Dear Readers,
Are you getting your table ready for turkey day?
Let's just jump into it - welcome to Chapter 3! (For new readers, please see Chapter 1, posted two weeks ago.)
Chapter
3: Mornings in Providence
The night full of perfectly splendid
dreams was ended for Ms. Grace by the local roosters’ cries. The bird belonging
to the Thomas family and the other cock belonging to the Davis family were as
competitive with each other as their masters. It was not unusual for a town of
this size to have its bickering surnames, but the drama bantering between these
two families was enough to occupy the space of a city five times the size of
Providence. One would think that such bitterly drawn lines between the western
settled Davis’ and the Thomas’ on the eastern side of town would be an
indelible act, but no. It was now a mystery as to exactly why or when the territorial
line etched straight through the middle of town was drawn. No one could now
remember why or what infernal event happened to provoke the cruel and terrible
division between the two dairy farms in so small a town. It was rumored that
there was a woman involved in the initial ceremony of hate. Other rumors
claimed that it was the fierce competition for business between the families
that drew the lines. Whatever it had been it left a very nasty mess to date. If
ever the families would meet in town (which happened on a daily basis) an
argument would start, then harsher verbal exchanges would be carelessly thrown
about, and then all manners of neighborly propriety would be disregarded and
the families’ angers would explode into an unscrupulous fist fight. Since
Providence was so small there was no sheriff on hand to save the day, so
citizens’ arrests were all that could occur. The offenders would be taken back
home or dragged to Mrs. Huff’s front door to receive the scolding of their
lives. The offenders taken to Mrs. Huff typically only rarely needed second reminding
from her of the consequences of their naughtiness, but the others would
continue this circuitous cycle of madness while their comrades took one for the
team.
Ms. Grace was forced to endure her own
private productions of the fights between the families in her classroom. Her
morning class with the younger students, the five to eleven year olds, had one
boy from each family enrolled and her later class had one girl and one lad
represented in the twelve to eighteen age group. These children all deeply
loathed each other’s very beings, but that went without saying. It was awful
for Ms. Grace. The feuds had been around all of her life, but she had hoped
that in her absence at school some sort of armistice would be signed between
the Thomas’ and the Davis’, but no such peace had yet been established. Ms.
Grace did her best to at least keep the tempers cooled within the sanctity of
her school house. However, try as she could to separate the two families in her
class, making daily attempts at peace negotiations, every attempt was made in
vain. Ms. Grace wished that there was something that the two families had in
common aside from cows that could serve as a calming medium, but, if there was
none that the reverend could find even after his attempts at arbitration, what
luck would be granted to her?
The eight o’clock bell that tolled from
the top of the town hall reverberated throughout the cottages, businesses and
farms, alerting the children and their parents that it was nearly time for
school. The clock roused the businessmen to look sharp and to start opening
shop. The milk and dairy products had already long ago been delivered. The two
dairy families were so competitive with the other that it drove them both to
make their deliveries earlier and earlier. The boys of these families enrolled
in Ms. Grace’s school kept falling asleep in her class because of those early deliveries.
Upon seeing the lad’s head droop lower and closer to the top of his desk,
depending on her mood, Ms. Grace would either slap the ruler on their desks or
kindly shake the boy’s shoulder to rouse him back into her lesson. However, her
concern for the boys involved in the situation had been waning for some time.
Ms. Grace’s milk arrived at her doorstep sometime around three in the morning
with a noisy thud. Being stirred in the middle of the night in such a manner
was hardly something welcomed by customers receiving a product. At any rate, as
far as Ms. Grace knew, the milk from both farms tasted the same.
Without fail, at 8.15, Ms. Grace was in
her schoolhouse preparing the classroom for the day. Today, the wee ones were
to learn about the transitions for which the world embarked during the
metamorphosis from summer to fall. Holding a ledger with a dried leaf from last
year pressed into its pages, Ms. Grace traced a large image of the piece onto
the blackboard with her chalk. The teacher was glad that her students were not
yet in class, for they always poked fun at the way she would shift the length
of her arm back and forth with her ledger as her eyes did their best to focus.
It was so embarrassing for her. This was why she prepared most of the lesson
prior to class, simply to spare herself the humiliation. She did not like
people to know that her eyes had difficult times focusing on any object more
than an arm’s distance away from her. Seeing details afar was a pain. This was
one of the reasons why her students had assigned seats – this way she had an
easier time telling which was which from the front of class. Luckily, the
students had yet to catch on to her clever tactic. She dreaded the day when
surely they would.
More and more sunlight burst into the
schoolhouse, warming the delightful place, until finally at 8.25 precisely, the
first of the students entered. The first one through the door, as always, was
little Jonas MacAbee. The eight-year-old was terribly in love with Ms. Grace.
Every day he was the first student to enter, the last one to leave, the first
to raise his hand, and so on.
The rest of the schoolhouse quickly
filled and at 8.30 on the dot class for the youngens began.
North of Ms. Grace’s schoolhouse, in the
very heart of town, old Mrs. Huff and the one who many of the villagers came to
refer to simply as “the spy”, but more formally known as Mrs. Winford,
gathered. Many of the townies thought the placing of Mrs. Huff’s house beside
the town hall to be a on the strategic side, for here in the center of town she
could hear and see practically every part of Providence’s happenings. Mrs. Huff
and Mrs. Winford kept their eyes up as they held their steaming teacups at the
ready. Like crows watching over a field, these women kept their attentions on
high even while their mouths cawed endlessly. In a town as small as Providence,
something tasty to talk about was diurnally expected between these two women.
However, were the talks to ever run a bit slow, fear not dear gossipers, for
Mrs. Winford would seek some new stain out with the impeccable precision of her
husband’s hounds. And if nothing could be found they would be satisfied with
fibs of their design.
“I heard that Cheryll Store and Marshall
Freightengott are to be engaged before Michaelmas,” the plump and overly
dressed Mrs. Huff announced under her breath to intensify the moment. The rumor
she supposedly heard was one of those entirely created on a whim of her own
intuition.
“Oh? I do say,” Mrs. Winford started,
taking a sip of her heavily sweetened tea. “They certainly would make a lovely
match. After he lost his wife I really doubted he would wed again, but I must
say that those two have been together
an exceptional amount of time lately, have they not?”
“Yes, yes, very much indeed,” Mrs. Huff
affirmed. She looked back into the windows of the tea shop she and her husband
founded ages ago to ensure that none of the cats had yet to leap up on any of
the counters where the milk and cream were kept. “Mmm, speaking of matches,”
Mrs. Huff continued, turning back to the main view of the street. “What on
earth is to be done with my former-ward, Ms. Grace?”
“Well, it is very well known that Moira
Higley’s son Brian has a fancy for her,” Mrs. Winford suggested, looking to her
own golden wedding ring that was due for cleaning. “They would make a handsome
pair, for their heights are about equivalent to the other and they both have
fair faces. I’d wager that they would be the finest coupling in town.”
This was true. Mr. Higley was of a decent
height for a man, being neither too tall nor too short. He was well built and
handsome, complete even with a dimple in his well sculpted chin. His eyes
shimmered an enchanting blue while his voice hummed sweetly and almost
seductively to anyone who would listen. In a great many ways, Mr. Higley would
have seemed a perfect mate for Ms. Grace who was fair and on the short side, so
he would not tower over her too dramatically. Her dark features would be well
balanced with the lighter ones of Mr. Higley, and they would make absolutely
perfect offspring. However, busybody as she was, Mrs. Huff knew that even the
term “perfect” came with its own set of faults. The elder Mrs. Huff sighed
heavily. There was something about the union between Mr. Higley and Ms. Grace
that did not settle well in her bones. With another sip of tea and with another
look back into the shop to check the status-quo between the cats and the cream,
Mrs. Huff eventually came to say, “Yes, well, there is one that we will keep an
eye out to see if it blooms or if it wilts.”
“Wilts?” Mrs. Winford quickly, sharply
inquired. She shifted her own thick body to lean closer to Mrs. Huff. She did
not wish the scattered passersby to overhear. “My dear Mrs. Huff, I do not mean
to sound presumptuous, but your former ward is not young anymore,” Mrs. Winford
whispered as they watched a member of the Davis family enter the hat shop
across the street from them. “And you know
how people in Providence and its neighboring towns talk. Mr. Winford and I
married in our mid-twenties and Lord how
people spoke then! And I was not even half
the beauty of Ms. Grace…well, maybe half.” Mrs. Winford paused to take
another sip from her tea. “She’s such a soft elegance about her, you know? It
is such a shame that there are hardly enough young bachelors in town that could
be worthy suitors for her. I mean, we certainly cannot let her leave our
Providence for a husband like your grandniece is going to do.”
“No, certainly not,” Mrs. Huff agreed
with a firm nod of her bonneted head. “No, Ms. Grace is a spirit of Providence,
Nuir Nosnobles’ finest town. She was born here, raised here, and Lord give her
long life, she will undoubtedly die here just like the rest of us. We all
natives ‘ave a spot in the church’s plot, I’d say.”
“Lord willing, yes,” Mrs. Winford agreed
with a curt nod. “Save for our reverend, but he’s welcome to the church’s plot.
I mean that he’s not a native; after all, he came to us, bless him.”
“Yes, but he is a man of Providence, he just wasn’t born here. Oh, and that
reminds me,” Mrs. Huff leaned over the side of her wicker rocking chair, which
creaked in pain from the shifting of her weight. Mrs. Huff then said to her
friend with arduous excitement, “I nearly forgot to tell you; I ran into Mrs.
Jolty yester-afternoon who earlier had spoken to Mrs. Witten, who’s carrying on
the business exquisitely for a woman, I must say.”
“Oh yes, poor dear,” Mrs. Witten quickly
stated.
“I know, bless her,” Mrs. Huff just as
quickly said, “But anywho, apparently Mrs. Witten heard or inspired, which I am
not exactly sure, the charming reverend and our Ms. Grace are to join forces to
teach a Bible school, or something of the sort, to the Continuing Education
class as some type of reading course.”
“You are joking!” Mrs. Winford stated,
unable to believe what indeed held wonderful prospects for their town. She was
surprised that she had overseen such an update in town for so long.
Mrs. Huff shook her head, “The pair have
formed an alliance and they are to converse on the morrow to make their plans
concretely absolute.”
In her excitement, Mrs. Winford waved her
hands up and down as though hoping to take flight. She mocked hyperventilating
as well. “Oh do tell, Mrs. Huff! I shall have to enroll Mr. Winford and myself
in her class the instant I know this to be true! You know how I love to read and how my droll Mr. Winford reads as
well!”
“Dear me, quite,” Mrs. Huff affirmed with the last sip of her tea. “Mrs.
Winford, let us see if we cannot affirm this inquiry ourselves. Run-on and,
well, you know what to do.”
Like a good soldier obeying orders, Mrs.
Winford gave a stout nod of her bonneted head before she set down her tea and
was off. Mrs. Huff relied heavily on her spy, half her own age and thus much
more capable of doing the deeds her body would no longer permit her to perform.
As Mrs. Huff sat pensively she smiled to think of how grateful her formal ward
would be to know that with all the hype and expectation surrounding the course,
she would now have no other option but to teach the class.
Mrs. Winford bobbled up and down in what
she perceived to be a gentlelady run even though it was well known that proper
gentlewomen never ran. She was on a mission: the purpose Mrs. Huff granted her
to perform had to be done expediently and it could only be done by Mrs.
Winford. At least, this is what she told herself. The first step on her new
platform for the day was to stop at the Elderbes’ hat shop across the way from
Mrs. Huff’s residence.
The silver bells above many a door rang
as Mrs. Winford entered building after building. She babbled at top speed the
latest, hottest news in Providence to practically all of the principle players
on the main street. To the mayor, the butcher, the market keeper, the
blacksmith’s wife, she repeated the story over and over until she knew that by
afternoon tea the whole town would be talking. Never missing a beat, Mrs.
Winford was able to proclaim the joyous and destined to be a successful joining
of arms to at least forty people before noon. There was only one more stop she
had to make before she could return to her post at the teashop.
“Mr. Winford!” she greeted authoritatively
as she entered the barbershop beside her husband’s gazette business.
The gentleman who towered over his wife,
unhappiness immediately consuming his entire being, turned to the pink and
white laced women. She was violating the one place where he found peace. He did
not bother to ask why she had burst into his best mate’s shop, for he had given
up years ago on carrying on a normal conversation with the woman he married.
Mrs. Winford rushed to the back of the
shop where her husband sat in a chair, a smoking pipe settled between his lips.
The other two customers with foamy cream on their cheeks and the two business
owners watched this woman enter, yet again violating her husband’s sanctuary.
“Mr. Winford,” she started with her hands planted on her hips. She nearly
stepped on the poor old hound at Mr. Winford’s feet, but the dog was so jaded
to this woman that he only stared at her indifferently like his master. “I will
not for the whole day ignore the fact that you are not attending to your own
business to waste the day in here, but for this moment alone I will.” Mr.
Winford’s big brown eyes stared blankly at his wife as she rambled. (Business
in the shop did continue, but the men temporarily halted their conversation to
hear what Mrs. Winford had to share today.) With a deep breath Mrs. Winford
repeated once again the story she had told today three dozen times: “Mr.
Winford, I heard this very morning that our Reverend Tamrin and our darling Ms.
Grace are to teach together a class for adults to hone our skills of
analytically reading Bible-based books. How delightful, no? I will sign the
both of us up for this class the moment I know its truth.”
“You’ll do nothing of the sort,” Mr.
Winford dryly corrected. He sucked on the end of his tobacco pipe and turned
his gaze back to the journal on his lap. A fatal mistake.
Mrs. Winford ripped the tobacco pipe from
her husband’s lips. Her small blue eyes were burning madly as she angrily said,
“Why do you never listen to me?! We are joining
this class!”
“You do not even know if it is real,” Mr.
Winford as dryly as before replied, turning again to his journal. “It’s
probably just snipe Mrs. Huff fed to you.”
Mrs. Winford sighed admittedly as she
carelessly tossed Mr. Winford’s pipe onto his journal. Loose tobacco spilled
out onto the leaves making a bit of a mess. At least the smoke and heat from
the pipe had extinguished. Mr. Winford nonchalantly swept the tobacco bits off
his journal and onto the floor which he knew would soon be swept anyway. Mrs.
Winford returned her knuckles to her hips and said, “Yes, well I willn’t know until half past noon and we never
know when Reverend Tamrin will return on Mondays.”
The husband who ought to have been
aggrandized for his amount of patience for a wife like his looked away from
said lady to return his gaze to the journal. With a quick glance at the window,
just as indifferently as before, Mr. Winford sighed and said dryly to his wife,
“Why not turn around and ask the man himself?”
The wife whipped her gaze away from her
husband to the large barbershop windows. There passing by the shop was the
reverend accompanied by two other souls.
“Oh! There he is indeed, Mr. Winford!”
Mrs. Winford happily announced, “And with his cousins as well, how lovely! I
shall have to speak with him at once.”
The pink-dressed pudgy body of Mrs.
Winford ran out of the shop as quickly as she had entered. Mr. Winford did not
even bother to watch her leave. His relaxation business in the barbershop could
continue once more.
“At least her gossip brings your columns
to life, eh, Mr. Winford?” the barber kindly reminded as mirth formed on Mr.
Winford’s smile – his peace had been returned.
The reverend and his “cousins” slowly
made their way back to the good gentleman’s home with nary an interruption. The
exception being when they passed the red and white striped poles of the barber
shop.
“Mr. Tamrin!” the high pitched voice of
Mrs. Winford cried out as she passed through a herd of the chickens that roamed
the town. The clucky hens with different colored ribbons around their necks to
plainly distinguish their masters, flapped-off in every direction as the
seemingly wild woman cut through their walk. “Reverend Tamrin!” she hollered
once more.
“Good heavens, Mrs. Winford, what’s
troubling you?” the reverend asked kindly even though he knew that this
interruption was probably the hunt for a bit of gossip. Being a reverend did
not forbid the man from having negative thoughts – it simply prevented him from
sharing them with anyone.
Mrs. Winford quickly curtsied to the
reverend’s cousins. The well-aged matron and patron too bowed their heads
respectfully a breath before Mrs. Winford caught her own to inquire about the
rumor she had been spreading all morning. “Good reverend, Mrs. Huff nor I will
be able to rest until you settle this for us; is it true about the union
between yourself and Ms. Grace?”
The arduous question struck the reverend.
The term “union” sat awkwardly in his thoughts. The vampires looked to their
friend with great curiosity, for they had always considered him to simply be a
man marked with decorum and rectitude aimed solely at the church. Even in their
wisdom and years of experience, they could not have even conceived the thought
of the reverend joined with a lady. However, the prospect did seem rather nice
for their reverend to have a mate. He was of the gentlest and most deserving of
souls. And such a union with Ms. Grace would only make all the sense in the
world.
The reverend galvanized himself back into
the conversation with a cough, “What do you mean, Mrs. Winford? Do you mean the
class?”
“Well yes, of course,” Mrs. Winford said
with a chuckle and a shrug. She too had never envisaged the sweet reverend as
anything other than just the reverend.
Mr. Tamrin knew that word on the
grapevine was naught to be raced, but this new level of expediency was
something to be documented in history. Reverend Tamrin repositioned himself in
his saddle. “I had not apperceived that anyone but Ms. Grace, Mrs. Witten, and
myself knew about the class, but yes, yes Mrs. Winford it is true. Ms. Grace and
I will together teach a class, but that is all that I even know. Ms. Grace and
I have yet to speak of this together.” With a smile to the glowing joy
radiating from Mrs. Winford, the reverend added, “Perhaps you could muzzle out some more information for me?” He said this
primarily to abate Mrs. Winford from questioning his “cousins,” which worked
magnificently. Although, he would later be guilt ridden from turning this hound
on to Ms. Grace’s trail.
“Oh, I shall at once, sir!” the dutiful Mrs.
Winford quickly curtsied again. In a blink, she was off running through those
poor chickens again, heading off toward Ms. Grace herself. The reverend was
already beginning to feel guilty for turning Mrs. Winford on Ms. Grace like
that, but it could prove to give them something to talk about later.
“I thought she meant sommat along the
lines of marriage,” Howard quietly said to his friend as they lingered back for
a moment, awed by the small cloud of dust trailing behind Mrs. Winford.
“So did I,” the reverend very quietly
said.
Way far down to the southern end of town
where the buildings were few and widely dispersed, the bustling town spy
travelled. ‘Twas there where the schoolhouse and the lovely Ms. Grace were
settled. ‘Twas there where Mrs. Winford thought she would finally find the closing
piece of her morning’s quest.
Inside of her brightly painted
schoolhouse, Ms. Grace always started to wonder around noon if she should
capitulate to the demands of her pupils and let them out earlier than
scheduled. This thought crossed her mind diurnally only because of the
difficulties she encountered between the young Mr. Davis and the young Mr.
Thomas. By now they had already made several attempts to: organize miniature
riots on either side of the class; start verbal and physical fights; and to
somehow redirect a lesson’s purpose to gild the names of their families over
the other. Ms. Grace could not understand how children so young could already
be so corrupted by the silly injunctions of their families. No matter her
efforts to asunder these two boys, polar opposites always found each other.
The morning had grown very warm. The
heated bodies of the excited children did not help the situation. As Ms. Grace directed
her students to do their end of the day chores, she walked to one of the
windows that lined the schoolhouse’s walls to let a breeze into the room.
Mistakenly keeping her gaze locked on Mr. Davis and Mr. Thomas to ensure their separation
and tranquility, Ms. Grace parted the cream colored curtains to open the glass.
When she turned to look out the window, Ms. Grace nearly had a heart attack
from fright. The teacher yelped and grasped at her chest. The absolute last
thing she had expected to see was the round, freckled face of Mrs. Winford
staring back at her.
Mrs. Winford’s smile only widened as she
greenly waved at the young teacher, alerting Ms. Grace that she wanted to talk after
class. For the longest time all that Ms. Grace could do was stare at the town’s
busybody who had, for whatever reason, decided to stake out at her school’s
window for however long a time.
“Ms. Grace!” little Jonas Macabee
shouted, stealing back the teacher’s attention.
The teacher turned back to see the chaos
that had erupted in the front of her classroom in the moment that she had
looked away. Mr. Thomas was covered in black ink and was now atop of Mr. Davis
thwacking him with a chalk eraser. The school teacher jolted herself into
intervention mode.
A white cloud danced among the
evanescence of the room as Ms. Grace attempted to pull Mr. Thomas from Mr.
Davis. The two boys continued their violent actions to the encouraging shouts
from the rest of her classroom that had initially thought the conduct of their
fellows to be rather upsetting. Ms. Grace could not believe that her entire
class would join this madness. In later retrospection she would attribute the
mob mentality to the heat. In the last fifteen minutes of class, Ms. Grace did
her best to calm all of the children and to restore order to her class, but the
feverous hatred between the dairy farm sons had become infectious.
For the first time in her career of four
years as a teacher Ms. Grace lost all control of her students. However, the
madness did not ossify her from action. Ms. Grace plucked up a ruler and did
something that she had never had to do before. With a brief shout and a loud
crack the ruler snapped in half against the teacher’s desk.
The classroom silenced.
A drove of shocked expressions met the
teacher’s command. Ms. Grace had never before had to raise her voice to further
emphasize her authority. The frightened and surprised expressions of her
students made her doubt that much more would ever be needed again. Ms. Grace
straightened her dress, cleared her throat then said calmly, “To your desks,
all of you.”
The children immediately obeyed. Save for
the scuffling noises of their scurrying feet, the whole class hardly made a
sound. Ms. Grace was highly impressed with the remarkably efficient way her
students were doing as told, but she did not physically express this pride.
Instead, the teacher strode at a firm pace down the center aisle of the
schoolhouse once all of her pupils were once again properly settled. They
watched her attentively pass by slowly with purpose. They knew that she was
evaluating the scope of their wicked deeds in those few moments when they ran
wild. By the looks of things, the consequences would not belie a soul. Even Ms.
Grace had chalk dust all over her body and face after having wrestled the
eraser out from Mr. Davis’ hands. The children did not giggle from the sight. They
were too scared to dare crack a smile.
When the teacher reached the back of her
school house, the children sat still watching her. She seemed to be blocking
their only reasonable manner of escape with her chalk-blotted body. Ms. Grace
sighed then said, “Eyes forward.” The children whipped their heads back to the
direction of the blackboard. They could still see a cloud of chalk looming
before them. The only sound made was that of the teacher’s boots slowly
returning their person to the front of class. As she wiped chalk from her face
with the back of her hand, proving only to smear it more, Ms. Grace let the
wave of her disappointment show in her demeanor.
The room was a deplorable mess.
Miss Grace reached the front of class
where ground-zero lay. She looked every one of her students in the eye as she
leaned her body against the blackboard. For a moment she stood in silence until
she calmly asked, “Does anyone know the time?” The children were too anxious
until Ms. Grace re-asked, “Can anyone please
tell me the time?”
A little blond girl raised her hand and
answered, looking to the grandfather clock against the front of the wall, “It
is twelve-thirty-four, Ms. Grace.”
The teacher folded her arms over her
chest before continuing, “And what time is it when you usually leave to meet
your parents?”
“Twelve-thirty,” Jonas Macabee answered
shamefully.
Ms. Grace nodded her head. “Now, can
anyone guess why you are not at this moment heading home?” The dropping of
several heads from the weight of shame answered her inquiry. “You are not being
released because only my students are
released at 12.30 and at that moment not a single one of you resembled anything
like my students.” Ms. Grace paused a
moment to give a subtle nod to one of the parents waiting outside the door. Ms.
Grace licked her lips (the taste of chalk met her tongue) then continued, “Due
to your actions our humble classroom has become nothing short of a pig sty, so you
shall remain to see through the consequences of your deeds. Hopefully, a bit of
earnest, quiet, and peaceful cleaning
will transform you back to my students. Please clean the immediate areas around
your desks whether you made it or not, while I go talk to your parents.” That
last bit was the worst harbinger for pain – it was the repercussions from their
parents that unnerved the students most. “You two,” Ms. Grace singled out Mr.
Davis and Mr. Thomas, “I want you two to stay after the cleaning. I need to
speak with you both.”
The two boys from opposing families sank
lower into their shoes than the rest. They knew that this was their fault, but
neither would verbally admit this malefaction.
Ms. Grace tried not to storm out of the
classroom, but her steps certainly did fall harder on the wooden floor than
usual. She absolutely dreaded having to speak to adults she knew well with
chalk all over her body. With a deep breath, the teacher stepped out of the red
schoolhouse into the warm September day. There was now a significant group of
parents ready and impatiently waiting for their children. They all stared at
the chalk all over Ms. Grace – they wondered what on earth could have been
happening in this classroom.
A good many of them had already heard Ms.
Winford’s wheel of rumors for the day and none were anxious to hear any more.
Mrs. Winford hopped to and made an attempt to start speaking to Ms. Grace, but
the latter held her hand up politely to stay the woman’s words for now.
“Good afternoon,” Ms. Grace started
uneasily. She did not have problems lecturing in her class, but speaking outside
of her comfort zone was difficult for her, especially now that she was a mess. She
cleared her throat then said, “I apologize that your children have not yet been
excused, but there was a bit of a lapse in behavior towards the end of class,
so my students are reversing the shows of their actions. They should only be
another few moments and then I will excuse them. Again, I am sorry if this
disrupts your routines.” Prior to returning to her classroom, Ms. Grace scanned
nearly a dozen faces of parents in attempt to find a Davis or a Thomas, but as
usual none were present. Clicking the back of her tongue from disappointment,
Ms. Grace reentered her schoolhouse.
The students made haste to correct their
actions in the class. They worked in silence and were very near finishing by
the time Ms. Grace reached the front of the room. She slowly strolled past
every row of desks to evaluate the work being done. Once she determined that
their progress was satisfactory, she asked the students to sit.
“Right. Now, for your homework tonight,”
she started to instruct (most of the students slumped in their desk because
they already had assignments for home). “I want you, every one of you, to write
apologies to the classroom for what abuses you bestowed to its hall. Start your
letter,” Ms. Grace took a bit of chalk from her desk then recited what she
wrote, “‘Dear Schoolhouse, I am sorry
that I…’ then fill in what you did and what happened today. End your letter
with,” again she wrote on the board as she said, “‘Please forgive me, it will not happen again.’ Then sign your
names. I expect these letters back first thing Wednesday morning. If you need help
with your letters please come to me today or tomorrow and I will be happy to
help my students who wish to learn.
Am I clear?” Most of the students nodded. “Good, with the exception of Mr.
Davis and Mr. Thomas, the rest of you are excused.”
The students hurriedly shuffled out from
the class and ran to their parents. Even though town was small, it would be a
long walk back to their homes today.
Mrs. Winford immediately entered the
room. Her fingers were clutching onto the shoulders of her young son who wanted
nothing more than to be with his dad away from the schoolhouse. “Do you still
need a minute, Ms. Grace?” Mrs. Winford asked much to the distaste of her
freckled face son.
The school teacher attempted very hard to
deny a frustrated sigh. It was only almost one in the afternoon and it had
already been a very rough day. “Please? I need to have a private chat with
these two gentlemen first, Mrs. Winford.”
The town’s bustling woman led her poor
son back out of the class.
The teacher waited for the door to shut
before she commenced very quietly from behind her desk. “Come here, gentlemen,”
Ms. Grace directed the boys to stand in front of her desk so that she could sit
at eye level with them. The boys reluctantly stood beside each other. Their
heated disposition was timorously felt by Ms. Grace. This sort of unwarranted
behavior drove Ms. Grace mad. “Mr. Davis,” she started as she pulled a
handkerchief out from her drawer. The blond boy looked to her. “Mr. Thomas,”
the other blond boy also turned his eyes to his teacher. The handkerchief was
to wipe her face of the itchy chalk, but she decided to hold off to give these
boys her full attention. Besides, making them stare at the mess they made on
her may help to make her point. “In the morning because my house falls on the
divide of the town’s line I receive my butter from your family, Mr. Davis, and
my milk from yours, Mr. Thomas, as part of the agreement the reverend came to
make between your families. Both of the products that I receive are of
excellent quality and were I to be blindfolded I would never be able to tell
the milk on my doorstep from that which is left on my good friend Ms. Joyce’s
doorstep from the western side of town; she thus receives milk from the
Davis’.” Ms. Grace inhaled deeply. She could see that what she was saying was
not making much sense to either of the boys, so she decided to take a different
direction with her arbitration. “Look at yourselves, lads. You look so alike. A
stranger to our town would think you cousins at the farthest relation.” The
boys looked traumatized at such a sacrilegious suggestion. Her words were
proving nothing to them. The teacher sighed then said, “Tomorrow is a new day
and tomorrow you will not act out
against each other in my class or out there. You will not disrupt my classroom
again. Do you both understand?”
The boy covered in chalk and the boy
bathed in black ink nodded.
“Good,” Ms. Grace said even though she
was not convinced. “Now, I am sorry, gentlemen, but if an outburst of your
rivalries happens again I will be forced to excuse you from my class indefinitely.”
Both of the boys looked absolutely distraught, for school was the one place
where they actually were not forced to endure listening to naught but
propaganda against another family. “My schoolhouse is not a coop for violence and chaos is not allowed to run rampant
here. This is a place for learning where only students who wish to learn may
enter. So if you cannot behave yourselves then clearly you do not wish to learn
and thus you will not be welcome here until you come ready to be educated like
mature students. Am I clear?”
Both boys answered ‘yes’ meekly.
Though extreme shame did line the faces
of the youth, Ms. Grace knew in her heart that no matter what she said, it
would all be for naught. With one last sigh, she excused the children.
The boys left the class quietly enough. However,
the moment they were beyond the eyes of the schoolhouse, Mr. Davis tripped Mr.
Thomas. Mr. Thomas then hurled a pebble at Mr. Davis’ back as the boy ran away.
Ms. Grace dropped her forehead onto the
desk, but she did not receive a moment’s peace. In popped Mrs. Winford. The
clomping of the woman’s heals on the schoolhouse’s floor forced Ms. Grace to
whip her head up to see the beaming expression of the town’s spy bearing down
on her.
“Oh, I’ll only take a minute of your
time, Ms. Grace,” Mrs. Winford assured as she rushed to the front of class,
dragging her son behind by the wrist.
The teacher looked at the locked grip
Mrs. Winford held on her son. It made Ms. Grace think of a vice or of the cuffs
officers in larger cities would force the incarcerated to wear.
“How may I help you, Mrs. Winford?” Ms.
Grace kindly, but reluctantly asked. She grabbed the handkerchief from the desk
and immediately started to wipe her face of the mess. Cleaning her plain dark
blue dress would have to wait until later.
With the hand not holding onto her son,
Mrs. Winford touched her fingertips to Ms. Grace’s desk as she excitedly
started, “I spoke to Reverend Tamrin earlier and he told me all about your class that the two of you
are to teach!” (Ms. Grace’s expression was that of a smile, but her insides
were turning. How could this possibly be happening already? She knew very well
that the Reverend probably hardly even mentioned the class to Mrs. Winford. However,
the fact that she was here talking about the subject meant that by now most of
the town was talking about it too.) Mrs. Winford continued, “I just came to ask
of the specifics that Mr. Tamrin said you would know.”
Like the child who looked to her
pleadingly to speak fast, Ms. Grace wanted nothing more than to run. The
teacher sat up as straight as she could as she answered, “My dear Mrs. Winford,
I am not exactly sure of the details myself. The reverend and I have not yet
met to discuss the odds and ends.” Though there was little else to be said,
Mrs. Winford continued to stare expectantly at Ms. Grace. The latter woman knew
that the former would never leave if she did not at least give an iota of
something, anything for the spy to regurgitate and embellish back to Mrs. Huff,
so she added, “We intend to meet tomorrow for talks. We will probably have the
class organized and approved budget-wise by the mayor and his staff before
Sunday.”
Again, Mrs. Winford started to
hyperventilate from the wave of her excitement. It was the little things that
kept her afloat in this small town. Her son rolled his eyes for he was not
entertained and his wrist was starting to hurt.
“I take it that you may be interested in
enrolling, Mrs. Winford?” Ms. Grace asked in hope to stall the spy from passing
out from lack of proper oxygen.
“YES!” the woman affirmed, hardly able to
control herself. “Mr. Winford and I both will be your first enrolled pupils! To
think, the reverend and you, Ms. Grace, beside each other as joined professors.
United to bring enlightenment to our Providence! Oh! I can hardly wait!”
Ms. Grace was amazed that Mrs. Winford
was already holding up the quill to enlist in a class that no one yet
understood. For all she knew, the group could convert to paganism and analyze
the worship of twig and rock deities. The possibilities at the moment were
endless, but Ms. Grace’s half hour lunch break was not. “If you do not mind,
Mrs. Winford, I’ve only a couple of minutes to eat before my next class, so if
you would be so kind…”
“But of course,” Mrs. Winford bowed her
head and started to back out of the schoolhouse. “Worry not about advertising
the class, Ms. Grace,” Mrs. Winford added as she neared the door. “I’m sure
that in no time at all the whole county will be talking about it.”
With a sigh, Ms. Grace reverentially
thought, ‘Thanks to you, Mrs. Winford, I
would be damned if they aren’t already.’
~*~*~
Have a happy Thanksgiving! Gobble-gobble!
Your humble author,
S. Faxon
