Courting Miss Amsel (3 page)

Chapter
THREE

Joel Townsend drew the horses to a halt at the edge of the schoolyard. Children swarmed in the dirt yard, their feet stirring clouds of dust while their laughter gave the gray fall morning a festive feel. He couldn’t remember the youngsters looking so happy to be at school. Only one week into the term and it appeared that Miss Amsel had changed all the youngsters’ attitudes toward learning. Even though some folks fretted she was going to be too easy on the pupils, Joel was willing to give her a chance. He appreciated not having to fight Johnny and Robert out the door in the mornings.

He set the brake and then turned to look into the wagon bed where the boys sat cross-legged. “All right, hop on out now.” Both boys bolted to their feet and clambered over the side. Joel called, “Johnny, what’re you supposed to remember to do today?”

The boys paused. Johnny scratched his head, his face puckered. Then he broke into a grin. “I’m s’posed to ask Miss Amsel which day she’s comin’ to our house!”

“That’s right. Have her write it down for you.” Joel wanted to make sure he had the right day and time. Johnny was a good boy, but being only eight, his memory could be fuzzy. “And remember just ’cause I dropped you off this mornin’ doesn’t mean I’ll be pickin’ you up. You two walk on home, like always, an’ don’t dawdle. Chores’ll be waitin’.”

“Yes, sir!” The boys practically danced in place, straining toward their boisterous classmates.

“Study hard today. Behave yourselves.”

“We will, Uncle Joel! Bye!” Lunch buckets swinging, the boys shot across the yard to join in the play before the school bell signaled time to come inside.

Joel sat for a moment, watching them, a fond smile lifting his cheeks. Even though he hadn’t hesitated to take in his brother’s orphaned sons, he’d worried about how much having the boys underfoot would change his life. He’d lived alone for a dozen years and suddenly he had two young lives to watch over, guide, and care for. But he didn’t regret one minute of time with his nephews. They brought laughter and
life
to his quiet house. He hoped, someday, to marry a woman who would love the boys as much as he did. Then their family would be complete.

Joel released the brake and lifted the reins, but before he could flick them downward, the school’s double doors flew open and the teacher stepped onto the porch. Arms akimbo, she scanned the play area. He knew he should move on, but Joel sat and took a good look at Miss Amsel. He’d heard about her, but he hadn’t yet seen the woman who had captured his nephews’ hearts and had the single men in town all abuzz. Wally at the mercantile asserted that four of Walnut Hill’s unmarried fellows had bustled over to the schoolhouse at the end of the second school day, eager to introduce themselves to the new schoolmarm and ask her to join them for a meal at the restaurant in Lincoln Valley’s hotel. He’d also heard she turned every one of them down flat.

In a rust-colored skirt and matching shirtwaist, with her brown hair sleek against her head and a pair of round spectacles perched on her nose, she looked very prim and proper and schoolteacherish. Joel wouldn’t call her beautiful. But as she watched the children, a smile formed on her lips. A fond smile. A transforming smile.

She curled her hand around the thick rope hanging along the wall and gave a firm yank. At the clang of the bell, the activity in the yard ceased. Kids scooped up their lunch buckets and discarded jackets and raced for the schoolhouse door. They jostled one another, keen to be the first one up the stairs. As they filed past the teacher into the schoolhouse, Miss Amsel greeted each student with a word or two and bestowed hugs on the smaller ones, including Robert, who bounced through the open doors as if heading to a party.

When the last child entered the building, Miss Amsel moved to close the doors. But then she glanced outward, and her gaze collided with his. He sucked in a sharp breath. Her smile faltered. She raised one hand in a hesitant wave. Sweat broke out across Joel’s forehead. A quarter mile down the road, old Miz Walters stood in the stout wind, hanging long johns on a line. Were her eyes sharp enough to witness him and the schoolmarm ogling each other across the schoolyard? And would she tell Wally at the mercantile so he could let everybody else in town know?

He needed to
git.
Clutching the reins more tightly in his gloved fists, Joel gave a quick nod of farewell. Then he brought down the reins and cried, “Get up there!” The wagon jolted out of the schoolyard.

Edythe resisted peeking through the crack between the doors at the farmer whose wagon now rolled away. After being bombarded with male visitors two days ago, she found herself suspicious of any adult man loitering near the schoolhouse. She wished she’d come out earlier to see if any students had alighted from that wagon. If he was a father delivering his young ones, she could push aside the unsettling feeling of being measured as a potential sweetheart.

Giggles carried from the classroom. Edythe quickly moved through the cloakroom, where lunch buckets sat in a neat row on a bench and jackets hung from pegs. She clapped her hands together as she headed to her desk, and the giggles stopped. Every pair of eyes in the room followed her as she opened the roll book and called names. When she finished, she sent a smile across the room.

“I’m so proud that each of you have had perfect attendance during the first week of school. If you continue coming every day for the remainder of the year, you’ll receive a bright red ribbon to pin to your jacket.”

William Libolt – nicknamed Little Will to distinguish him from thirteen-year-old William Sholes – raised his hand. Edythe gave him permission to speak.

“I don’t much like red. Could I have a green ribbon instead?”

Children tittered, and Edythe put her hand over her mouth to hold back a snort of amusement. “I regret to inform you that perfect attendance ribbons only come in one color, so you’ll have to be satisfied with red.”

The boy puckered for a moment, then shrugged. “Reckon I can take a red one.”

“Good.” Edythe sent the little boy a smile before directing her attention to the class as a whole. “Please raise your hand if you noticed something unusual on the play yard this morning.”

Most students looked at one another in confusion, but William Sholes, Lewis Scheebeck, and Patience Jeffers all thrust hands in the air.

Following the edict “ladies first,” Edythe called on Patience. “What did you see?”

Patience slipped out of the bench to stand beside her desk. “I saw lots of pegs, ma’am.”

Lots of pegs, indeed. Edythe had spent over an hour the evening before driving the pegs into the ground and then painting the tops either red or green. “Do you have a guess why the pegs are there?”

The little girl shook her head, making her brown braids flop. “No’m, but William bothered ’em. He put his foot on one and – ”

Before Patience could finish tattling, Edythe stepped off the platform. “The pegs are there for a very special purpose. In a few minutes, we’ll be going outside to put those pegs to work, but for now would my fourth- and fifth-grade students please rise and come to the recitation benches?”

With grins and nervous giggles, Ada Wolcott, Andrew Bride, and Lewis Scheebeck crowded onto the center bench. For several minutes, Edythe quizzed the children on the definitions for longitude, latitude, parallel, meridian, dissecting, degrees, and sphere. To her delight, the children described every word accurately.

“Excellent! Now, Andrew, please come forward and demonstrate the placement of the significant lines of latitude for your classmates.”

Andrew’s pudgy cheeks glowed red. He rose and faced the class. “If’n I was the earth – ”

“You’d be even rounder!” William Sholes shouted. Titters rolled across the classroom.

Andrew ducked his head, pressing his linked hands to his roly-poly belly. His dejected pose pierced Edythe’s heart. She sent William a stern look that silenced the entire room. “William, you did not have permission to speak, and what you said was exceedingly rude.” Folding her arms, she kept her eyes pinned to William’s face. Silence lingered for several tense seconds. “You owe Andrew an apology.”

“Sorry, Andrew.” His tone held no remorse.

Edythe intended to address the issue with William privately at a later time, but for now she let her gaze sweep the room. “Boys and girls, in this classroom we will follow a simple rule. Before you speak, ascertain that the comment is kind, truthful, and necessary. If it does not fit all three of those requirements, then remain silent. Is that clear?” She focused solely on William as she asked the question.

Several children mumbled embarrassed agreement, but William slunk into his seat, a surly look on his face. Edythe eyed him for another few seconds before turning to Andrew. “Go ahead.”

Andrew cleared his throat. “If’n I was the earth . . .” His eyes flitted to William and back to Edythe. He pointed to the top of his head. “Then this here would be the North Pole.” He gulped a couple of times, his knobby Adam’s apple bobbing. “Arctic Circle’s just about here.” Andrew indicated his ear, then he touched his shoulder. “Here’s the Tropic of Cancer, an’ – ” His hand slipped to his waist – “this is the Equator. Then my toes is the South Pole.”

Ada waved her hand over her head and crowed, “He forgot the Tropic of Capper-corn!” She pointed to Andrew’s knees. “It’s right there!”

“Hey!” Lewis bolted up, his hands balled on his hips. “What about the Ant – Ant – Ant-ar-dic Circle?”

“Ant-arc
-
tic Circle,” Edythe corrected.

“Yep, that.” Lewis darted forward and tapped his palm against Andrew’s shins. “It’s right about here.”

Laughter rang, but Edythe held up both hands, squelching it before it got out of hand. She spent a few more minutes reviewing the purpose for latitude and longitude and how the cross-hatch patterns on the globe made it possible to find any location on the earth. Then she instructed the children to form a line with her oldest student, Martha Sterbinz, at the end to encourage stragglers to stay with the class.

She retrieved a box of cut pieces of rope that she’d left beside the back door and marched the children to the side yard. There, she put them to work running the ropes along the pegs – red to red serving as lines of longitude, and green to green representing lines of latitude. When the section of ground looked like a maze of ropes, Edythe had the children post paper signs marking the major lines of latitude and their degrees from the North Pole to the South Pole. Then they put small numbered signs representing degrees on the ropes meant to signify lines of longitude.

The children buzzed, advising one another and tripping over each other’s feet, but eventually the ropes and signs took on the appearance of a huge globe. When it was complete, Edythe announced, “And now we will play ‘Where Am I?’ ”

“Where is she?” William Sholes held both arms toward Edythe. “Teacher’s right there!”

Several of the boys broke into laughter.

“William!” Edythe pointed to a spot away from the group. “Go sit down.”

The boy stared at her, openmouthed.

She took three steps closer to him. “You’ve been disruptive, so you’ve forfeited your opportunity to participate in our activity. You now have two choices. You may do as I instructed and go sit on the ground and watch, or you may walk home. If you choose to go home, I will come by your house after school to tell your parents why you were dismissed from school early.”

Edythe hoped William would go sit away from the group rather than leave. Sending a student home the very first week of school might be interpreted as her inability to handle the class. Each second seemed to stretch into eternity while William stood, his chin jutted stubbornly, staring at the ground. Finally he began to move on stiff legs. Edythe held her breath until he reached the spot she had indicated and plopped down. He folded his arms over his chest and glared at her, but he’d made his choice.

Relieved, she turned back to the other students to explain the rules of the game. It was really quite simple, something she’d concocted while reviewing a map. Each student would take a turn standing at the point where ropes crossed one another. He or she would call out, “Where am I?” and another student would name the spot by reciting the degrees.

They played for half an hour while the morning sun warmed their heads and a ground squirrel chattered from a nearby mound. Edythe kept one eye on the game and the other on William, who toyed with blades of dry grass and pretended he wasn’t watching. But twice she caught him looking longingly toward the group. She hid a smile. Surely after having to miss such fun, he’d be more cooperative.

By the end of the game, even some of the younger children were calling out the locations. They groaned when she indicated they must go inside and begin their next lesson.

Robert Townsend put his clasped hands beneath his chin. “Aw, Miss Amsel, can’t we play just a little longer?” The other children swarmed around her, taking up the cry to be allowed to continue.

Edythe waved her hands, silencing the group. “We have other things to learn today.” More groans followed, but she offered a compromise. “If you all work hard the rest of the morning and through the early afternoon, we’ll come back out at the end of the day and play some more before you go home.” She shifted to include William, who had risen to his haunches. “Does that sound like a good idea?”