Those were the times when she could ask Cora questions about the peculiar traditions of the mountain people she kept encountering. “I’ve noticed that some beliefs are a strange mixture of superstitions and religion. Finley James got a fishing hook caught in his hand the other day and had me clean out the wound with moonshine. But then he was in a fit because I threw out the fishhook and he couldn’t find it. He said he had to stick the hook in a piece of wood three times, one each for the Trinity, so the wound wouldn’t fester.”
“He’s half right. The moonshine disinfects the wound.” Cora sighed. “Frankly, Lucy, I don’t even bother to try and dissuade the people from their superstitions. Most are harmless. I suppose . . . they provide comfort. Even entertainment.”
“I thought that was what their music was for.”
“Yes, true. Their lives are woven into music.”
Cora polished off the rest of her tea and set the cup on her desk. Lucy knew enough to bring a pot of tea now, to prolong their teatimes. She refilled Cora’s cup quickly. “And stories. Everybody in Rowan County seems to have a story. At least half of my visits end up as story-listening.” Lucy breathed in the earthy scent of the tea. “Are they all true?” She never could tell.
Cora smiled, peering over her teacup. “My father used to say, ‘Some folks can spin quite a yarn out of a little piece of thread.’”
A laugh burst out of Lucy. “Finley James! You just described him.”
Cora rose and looked out the window at the livery. “Now there’s a prime example of a boy who’s smart as a whip but hasn’t had near enough schooling. I fear the time is coming when it will be too late for him. He’s already chafing at the bit to stay out of school and I barely got him into it.”
“Sometimes I think it’s unfortunate that you can’t chase down all those illiterate adults in the hills and get them into school alongside their children.”
Cora turned, her eyebrows lifted in surprise. “The accepted wisdom of the day claims that there’s a window, as children, for the mind to acquire language. When the window is shut, that opportunity is lost.” She sat down in her chair and picked up her pencil, signaling the end of teatime.
As Lucy picked up Cora’s teacup, she said, “Cora, do you believe that?”
“I’m not sure.” Cora leaned back in her chair. “I have to admit that in all my years in education, I’ve never known an adult to learn to read. Not a single one.”
“I suppose the parents would be too proud to go to school alongside their children.”
“Too proud, too busy, too old,” Cora said in a vague and distracted tone. “Too everything.”
LATER THAT AFTERNOON, a gentle knock came on the door to Cora’s office. Peeping through the crack in the door was Mollie McGlothin, clutching a paper poke.
“Miss Mollie!” Cora jumped up from her desk to greet the old woman. “Come in, come in. What brings you down the mountain on a day like today?”
“Came down with Brother Wyatt on a jolt wagon. He’s practicin’ his preaching at the church on Sunday. Fillin’ in for the preacher.” Miss Mollie settled into Lucy’s chair and fished through her poke. “I come down the hill cuz I got me a letter to post.” She had a pleased look on her face, like a cat that just caught a mouse. “Wanted you to read it first.” She held the unsealed envelope out to Cora.
Cora unfolded a paper and silently read it, then handed it to Lucy.
Deer Daughter,
This be my furst lettur. I pray it will not be my last.
Luv, Maw
After reading, Lucy looked up. Cora’s eyes were fixed on Mollie. “Who wrote this for you?”
“Me, m’self, and I.” Miss Mollie smiled her big toothless smile. “I lurned m’self.”
Cora and Lucy exchanged a look of astonishment. “But how?”
“I’d always figured that it was too late for me. Y’ know . . . y’ cain’t teach an old dawg new tricks. But then I thought some more on that. My papaw Angus had an old dawg once, and that dawg kept on learning new tricks, right up to the day he died. So I got thinking that mebbe I could be like that old dawg o’ Papaw’s. Mebbe I could try.”
Lucy glanced at Cora. Her eyes, she noticed, were shiny.
“So I asked Angie Cooper for help, and she brung me a book of letters. Jest a little children’s book. I worked on them letters, worked and worked on them. At first they jest seemed like scribbles to me. Angie helped me figure out the sounds them scribbles made. Lo and behold, one day them scribbles started to make sense.” She couldn’t stop smiling. “I cain’t stop m’self now. I’m reading everythin’ I git my hands on. Labels on jars. Ol’ magazines. I found a newspaper stuffed in between some logs used for chinking. Dated 1891, if ya can believe that. Did ya know that the first basketball game was invented then? And they used peach baskets for hoops.” She chuckled. “I have a great-grandson who loves to play basketball. I’m gonna send him that torn piece o’ newspaper.” She grinned. “That’ll be m’ next letter to write.”
One tear, then another, started to trickle down Cora’s cheeks.
Miss Mollie watched her, concerned. “I know it’s a mite gaumish. That quill pen is hard to hold. And I know my letters are shaky. I redid it three times, but then the inkpot went dry.”
With that, Cora’s tears started streaming. Lucy handed her a handkerchief and she mopped up her face.
Distressed, Miss Mollie said, “Aw, no. I didn’t mean to make ya weepy, Cora. And here I thought you’d be proud o’ me.”
“Oh, Miss Mollie. These are happy tears. I am proud of you. So proud.” She mopped her face once more. “And you have taught me something today. Something powerful. You’re never too old to learn.”
Miss Mollie laughed, sounding more like a cackle. “I’d best be on m’ way.” She picked up her poke handles and, with Lucy’s help, eased out of the chair. “Gotta go post that letter.”
Lucy handed her the envelope to tuck in the poke. “I guess this means I’m out of a job as your scribe.”
“Mebbe so,” Miss Mollie said. She stopped at the door and turned back.
“Miss Mollie,” Cora said, “your daughter should frame that first letter of yours.”
Miss Mollie shook her head. “No need.” Her eyes twinkled. “But I do look forward to hearin’ back from her.” As she opened the door, Lucy heard her repeat to herself, “Oh yes I do. I do, indeed.”
Arms crossed, Cora went to the window, deep in thought. Lucy went back to where she’d left off with the filing. She set a file on Cora’s desk and noticed she was still staring out the window. She came up behind Cora to peer over her shoulder. Miss Mollie was slowly making her way down the road.
“Amazing, isn’t it?” Lucy said. “A woman of her age, teaching herself to read.”
“It’s more than amazing,” Cora said. “Your father . . . he was right in what he told you. Absolutely right. I’ve made a terrible blunder.”
“How so?”
“Just like everyone else, I’ve accepted the thinking of academics. What do they know? Heavens, they live far away in their ivory towers. Mollie has just proved that theory wrong.” She clapped her hands, like a thunderbolt just hit her, and her eyes grew animated. “Lucy . . . we are going to prove everyone wrong.” She grabbed her shoulders and gave them a squeeze. “We are going to set them free.”
“What do you mean?”
“What do I mean?” Cora sat at her desk and reached for a pad of paper and a pencil stub. “What do I mean? We are going to teach illiterate adults how to read.”
“How do you propose such a thing?”
Cora answered her as she kept writing, not even lifting her head. “They’ll come to the schoolhouse by night.”
“Night school?”
Cora finished scribbling and slapped her pencil down. “By the light of the moon. So they can find their way.”
Lucy had experienced a bit of how dark those hills could be. Even on a cloudless day, the thick trees blotted out the sun and left h
er in a stygian inkiness. Imagine what a moonless night would be like. The very thought made her shiver.
Cora’s thoughts were running on an entirely different track. “How could I not have thought of this long ago?” She looked up. “I need Brother Wyatt here, right away. He’s over at the Disciples of Christ Church. We don’t have a moment to waste.”
Lucy reached for her sweater. She’d been around Cora long enough to know that she’d just been issued a fetching order.
LUCY HEARD WYATT IN THE CHURCH before she found him. She paused at the open door that led to the sanctuary, recalling Miss Mollie had said he was practicing a sermon, so she stepped back to wait in the narthex and leaned her against the wall, listening.
“Jesus said to seek and we will find.” Wyatt’s rafter-raising baritone voice resonated through the empty church. “We usually find what we seek.”
Was that true? Lucy wasn’t so sure. Some things just couldn’t be found, no matter how hard you tried. Some people just couldn’t be found. But she did enjoy the sound of Wyatt’s fine deep voice. He had a way of stretching her thinking, to dare her to believe there might be more purpose in this world, in her life, than she thought possible. Her eyes slid shut as she listened to him finish his sermon. She wished she could believe, the way Brother Wyatt did, and Cora did. Life seemed easier for them. Not so much in their circumstances, as she knew Cora had weathered some hardships and she suspected the same of Wyatt, but in how they handled those difficulties. That’s what seemed easier.
“Lucy?”
Her eyes opened and there was Wyatt, peering down at her.
“Is something wrong?” he asked gently.
“I’m . . . I was . . . just listening . . .” She stammered away, blushing profusely. “Cora sent me to fetch you.” She stumbled to explain Cora’s idea but did a poor job of it. She didn’t really understand it herself. “She’ll have to tell you more. All I know is that she wants you in her office, lickety-split.”
Wyatt gave her another odd look. “Did you just say lickety-split?”
“Did I? I meant, right away.” She shook that phrase right out of her head. “Cora’s got me all tangled up. Miss Mollie came to the office to show us she has taught herself to write, which is remarkable, and after she left, Cora started scribbling and tossing out ideas and said she needed you right away. It was like a tornado swept into the office.”
“I’ve been caught in that tornado before.” He grinned, holding the church door open. “She’s never happier than when she’s facing an insurmountable challenge.”
Moments later, Cora beckoned him at the door of her office. “Hurry! What’s taken so long? Wyatt, sit down. Sit! Lucy and I have the most remarkable plan. And we need you too.”
He gave Lucy a curious glance, but she only lifted her shoulders in a shrug.
Cora didn’t notice their silent exchange as she plopped down in her chair and slapped her palms on the desktop. “We are going to open the schoolhouses on moonlit nights for adults to learn to read. All fifty-one schoolhouses will be opened. Each one.”
Wyatt put his hand behind his neck and rubbed it, a gesture, Lucy thought, of confusion. “What makes you think they’d come?” From the tone in his voice, Lucy could tell he doubted they would.
“Because I think they want to learn to read and write. And I’m going to make it worth their while, with a swift literacy.”
“A swift literacy,” Wyatt repeated. “Cora, I don’t mean to douse your enthusiasm, but let’s be practical for a moment. Who is going to teach them?”
“My teachers, of course.”
“Do you mean to say that you would ask your teachers to teach all day long, and then expect them to teach at night too? Do you have the budget to pay the teachers extra?”
Cora paused. “No,” she said in a drawn-out way. A kink in the plan. “Leave the teachers to me.” She bit her lower lip. “Besides . . . opening the schools on moonlit nights will only happen for a few weeks. Five or six, until the weather turns cold.”
Wyatt crossed one leg over a knee. “Just when are you thinking these night schools will take place?”
Cora’s eyes went to her paper pad. “I was thinking . . . after harvest and before the frosts set in, when the farmers and their wives have time to spare.” She cast a furtive glance in Lucy’s direction. “We’re going to canvas the hills and find out exactly how many illiterate adults there are—”
Lucy’s eyebrows shot up. She had grown accustomed to Cora’s use of the word “we.” She meant Lucy.
“—and how many would be willing to come to night school. Then, I think we’ll all have a sense of how this could be . . . monumental.” She finished writing down a few more notes, then set her pencil down and leaned back in her chair. “Wyatt, what are your thoughts? Go ahead. I’m listening.”
His chin had been tucked down, almost as if he had been praying. He lifted his head and looked straight at Cora. “This might be the only chance for those men and women to read the Word of God for themselves.” He glanced at Lucy. “If there’s any way I can support you, then you can count on me.”
Cora gave him a tender smile. “Thank you, Wyatt.”
Then, as if rehearsed, both Cora and Wyatt turned to look at Lucy. She had the sense of being caught up in a purpose she only dimly understood.
“Of course . . . you can count on my support as well.”
Studying Cora, Wyatt crossed his arms against his chest. “Many will think you’re attempting the impossible.”
“Fools rush in where angels fear to tread,” Cora quoted with a laugh. She was beaming.
Brother Wyatt rose to his feet. “I’ll be praying, Cora, that your dream for these . . . moonlit schools . . . will be blessed by the Lord for his purposes—beyond anything you could imagine.”
“Moonlight Schools.” Cora smiled. “I like the sound of that.”
Fifteen
WHEN LUCY ARRIVED at Cora’s office the next morning, her mind was on Andrew Spencer, who’d met her outside of Miss Maude’s boarding house, holding a handful of bright yellow daffodils, waiting to walk her to work. It was something he’d started doing after she returned from Lexington, and Lucy enjoyed the habit. She looked forward to seeing Andy each morning and took extra care with her hair and clothing . . . because he noticed that kind of thing. Noticed and appreciated.
“I have an idea,” Andy said as they neared Cora’s office. “Let’s you and me go on a picnic on Sunday afternoon. How about it?”
“Yes,” she said, dismissing any thoughts of requiring a chaperone once and for all. “Yes, I’d like that.” She glanced up and noticed the steeple of the Disciples of Christ Church. “Right after we attend the church service.”
Andrew’s smile faded. “Church?” He cleared his throat, and his smile returned. “Lucy Wilson, I do believe you’re a good influence on me.”
As he was on her. Lucy felt so happy when she was with him. Andy was lighthearted, affable, pleasant to be around. Even after she asked him if she could read future loblolly harvesting contracts aloud to any prospective property owners. He readily agreed, though none had been brought to her attention. Despite some reservation, she found she liked Andrew Spencer. Quite a bit.
After saying goodbye to Andy, Lucy found Cora at the big desk they shared, scribbling away on a thick pad of paper with a fevered pitch. She barely glanced up as Lucy greeted her with a cheery “Good morning.”
Distracted, Cora mumbled a greeting.
Setting her things down at her chair, Lucy noticed Cora was wearing the same clothes she had on yesterday. She stilled. “Don’t tell me you’ve been here all night!”
Cora paused, a surprised look on her face. “Is it morning?” She set her pencil down and stretched, straightening her arms and rolling her shoulders. “Oh Lucy . . . I think I’ve got it all worked out!”
“What?”
“What else? How to make Moonlight Schools work.”
Uh oh. Lucy braced herself.
�
�Here’s the plan. The first thing, the very first thing the teachers will work on is to teach the adults to write their own name. Symbolic, I think. Foundational.” She clasped her hands together. “And they should not have to use children’s readers. Far too demeaning. So we’re going to create newspapers.”
“Newspapers?”
“Yes! I’m going to call it . . . let’s see, where did I put that?” Cora pushed some papers around on her desk until she found what she was looking for. “The Rowan County Messenger. It will be filled with news about the county.”
“A newspaper?” Lucy repeated duly. “Cora, it’s not easy to read a newspaper.”
“Ours will be! Because it will be directly applicable to the lives of our adult students. Full of simple sentences, with everyday words they use. Words that mean something to them. Easy to memorize, easy to practice. It’s called the whole-word approach—different than the way Mollie taught herself . . . going through letters sound by sound. What I want is for these illiterate adults to have a sense of success, right from the start. And to get them interested in the process of reading.”
Lucy sat in the chair across from Cora, growing intrigued. “So, then, you’re not trying to give them a complete education.”
“No. No, though I thought about it. But I think that’s an impossible goal.”
Now there was a shock. Nothing ever seemed impossible to Cora. Lucy was relieved that she recognized some limits.
“The goal of the Moonlight Schools is to teach illiterates to read and write. And semi-literates too. There’s plenty of those up in those mountains.” She pointed to Lucy. “As soon you’ll find out.”
A sinking feeling began its familiar swirl in Lucy, dropping her stomach. What did Cora mean by that?
Cora picked up another paper and held it out to Lucy. “I’ve been doodling some ideas. Tell me what you think of that sketch. It’s a pad to help with writing. My thought is that it would be made of wood, with the alphabet carved into the wood as grooves, so they can practice tracing their letters. They can feel them.”
The Moonlight School Page 16
