Chapter 3 of Providence: The Tale of the Tamrins

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