Was it because of Elsie? He liked Elsie, and he enjoyed being with her a lot more than he liked being with Rose. A whole lot more. Rose was waiting for an answer, so he couldn’t think too hard about how much he liked Elsie. “Why would you say it’s about Elsie?”
“That’s why. Because you call her Elsie.”
“We’re talking about you and me, and I don’t want to be your boyfriend.”
Rose suddenly seemed very concerned. “You put too much faith in her, Sam. Wally is going to end up getting hurt, and it’s going to be your fault because you didn’t listen to me. Miss Stutzman is just the teacher. She doesn’t know Wally like you and I do.”
“Wally is so much better than he used to be. He’s started doing exercises to strengthen his legs. He’s using his prosthetic. He’s learning fractions and multiplication. I can’t see how that’s bad.”
“All you care about is Wally,” Rose said. “What about all the children Wally is stealing from? Does Miss Stutzman care about them?”
Sam didn’t want to be reminded of Wally’s sins, especially when Rose acted as if she cared about Wally one minute and then turned on him the next. “As far as I know, Wally hasn’t taken money from anybody for weeks. Can’t you see he’s changing?” He stopped the buggy in front of her house. “I don’t want to argue about Wally. I just don’t want to date you.”
“Ach,” she grunted, as if he’d shoved her. “I’ll have you know that I don’t want to date a boy who is blind when it comes to Wally and Miss Stutzman. She is not gute for the children, even if you won’t admit it.” Rose retied the bonnet around her chin and slid the buggy door open. “Someone needs to save you from yourself, Sam, and since I’m your true friend, I’ve got to be the one to do it.” She climbed out and shut the door hard. “No thanks for the ride home,” she yelled through the window.
Sam drew in a breath. He was starting to wish she’d cried.
Chapter Fifteen
Elsie sat at her desk trying to concentrate on Ida Mae’s essay on gratitude, but she wasn’t getting much out of it. A smile tugged at her lips. Sam Sensenig had curly hair.
Not that she hadn’t known that the first time they’d met, but last night a lock of his hair had been nudged askance by the wind and had dangled over his eyebrow like a bean plant over a trellis. It had taken all her willpower not to reach out, curl her fingers around it, and smooth it back into place. What would it feel like to bury her fingers in that hair? His curls were so tight, she’d probably never get her hands unstuck.
How wunderbarr that she had gone to the gathering with the unpleasant task of meeting the boy Mammi wanted her to marry, only to run into Sam. It had turned into a fine evening after all. Of course, Mammi was none too happy that Elsie had rejected Vernon out of hand like that, but Elsie had held firm.
There is to be no more talk of boys or matches, Mammi. I met your boy and that is that.
Mammi hadn’t been able to grasp why Elsie wouldn’t want to date “that nice young man.” Well, if Mammi thought Vernon was a nice young man, then Elsie would never trust her with a match again—of course, Elsie hadn’t trusted her with a match to begin with, so she couldn’t see how anything had changed.
Elsie didn’t dwell on the Vernon unpleasantness—not when Sam crowded out every other thought. Beneath his arrogance and bluster, Sam was really quite unsure of himself, and Elsie thought it was the most adorable quality she’d ever seen.
And the best part was, he didn’t have a girlfriend.
Rose was jealous. That was plain enough, but Elsie had misunderstood Sam and Rose’s relationship. She’d never been so glad to be wrong. Rose was a very pretty girl, but she had a sour disposition and hadn’t even tried to be nice. Elsie was kind of glad that Sam wasn’t in love with Rose.
Ach, vell. In truth, she was very glad. He deserved better.
She glanced at the small clock on her desk and retrieved the bell from the bottom drawer. Raising it over her head, she waved it back and forth. It clanged loudly, startling at least three of her students from their independent reading. “Time to go, scholars,” she said. “Please clean all books and papers off your desks and make sure you take home your coats and lunchboxes. We will see you tomorrow.”
Wally limped to the back of the room and helped Maizy Mischler on with her coat, sitting on the floor to make sure her zipper got fastened correctly. Elsie smiled to herself. Wally was almost unrecognizable from the boy who had swaggered into her class more than two months ago. He wore his prosthetic leg every day, he was the most eager softball player, and he had a soft spot for Maizy Mischler. He zipped up Maizy’s coat, stood up, and patted her on the head. “Put a blanket around you in the buggy so you don’t catch cold.”
Maizy nodded and clomped down the stairs, waving to Wally the whole way down.
Wally turned and lumbered up to Elsie’s desk. “Do you think we’ll be able to play softball tomorrow, Miss Stutzman?”
She smiled at his enthusiasm. She felt the same way herself about softball. “I don’t know, Wally. It’s getting wonderful cold out there.”
“But if it’s dry tomorrow, can we play? We haven’t played all week.”
Elsie nodded. “If it’s dry, we’ll play. We’ve got to get in all the games we can before it snows.”
Wally pumped his fist in the air. “Can I be captain?”
“It’s probably about your turn to be captain again,” Elsie said. “I’ll check my list.”
“I went to the physical therapist yesterday. He gave me some more exercises and says if I keep growing, he’ll have to fit me for another leg before spring.”
Elsie grinned. “Just in time for softball season.”
The children filed down the stairs and parted in two directions to avoid Sam and his mamm, who were coming up. Wally turned around. “Mamm? Sam? What are you doing here?”
Sam locked his gaze with Elsie and raised his eyebrows as if silently asking the same question.
Hannah Sensenig’s face was drawn and weary, as if she’d lived a lifetime of heartache without a minute of happiness in between. “Menno Kiem asked us to meet him here after school.”
Elsie’s blood thickened like molasses. Menno was a member of the school board. Had the school board planned an impromptu meeting she wasn’t told about? And why had they summoned the Sensenigs? A visit from the school board was seldom a gute thing.
Sam pulled a piece of paper from his pocket and handed it to Elsie. “Menno’s son, Eli, dropped this note off to home this morning right after Wally and the boys left for school.”
Elsie unfolded the note. Hannah, would you please meet us at the school at three o’clock with Wally?
Sam’s lips twitched. “I wasn’t invited.”
His mamm frowned and patted him on the arm. “It is only right that you should be here. You and Miss Stutzman have been helping Wally with his schoolwork.”
Sam had done more than his mamm would probably ever know, but she didn’t feel well. Sam was truly the person who needed to be here if the school board had a concern about Wally.
Elsie’s mind raced with a thousand possibilities. Maybe the school board had caught wind that Elsie was tutoring Wally after school. Would they oppose something like that? Had they heard about the boulder in the school yard? Surely such a thing wouldn’t keep anyone up at night. Did they disapprove of so much softball? Had they found out Maizy Mischler had hurt her leg one day during a game? Maybe they thought Elsie was cruel to her students, just as Sam had. She was always doing something wrong. It could be any number of things. The thought left her with a slightly ill feeling, like the time when Mammi had made oyster kale salad with dandelion jelly sauce.
She looked up from the note and did her best to fake a genuine smile, hoping to reassure the Sensenigs that all would be well. It wasn’t anywhere near true, but they didn’t need to worry until the school board actually arrived. The bad news would emerge soon enough. “Maybe they heard how much Wally’s arithmetic is improving an
d they want to congratulate him,” she said weakly.
Nobody, not even Wally, believed her. He had turned a light shade of gray, and his hands shook slightly as he wiped the beads of sweat from his upper lip.
Sam’s expression was especially heartbreaking. He needed her reassurance more than anyone did. When anything bad happened to Wally, Sam experienced the emotions ten times over. He took so much upon himself that Elsie feared he’d break from all the burdens he carried on his shoulders.
They fell silent as they heard the door open and footsteps on the stairs. Wally moved behind Sam so that his bruder would block the sight of him to anyone who came up the stairs. Elsie’s heart tightened painfully. Despite what she’d told the Sensenigs, she couldn’t begin to hope that this meeting was going to turn out well.
Menno Kiem, then Abe Yutzy and Andy Mast, came up the stairs. The entire school board. Elsie found it almost impossible to breathe. They were followed by Benjamin Hoover, Mark Hoover’s dat. Mark was one of Elsie’s fourth graders. He had twin sisters in the first grade. Benjamin was a slight man, with a short beard and deep, expressive eyes. Elsie had met Benjamin and his wife the first week of school. They were an unassuming, quiet couple who seemed content to leave the teaching to Elsie. They seemed a very nice family, especially Mark’s mamm, who sent an extra sandwich with Mark every day just in case someone in the class forgot a lunch.
Menno Kiem was an older man who didn’t have any children at the school anymore. His stomach hung over his waistband, much like a muffin top escapes its paper. Elsie liked Menno. He had a kind face with deep wrinkle lines around his mouth, as if he’d done a lot of smiling in his day. Abe Yutzy was younger, with fewer wrinkles than Menno and a slow blink that always made Elsie wonder if he was pondering or simply falling asleep. Andy Mast was Rose’s dat, and that made Elsie more than a little nervous. Just how vindictive was Rose? Would she have told her dat something that wasn’t true just to make trouble for Elsie? Surely she was too good of a friend with Sam to make trouble for him.
Menno, who was usually smiling, wore a frown any largemouth bass would have been proud of. “Why don’t we all sit down?”
Elsie jumped as if someone had stuck her with a pin. She should have been doing something other than staring dumbly at her visitors. “Ach, of course. I have two folding chairs, or you could sit at the desks.”
Menno scooted a couple of the desks around, signaling for the others to pull desks over. Abe pushed several desks out of the way so they could make a circle. Elsie cringed as desks scraped across the floor. Her room would be in chaos by the time they were finished. She only hoped Wally and Sam wouldn’t be in shambles as well.
And herself. Would she even have a job by dinnertime?
Sam, not about to make a peep, folded himself into a desk, and Elsie had her doubts that he’d be able to pry himself out of there again. He looked very uncomfortable, and Elsie resisted the urge to put her arms around him and tell him it was going to be okay. Sam, for all his bluster, was sensitive and deep and harder on himself than even the sternest fater could have been.
Wally took a seat between Sam and his mater. Elsie wanted to give him a hug too. Did the school board even care that one thoughtless word could crush him?
No one looked comfortable, and it was only partly due to the fact that they had all tried to fit into children’s desks.
Elsie glanced at Sam then slid into a desk in the circle. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know you were coming, or I would have tidied the room a bit more.”
Menno waved his hand. “School only just got out. We didn’t expect it to be spotless.” He clasped his hands together and rested his arms on the desk. “Now, to get to the point. We have some very serious concerns about Wally and you, Miss Stutzman, and we wanted to come and clear up any misunderstandings before things got out of hand at this school. We have heard from many parents that you are a gute teacher, and we would be wonderful sorry to lose you. Lord willing, we can solve this without taking any action.”
Elsie’s heart was a runaway train. Ach, du lieva. She was going to lose her job.
Menno motioned toward Benjamin. “Benjamin Hoover’s son Mark says that Wally has been bullying the other children and demanding money from them.”
Sam blanched, and Hannah formed her lips into an O.
Benjamin nodded. “Mark says Wally has taken ten dollars from him this year.”
Wally gripped the edges of his desk as if it was the only solid thing left in the world. “I did not,” he said softly. “I did not. Mark is a tattletale.”
Benjamin’s face darkened one shade of red. “Mark is not a tattletale. Someone told my fraa what had been happening, and we asked Mark if it was true. He confirmed it.”
“Mark’s a tattletale,” Wally repeated, getting more agitated with every word.
Menno warned Wally with a silent, icy stare. “What is worse, Miss Stutzman, is that Rose Mast says you have known about this and haven’t done anything to stop Wally from taking money from the other children. Is that true?”
Rose Mast. Elsie had been expecting it, but the name still felt like a softball to the head. How could Rose have known unless Sam had told her? Elsie turned a troubled gaze to Sam. It felt like a betrayal of her trust, even though she hadn’t specifically told him not to tell anyone.
“It’s not true,” Wally said, louder this time.
Elsie needed to do something before his lies got worse. “It is true that Wally took money from some of the children.”
Wally slapped his hand on the desk. “How could you say that? You don’t know anything.”
“Try to calm down, Wally,” his mater said. “We need to hear the whole story.”
Elsie had never heard Hannah give Wally correction, and Sam never wanted to. It was up to her to keep Wally from crumbling like a pile of dirt. “Wally,” she said, giving her voice both sternness and authority, “do not say anything you can’t take back, and do not speak unless spoken to.”
Wally clamped his mouth shut and glared at her as if she were the Angel of Death. She didn’t care. She had to stay firm to save Wally from himself. Sam’s arms were folded across his chest in stiff anxiety, and she could tell he was angry, even though he did a better job of hiding it than Wally.
Elsie swallowed hard and averted her eyes. Sam never was rational where Wally was concerned, and he jumped to so many conclusions, he should have been a rabbit. She pressed forward despite the looks she was getting from the other side of the circle. “Let me first tell you that Wally hasn’t taken any money from anyone for weeks. He has been very kind with the younger children, and he is almost caught up with his fractions.”
“No amount of good deeds can make up for stealing,” Andy Mast said. It was already apparent that he was going to be the hardest one to convince of anything.
“I don’t steal,” Wally insisted.
Elsie silenced him with another stern look. “When I found out Wally was taking money from the other children, I wanted to do what was best for everyone.”
“You should have told us immediately,” Andy said.
Elsie nodded slowly and reminded herself that not one of these men was her enemy, and they all wanted what was best for the children. “Perhaps I should have told you, but as a teacher, I am responsible for my own class discipline, and I was determined to do the job you hired me to do in the manner that I saw fit.” She took a deep breath to calm herself. “I am grateful for the trust you put in me, and I do my best to earn that trust every day. Each group of students I have taught is different. This group is exceptionally kind and sympathetic. You parents have done an excellent job of teaching them kindness.”
“We don’t need you to judge us one way or the other,” Andy said.
Oh dear. The schoolhouse already felt about twenty degrees too warm. “One day when Wally was out of the classroom, I told the children that I knew Wally was taking money from them and if they would come to me whenever he stole their money, I would pay them back.
”
Wally’s mouth fell open. Elsie felt terribly sorry for him. It must have shocked him to the core to know that everyone knew the truth but him. “That’s not . . . she’s lying,” he protested, though nobody was paying him any attention but Sam. Wally fidgeted in his seat and breathed in and out like a snorting bull. He was a geyser about to erupt.
Indignation flared on Andy’s face. “Why didn’t you stop him?”
Menno held up his hand. “Now, Andy, give her a chance to explain.”
Elsie cleared her throat. Her reasons seemed good to her, but maybe the school board wouldn’t see it that way. “I knew that if I punished Wally, he would stop taking money, but he wouldn’t learn anything. I wanted him to have a change of heart, and that change had to come from him, not from me, or it wouldn’t have been sincere.”
Menno’s brows inched together, and the small movement gave Elsie some hope. He was thinking hard about what she said. “And did Wally have a change of heart?”
Elsie didn’t look directly at Wally, but she could tell he didn’t like them talking about him as if he wasn’t there. His scowl could have burned a hole through the side of her head. “Like I said, he hasn’t taken money in weeks, and his schoolwork is improving. Wally has made real progress.”
Menno looked at Abe and then Andy, and both of them nodded their agreement. Menno turned his attention to Wally. “Very well, young man. We are satisfied with your teacher’s reasons, but I want you to give us your solemn assurance that you will never take anything that doesn’t belong to you again.”
Everyone turned to Wally. Scrunching up his face, he pressed his fists to his eyes. “Stop it. Stop looking at me.”
Sam reached over and placed a hand on his shoulder. “It’s okay, Wally. We’re not mad at you.”
“Yes, you are,” Wally said, his voice rising in pitch, his hands still covering his eyes. Something seemed to snap inside him like a rubber band, and he leaped to his feet. He grabbed the desk chair with both hands and shoved it forward, making a deafening scrape against the wood floor. “You hate me because I’m a cripple. Everybody hates me.”
A Courtship on Huckleberry Hill Page 19
