is possible within the current language of the law, not what is likely in the eyes of a judge or jury.”

By the time the meeting ended, Gideon felt as if he had harvested an entire field of alfalfa hay without even the help of his team of workhorses.

Percival Eggar lingered to answer individual questions and collect a few coins from each man who wished to avail himself of the offer of legal representation. James would have explained to Mr. Eggar that farmers struggling to pay the fines imposed on them by the state would not have unlimited funds for an
English
lawyer’s fees, but Gideon trusted that James had come to a manageable agreement or he would not have invited Percival to meet with the parents in the first place. The few dollars Percival collected that day only ensured each family would benefit equally from the outcome of the legal case.

The legal case.
The phrase springing up in Gideon’s mind astonished him. Along with Cristof and Chester, John and Aaron, Joshua, Jed, Isaiah, and the others, Gideon was party to a legal case with the potential to wend its way through
English
courts.

After asking their questions and establishing themselves as clients of Percival T. Eggar, Esquire, Attorney at Law, the parents drifted out of the schoolhouse. James walked Percival to his waiting automobile.

Alone in the building, Gideon blew out his breath and offered Ella full-faced encouragement.

“It will all work out.” Gideon met Ella’s uncertain gaze.

“Maybe the children should have stayed in the town schools for now,” Ella said. “There would not be so much at risk.”

“There might be less legal risk,” Gideon said, “but what of the risk to our children if they spend their days in the
English
world?”

Ella shuffled to a row of desks and began to straighten them. “We don’t know what the authorities might do to the children.”

Gideon joined her in straightening the room. “Why should they do anything to innocent children? Their argument is with the parents. They understand that minor children do not make these decisions for themselves. The fathers are all doing what they think best. The children are safe.”

“And me?”

Gideon almost did not hear Ella. When her whispered words sank in, he abandoned the task of cleaning up and lifted her hands from the bench she pushed against a wall.

“You are not alone,” he said.

Ella let out her breath. “But I am unqualified. Am I breaking the law by doing the work of a teacher?”

“You
are
a teacher,” Gideon said. “You may not have a piece of paper sealed by the State of Ohio, but you have courage and faith and natural gifts. You have the support of your community. Even Miss Simpson has offered to help you.”

Ella shook her head. “I don’t want to get her in trouble.”

“Miss Simpson strikes me as a person who makes her own decisions,” Gideon said.

Ella met his eyes. “If we are to marry on December 19, our banns should be published in a few weeks. Rachel has pages and pages of lists to be sure the house is ready.”

Gideon nodded. “We have all the way to January to find a teacher, and now we have Mr. Eggar to help.”

Ella dropped her eyes again, but Gideon tipped her face up to kiss her. She was not the only one eager to marry on December 19. He wanted her in his arms and in his home, her face the first he would see in the morning and her lips the ones he would kiss each night.

Margaret was late getting home from school that afternoon. The Amish
quandary
—the word she was trying out this week to describe the conundrum of Amish and townspeople trying to understand each other—weighed down her shoulders like a row of cement bricks. This was enough of a distraction to put her behind in planning her lessons and correcting the papers of her pupils. Gray’s entrenched attitude that the Amish
problem
was not her concern magnified the distraction, and his brother’s veiled warning unnerved her. As a consequence, while her pupils did quiet independent work, Margaret was spending too much time mentally muddling her way out of the cage she found herself in.

A blur in her peripheral vision made Margaret turn her head just as she reached the walk leading to her home, and she paused to turn her head and fully discern the sight.

Braden Truesdale skulked across her side yard, cutting through the garden that had yielded the last of its autumn bounty and heading toward the front of her lot.

“Braden!” she called as he came to the edge of the house.

His head jerked up, startle flickering through his eyes. The flour sack over his shoulder bulged in peculiar angular points.

“I didn’t know you came through my neighborhood,” she said, approaching him. Gray had never given a clear answer about Braden’s employment, so Margaret could think of no good reason for him to be in her yard.

“Never know where I’m going to be,” he said, tightening his grip to seal the sack.

Were his words a simple statement or another veiled warning? And what in the world was in that flour sack?

“I’ll walk with you,” Margaret said with false brightness. “I’m on my way to pay a call on a neighbor.”

Braden pressed his lips into a tight, straight smile and nodded. Margaret watched his glance and followed his cue, turning back in the direction from which she had come.

“Is your workday nearly finished?” Margaret asked.

“Just about.”

Margaret let herself fall back a half step and eyed the bag. The bulge in Braden’s muscle, even under his shirtsleeve, suggested the bag carried items of weight. Books? Candlesticks? Jugs? The sour sensation in Margaret’s stomach bubbled up through her throat.

“Here’s my stop,” Margaret said, across the street from Lindy Lehman’s house. “Now that we’re acquainted, I’ll see you another time, I suppose.”

“S’pose.”

Margaret stepped into the street to cross to Lindy’s. Braden marched toward Main Street. Margaret walked slowly, perusing his progress, before approaching Lindy’s workshop. She could not always keep her neighbor’s property safe, but on this one day, she could make sure Braden Truesdale did not stop there. Unless he had already been there and she’d caught him in a circuitous departure.

Gray would never believe her if Margaret told him she suspected Braden was responsible for the burglary and vandalism of Lindy’s shop. But in that moment, Margaret was as certain as if she had witnessed the acts herself.

J
ames wandered down Main Street on Wednesday afternoon in no particular hurry. With Gideon’s assurance that he intended to stay close to the house and barn today, James had taken his wagon into town with items from several Amish farms to trade for credit at the mercantile, and then picked up birdhouses, quilt racks, and toys from Lindy to deliver to the furniture store that kept her items on hand to attract customers who appreciated Amish craftsmanship. He caught her just before she left for a shopping trip in Chardon. With his tasks complete, James left his horse and wagon with the blacksmith at the edge of Seabury to reshoe the mare and relished the idea of an unhurried walk in the brisk fall air.

When James had enough of studying the
English
display windows and trying to fathom what the women found so compelling about the rising hemlines and the attraction of homburg hats and striped waistcoats for men, he moseyed toward the hardware store. Browsing there was never without benefit. James bypassed the aisles of electrical gadgets, which seemed to take up more space every year, and instead inspected the latest unadorned tools and work gloves that would serve a practical purpose. He had a hammer in his hand, testing its weight, when the voices from the next aisle wafted over the bins of nails and screws.

“Deputy Fremont is on his way now,” one man said.

“What for this time?” his companion responded.

“Don’t know for sure. My wife just talked to his housekeeper. He was in such a hurry that he left half his lunch uneaten.”

“The Amish farms, you say?”

James’s breath stilled.

“The paperwork came through, I guess.”

“Paperwork?”

“The housekeeper didn’t see all the details. Just saw a few names. “Hilty. Hershberger. Wittmer. Several others, I think.”