Carol Ritten Smith

by Stubborn Hearts

  When she was finished tending his toe, she set the scissors down and carefully parted his thatchy hair with her fingertips. Sadly, she immediately found the cause of his itchiness.

  “Well, Davy, you don’t have fleas. You have head lice.”

  His face twisted in horror. “Is a licebag worse than a fleabag?” he asked.

  Beth laughed, even though head lice was no laughing matter. “There are no such things as licebags or fleabags. Those are just hurtful words. You probably got head lice from another infected student at school.”

  “What’s going to happen to me?” Davy asked woebegone, apparently forgetting completely about his sore toe, now that he was faced with a matter far more serious.

  “Nothing. Tonight, we’ll wash your hair and treat your scalp with coal-oil.” She knew she’d also have to boil all the bedding and disinfect the house and school. She’d been thinking about starting the fall cleaning soon. Now she was forced to do it earlier and far more thoroughly.

  “Will the coal-oil hurt?”

  “Not one bit. But first thing this morning at school, I’ll need to do a careful head check to see who else has lice. They’ll need to be treated too.” Without proper and quick treatment, the entire class, including herself, could be scratching in no time. Just the thought made her scalp tingle.

  • • •

  In the smithy, Tom also scratched his head, not because of head lice, but because he was downright perplexed. Where did he leave his ball peen hammer? He had it just a minute ago.

  He was down on his hands and knees, having a gander underneath the workbench when he heard a man say, “What’s a person to do to get some service around here?”

  Startled, Tom lifted up suddenly and cracked his head on the underside of the bench. He cussed silently. “Be right there,” he said, rubbing the back of his head, certain he’d dented his skull. “What can I do for you?”

  “I need you to fix the rim on one of my wheels,” a man said, pulling out his watch.

  Tom carefully surveyed the damaged rim on the buggy.

  “Can you fix it or not? I’m already running late.”

  “I think so. Might take a while though.”

  “Then get on with it. I’ve two more schools to inspect before nightfall.”

  Tom didn’t put much stock in a fellow who dressed like a dandy and thought himself superior. This guy wore a double-vested gray suit and derby hat, and looked more like a groom than a school inspector. And those patent leather shoes! Tom hoped he’d step into a fresh horse pucky. The image brought a smile to his face. He extended his hand. “So you’re the new school inspector. I’m Tom Carver.”

  “Martin Glower,” the man replied, shaking Tom’s hand.

  Glower’s pudgy fingers reminded Tom of soft cow teats. He probably hasn’t done a lick of hard work in his life.

  While Glower paced back and forth impatiently, Tom began to unharness the horse from the buggy. “Been to see Miss Patterson yet?”

  “Is that the new teacher’s name? She isn’t listed in my ledger.”

  “No?” Tom ducked under the horse’s neck and loosened the other harness strap. “Probably because she didn’t start until midway through September. She came with high recommendations.”

  “Really. Well, I’ll be the judge of that.” He adjusted his hat with an air of importance. “Which way is the school from here?”

  Tom pointed. “You’ll see it when you get to the bank corner. But it’s almost noon hour. Won’t be much to judge when the teacher isn’t teaching. Why not eat lunch at Yen’s across the street first.”

  Glower checked his watch again. “How long you say this is going to take to fix?”

  “Don’t know for sure until I get it off. But I could come over to the school when I’m finished.”

  “Fine. Do that!”

  Tom waited until the inspector entered the Chinaman’s cafe, then ducked through the smithy, out the back door and jogged to the school. He only had a minute to warn Beth before Glower would wonder why he hadn’t started work on the rim.

  He took the steps to the schoolhouse in one leap, barged straight through the cloakroom into the classroom.

  Beth nearly used one of Bill’s swear words. Regaining her composure, she discretely slipped the fine-toothed comb she’d been using into her pocket. No way on God’s green earth would she let him know about the school’s outbreak of lice.

  “Mr. Carver,” she said rather huskily, “it is customary for one to knock before entering.”

  “I need to speak with you in private.” He nodded his head toward the cloakroom.

  The words “in private” flagged her attention. What was Bill up to this time? Inside the cloakroom with the door closed, she took a defensive stance. “Unless the school is on fire, I can’t imagine what would warrant such a rude interruption! Just because you’re on the school board doesn’t mean you can waltz in anytime you please. It would be far better if you came after school hours.”

  “But — ”

  She held up her hand. “I’m certain whatever it is, it can wait until after school. I don’t get paid to visit you know.”

  Tom considered her for a moment. “You’re right, this really isn’t as important as I thought it might be. I’m sorry to have bothered you.”

  Finally the victor, Beth nodded smugly.

  • • •

  It always took a good five minutes to settle the children after dinner, but eventually the youngsters in Grades One and Two were coloring. Grades Three, Four, and Five worked on their penmanship, while the oldest grades diligently attacked their arithmetic. The lice check was finished and so far it wasn’t too serious. She would send home notes with those requiring treatment.

  Beth helped Jonah Pickard at the blackboard with a long division problem, and just as he began to grasp the concept, there was a knock at the door.

  If it’s that blacksmith … She never finished her silent threat for when she opened the door, there stood a formidable looking stranger. His hat sat perfectly straight on his head as if God had placed it there Himself.

  “Good afternoon, Miss Patterson. I’m Inspector Glower. May I come in?”

  No! her mind screamed while her lips said, “Of course, welcome.” She turned to her class and wondered if they could read the look of panic on her face. She hadn’t even thought to prepare her students for a surprise visit by the inspector. She could only pray the previous teacher had coached them how to behave. “Children, this is Mr. Glower. How do we welcome our guest?” She had hoped for a chorus of “Good afternoons,” but instead got an informal jumble of shy “hi’s” and bold “howdy’s.”

  Glower sat at the back of the room in the large desk Freddie North had once occupied. “I’m just here to observe. Carry on with your work.”

  Beth felt the school walls close in around her like bars of a jail cell. How long would it take for him to realize she was a fake? On legs that felt wooden, she returned to the blackboard, printing up several more division problems for Jonah to do before she moved on to help another student.

  Bless their souls! Her students bent to work with earnest. She could see they were desperately trying not to scratch their heads. But the more they resisted, the more they fidgeted in their seats.

  A sharp cracking sound spun Beth around. Somehow without her noticing, Glower had moved from his desk to the blackboard, rapping it smartly with the pointer stick. “Come on boy, think! How many times does seven go into fifty-nine?” With each crack, poor Jonah cringed.

  “Use your times table,” Glower commanded.

  By then the entire class had abandoned their own studies and were staring at Jonah, who was so rattled he could barely speak.

  Eight, Beth’s mind urged. Eight. You know that one.

  “Nine?” the boy answered doubtfully.

  The pointer cracked against the board. “Wrong! Eight!” Glower grabbed the chalk from Jonah’s hand and scribbled the numbers on the board. Then he slashed a line undernea
th and subtracted fifty-six from fifty-nine. “The answer is eight with a remainder of three. This is elementary arithmetic. You should know this.”

  He does, Beth steamed, but not when someone is standing over him with a stick!

  Glower moved down the aisle toward Davy. “Have you nothing to do but scratch and squirm?”

  “No, sir,” Davy replied timidly.

  “Then get back to work!”

  “Yes, sir.” He picked up his reader, and even from a distance Beth could see his little hands shake.

  Glower marched up and down the aisles like a dictator, slapping the pointer stick against his palm. When he stopped at Penelope Pickard’s desk and leaned over her shoulder to inspect her work, Beth knew immediately what would happen. And there wasn’t a thing she could do to stop it.

  Glower raised his head and listened, then suddenly looked down at his feet. “What on earth!” he uttered, aghast. He was standing in a growing puddle of urine. Penelope, embarrassed and frightened, began to cry.

  The boys guffawed. The girls giggled. The inspector growled, “Miss Patterson, have you no control over your class?” He slapped the stick so sharply against Penelope’s desktop, the tip broke off, shot across the room like a bullet, and imbedded itself into the wall. The girl ran out the door.

  “You,” he said, pointing at Norman with the broken stick, “mop up this mess immediately and don’t ever laugh at me again or you will face expulsion!”

  Beth wanted to take that damnable stick and crack it over the man’s head. Who did he think he was? This was her classroom and within five minutes, he had terrified her students. None dared to scratch their heads, but sat on their hands in fear the stick might be used on their knuckles next. She wanted to demand that the inspector leave, but such insubordination would mean her immediate dismissal, so instead she said nothing and allowed the intolerable man to bully his way around her classroom.

  “You, how do you spell chrysanthemum?” he demanded. “ … Wrong. You, how do you find the area of a cone? Wrong.”

  Beth went to her desk and began flipping through her manual. Why, that old cur was asking questions that weren’t even in the curriculum! Enough was enough!

  “Mr. Glower!” she started in, but a knock interrupted her rebuttal.

  “Who is it?” she yelled, not bothering to even to open the door, which would have been the proper thing to do. But at that moment, she didn’t care.

  And she quite honestly didn’t know what to feel when Tom poked his head into the classroom.

  Before she had a chance to utter one word, Tom said, “Sorry to interrupt, Miss Patterson, but I told Mr. Glower when his buggy was fixed, I’d come and let him know.”

  “It’s repaired already?” Glower asked in amazement.

  “I put a rush on it, seeing you said you were in a hurry.”

  Glower nodded. “Yes. And there’s certainly no reason for me to remain here. I’ve seen more than enough to make my report.”

  Beth’s shoulders slumped.

  Tom led the inspector outside, explaining all he had done to make the buggy serviceable.

  Beth followed them, but on her way through the cloakroom, she saw the inspector’s derby hat. She grabbed it, wishing she could stomp it flat as a cow pie. Then she thought of something even better. She took perverse pleasure in swiping the hat’s inside rim with the collar of every lice-infested coat.

  When she handed it to him, Mr. Glower placed the hat securely on his head and straightened it precisely. As he climbed into his buggy, he said, “I’m afraid, Miss Patterson, I’m leaving with a rather poor impression of you and your students.”

  That’s not all you’re leaving with, she thought with satisfaction as Glower snapped the reins and drove away.

  “How did it go?” Tom asked, watching the buggy diminish in the distance.

  “Miserably.”

  “Figures. When he told me he was the school inspector, I knew he’d be a son of a bi — I mean — he’d be difficult to deal with. Don’t worry. He may act like he’s important, but the school trustees have the final say in what happens in our school.”

  It surprised her to realize he was trying to make her feel better about the fiasco. And it finally dawned on her why the blacksmith had barged into her classroom just before lunch. If she hadn’t been so set on putting him in his place, she would have had prior warning and time to prepare the students.

  Beth turned to him, humbled in the face of his kindness. “Mr. Carver, I owe you an apology.”

  Tom folded and stuffed the inspector’s payment into his shirt pocket. “What for?” He crossed his arms and waited.

  She could see he wasn’t going to make this easy. “For coming to warn me earlier.”

  “Warn you?”

  “You know, about the inspector.”

  Tom chuckled. “Do you really think I would come all the way over here just to warn you about him? Miss Patterson, you’d best get back to teaching. Like you said, you don’t get paid to visit.” He walked away, leaving Beth standing by herself.

  Deny it all he wanted. She knew the truth. At least she thought she did.

  Chapter 5

  A few days before the box social, Abigail Craig carried a plateful of goodies covered with a clean tea towel to the smithy. Tom was at the drill press with his back to her. The donkey engine powering the overhead crankshaft, which in turn powered the drill, generated a deafening noise. Attempting to call him would be futile, so she sat on a stool in the back corner and waited.

  Tom held up a two-foot length of iron and checked the hole he’d just drilled. Satisfied, he reached over and closed the regulator on the engine. Even after the racket ceased, his eardrums still vibrated. He turned and saw Abigail smiling at him. “Oh, hi. I didn’t hear you come in.”

  “That’s not surprising. I brought you some chocolate squares, if you’ve time to stop.” She lifted a corner of the tea towel.

  Tom didn’t need to see the squares to know he wanted one. “I’ll make time.” He threw off his leather apron, gave his hands a quick rinse in a tub of water and then dragged over another stool. He leaned in for a better whiff. “Hmm, they smell good!” He popped a whole one in his mouth, chewed for a minute and then said, working his words around his mouthful, “Taste good too.” He reached for second one.

  Abigail beamed. “I added peppermint oil.”

  “That’s what I thought. Thanks.” He bent forward and gave her a peck on the cheek. There was no doubt she spoiled him. Whether he deserved it or not was debatable. Ever since the night that she’d introduced the idea of leaving — was that already more than a month ago? — Tom had been wrestling with his heart and conscience. His conscience said “marry her,” but his heart wouldn’t let him. And that troubled Tom tremendously. Abigail was a comely woman with a pleasant demeanor. She was an excellent cook, and a satisfying lover — everything a man could want. But after searching his heart, he knew he didn’t love her enough to want to spend the rest of his life with her.

  But how could he end the relationship without breaking her heart?

  Their Friday evenings together were different now. He continued having suppers with her — what single man wouldn’t want a sumptuous supper once a week — but he deliberately found excuses to avoid intimacy with her. He said he was too tired after swinging a sledge all day, or he was sore from shoeing horses. These things had never stopped him before, so he made light of it saying he must be getting old, to which Abigail reminded him jokingly that thirty-five was hardly old. But there were occasions when he saw puzzlement or hurt in her eyes and he wondered if it wouldn’t be better, kinder, to end the relationship quickly and get the pain over with.

  “You’re frowning, Tom. Is something the matter?”

  He quickly shook his head and smiled. “I banged my leg earlier and it still throbs once in a while,” he lied.

  “Would another square take your mind off it?”

  “That it might.” He reached for one but Abby yan
ked the plate away.

  “That’s too bad. The only way you can have another one is if you buy my lunch at the box social.”

  “Oh, I see. That’s what this visit is all about.” Each fall, the ladies of Whistle Creek organized a box social with the proceeds used to buy candy and small gifts to be given out at the Christmas concert. “When is it?” he asked.

  “This Saturday.”

  “Gee, I’m busy that day.”

  “Fibber,” she admonished. “You haven’t missed a box social yet. You like food too much.”

  “Especially yours.”

  “If you want, I could tell you how my lunch will be wrapped.”

  “Abigail!” He pretended to be shocked. “That would be cheating. You wouldn’t want me to compromise your principles, would you?”

  Her eyes shadowed slightly. “I think it’s a little too late to be worried about that.”

  Damn. Guilt stabbed Tom’s gut. She was right. He’d been so unfair to her, their liaison subjecting her to gossip. He needed to stop seeing her. But he couldn’t do it now. With most of the community attending the box social, breaking up just before the event would only give the gossipmongers more to talk about and Abigail had suffered enough from their sharp tongues.

  No, their break-up would have to wait.

  Feeling somewhat relieved the inevitable was postponed, Tom turned the conversation to something lighter. “I hear that Lewie Hanks will be at the social. I bet you’d enjoy sharing lunch with him.”

  “Lewie Hanks. Isn’t he that bachelor who’s opposed to bath water?”

  “Oh, he’s not opposed to it, so long as he’s not in it.”

  She grinned, following his jovial lead. “And I hear that Miranda Parsons will be there. Maybe you’re hoping to bid on her lunch instead of mine.”

  The thought of sharing lunch with that floozy nearly turned his stomach. And if Hanks did buy Abigail’s lunch — well, he just couldn’t let that happen. “You know what? I think we’d better cheat. Describe your lunch and give me details.”