Brightest and Best

by Newport, Olivia

  “Daed,” Gertie said, “Katie Glick said that you’re going to jail because I’m not in school. I don’t want you to go to jail.”

  Gideon swung his legs over the bench so he could take her in his lap. “I am not going to jail.”

  “Promise?”

  “Only God can promise. You know that.”

  “I’ll go to school, and I won’t draw any pictures or sing any songs. I’ll only read the alphabet and do my sums.”

  “Don’t you like learning at home with Ella?” Gideon said.

  “Yes, I do. She makes everything interesting.”

  Gideon nodded. “Then let’s keep doing that.”

  “But you’ll go to jail, Daed!”

  “I’m not going to jail.” He kissed the top of her head. “Now go find Ella and finish your lunch.”

  The men around the table chewed silently, some of them staring at Gideon as he picked up his fork.

  “She might be right,” Aaron King said. “We could all go to jail.”

  “The fine was barely more than the cost of cotton for a child’s dress,” Gideon said. “It’s hardly a foreshadowing of jail.”

  “I’ve been thinking,” Chester Mast said. “Perhaps our children should all be in school for now.”

  “Chester!” Gideon’s jaw dropped. “You’re the one building a school on your own land.”

  “And I intend to see it used someday—sooner rather than later. My boys have been out of school the last few days, but I’m going to send them back tomorrow with a proviso.”

  Gideon lifted both eyebrows. The clinking of forks ceased.

  “Some of the subjects the older children study are beyond what any of us regard as necessary, so in those subjects I will instruct my sons not to complete the assigned work.”

  Isaiah Borntrager laughed. “Chester Mast, you have spoken the word of the Lord.”

  Hardly. Gideon ran his tongue across his bottom lip while he thought.

  “Health, world governments, art, other frivolous classes—my boys will be present in class, and I cannot control what falls on their ears,” Chester said. “But I do have a say in what they focus their minds on, and it will not be these subjects.”

  “Gideon, what about you?” Aaron said. “Will you send your children back to school with these instructions?”

  Gideon pictured Savilla’s copy of The Secret Garden. Gertie’s graven image was hidden in his dresser. He might need to present it to the school board as an example of unacceptable instruction.

  “No, I don’t think so,” he said.

  Gideon opened the accounts ledger lying at the center of the desk in the small alcove where he kept his papers. A shadow fell over the paper, and he looked up.

  “May I interrupt you?” James said.

  “Of course. How is Miriam today?”

  “That’s what I want to discuss,” James said. “It broke her heart not to be well enough for church yesterday.”

  “Everyone asked after her.”

  “I will stay home and make sure she rests,” James said. “But she will not want to stay down long.”

  Miriam was like her niece in that way. Right up until the week that Betsy died, Gideon had urged her to stop trying to do everything on her own.

  “I want to help,” Gideon said. “What can we do for Miriam?”

  “A few changes will make things easier for her,” James said. “Small things that she won’t argue against.”

  “Whatever you have in mind.”

  “First,” James said, “I want to put up a railing. We have only two steps up into the dawdihaus, but I would feel better if she had a railing.”

  “That’s a simple thing,” Gideon said.

  “And I want to bring a comfortable chair into your kitchen,” James said. “She needs to be able to get off her feet but still keep an eye on the stove.”

  “There’s plenty of room under the corner window,” Gideon said. They should have done it years ago.

  James scratched his head. “I’m concerned about the stairs up to the bedrooms, but I can’t think of a way to keep her from going up and down.”

  “I’ll talk to her,” Gideon said. “I’ll say the children are old enough now that there’s no reason to coddle them. They can carry up their own laundry, and I’ll put a broom and a dust rag in the hall closet. Miriam won’t have to go upstairs.”

  “She’ll be suspicious,” James said. “She won’t like the idea of the children doing her work.”

  “It won’t be her work. It will be their work from now on.” Gideon paused. “Do you really think she’ll be all right, James?”

  James looked out the window. The delay in his response caused an extra heartbeat in Gideon’s chest.

  “James?”

  “I’m sure it’s temporary,” James said. “She needs more rest. But she will always think taking care of somebody else is more important than taking care of herself.”

  “I can ask Ella to stay around more,” Gideon said. “She doesn’t have to run off the moment the day’s lessons are finished.”

  James nodded. “Miriam enjoys Ella.”

  “And Ella enjoys Miriam.”

  When Gideon and Ella married, Miriam could really let go of daily responsibilities. Miriam would respect Ella’s new role to manage the house and children. Ella had ably managed her father’s home for eleven years. She had learned well from her own mother and older sisters the skills she needed for cooking and gardening and canning and milking. At the same time, Gideon had no doubt that Ella would enjoy having Miriam nearby for advice or companionship, someone to sit with on the front porch and snap peas or husk corn, without letting Miriam exhaust herself.

  Perhaps James was counting on this scenario, and counting the weeks until the date Gideon and Ella would arrange with the bishop.

  Looking back, Gideon could not imagine how he would have managed during the last five years without James and Miriam, and he hoped they would feel no compunction to leave when he married again. Their departure would leave a gaping hole in his children’s hearts. But they had taken on the care of three young children at an age when most people were enjoying grandchildren, not running after toddlers.

  Miriam deserved the rest that the union between Gideon and Ella would bring her.

  The plan suffered from one consequential complication.

  How long would Gideon’s kitchen table serve as adequate space for daily lessons with two girls?

  “Where’s Miriam?” Gertie asked.

  “She’s resting.” Ella tapped the primer page. “Can you sound out the next sentence?”

  “She’s been resting since Saturday,” Gertie said. “That’s three days. When is she going to be finished resting?”

  Savilla sighed. “When she’s feeling better, silly.”

  “Don’t call me names.”

  Ella gave Savilla a warning eye.

  “Sorry,” Savilla muttered, lowering her gaze back to her own book about the nocturnal habits of small animals.

  “Are you going to make us lunch?” Gertie asked.

  “I suppose so,” Ella said. Lunch was several hours away.

  Gertie swung her feet under the table. One shoe came into contact with Savilla’s shin.

  “Ow!” Savilla glared at Gertie.

  Ella wasn’t sure she had ever seen that expression on Savilla’s face before. Perhaps both girls were always on their best behavior around her, cautioned by their father to mind their manners. Now that she was teaching them and would soon be living with and caring for them, she was bound to see another side to their relationship.

  “Keep your feet to yourself, please,” Ella said.

  “That’s not what Miss Simpson says.” Gertie folded her hands and placed them in her lap. “She says, ‘Hands and feet, nice and neat.’”

  After nearly ten years of teaching, Margaret Simpson would have a long list of pithy reminders for classroom behavior.

  “Miss Simpson always asks how the bus ride was,” Gert
ie said.

  “That’s thoughtful of her,” Ella said, tapping the page again.

  “Then she makes sure everyone has a lunch bucket. She doesn’t want anyone to be hungry at school.”

  “She’s very kind.”

  “Can we pack lunch buckets?” Gertie looked up, hopeful.

  “We don’t need buckets, sil—” Savilla cut herself off. “We’re sitting right in the kitchen. We can have lunch with Daed and Ella and James and Miriam.”

  “Let’s concentrate,” Ella said. “Then you can surprise everyone with the new words you learned.”

  Gertie put a finger under the first of three simple sentences on the page. Ella watched the girl’s delicate lips go through the motions of finding the right formation for a p sound and silently add the other letters before pronouncing put.

  Gertie looked up. “Are we going to have a chalkboard? At school we had a chalkboard.”

  “We could ask your daed,” Ella said, “but since it’s just us, we can use paper.”

  Savilla closed her book around a finger. “May I go in the other room to read, please?”

  Ella nodded. “You can tell me later about any parts you didn’t understand.”

  It would be impossible for anyone to concentrate through Gertie’s chatter. Savilla tucked in her chair, as she always did, before leaving the room with relief.

  “Miss Simpson gave us silent reading time,” Gertie said. “We were supposed to use it to try to sound out new words.”

  “Would you like to have silent reading time, Gertie?” Against the left side of Gertie’s head, her coiled braid sagged, and Ella reached over to adjust a pin.

  The child shook her head. “I didn’t like that part. It was more fun when we got to talk.”

  Gertie missed the other children, a factor Gideon may not have taken into consideration in his decision to keep her home. Margaret Simpson’s classroom was in an English school, but she was an experienced, qualified teacher. Margaret would know what to say right now to encourage Gertie to focus on the task before her. While Gertie had been in school for just a few weeks, Margaret’s class was her only experience of formal instruction. No wonder she measured the experience of sitting at the kitchen table with Ella against being in the classroom of a trained teacher.

  “Let’s read for fifteen more minutes,” Ella said. “Then you can decide whether you would rather work on sums or handwriting while I see how Savilla is doing.”

  They were just two sisters in two grades, and already Ella wondered how the teachers in the old one-room schoolhouse had managed with thirty or forty students spanning eight grades.

  CHAPTER 23

  Margaret packed the leather satchel she carried between home and school. Today’s teachers meeting had not been on the Thursday afternoon schedule. Mr. Tarkington came around to the classrooms only an hour ago requesting that teachers remain after school. Margaret had escorted her pupils to their waiting buses and returned to her classroom to pick up her things, planning to leave as soon as the meeting concluded. Gray would be waiting for her at the diner for lemon cake and coffee.

  The music room was the only space in the school that would accommodate the assembled staff—other than the gymnasium, which would swallow speech in its cavernous hollow and throw back the echo of children playing. Margaret walked through the abandoned upstairs corridor, still chasing from her mind the voices of her own students. She’d had near perfect attendance that day. Only Gertie Wittmer was missing. Her desk still held her books and pencils and the oilcloth she used during art projects, but Margaret suspected Gertie would not be back. Hans Byler still attended—usually—but he looked lonely now when he turned his eyes to the empty desk beside his. Gideon had not formally withdrawn his daughters, but both girls were gone. That was no coincidence.

  She should have done something. But what?

  Allowing herself an indelicate audible sigh, Margaret shook off the thought. After Deputy Fremont slapped fines and hissed threats at the Amish fathers, Margaret considered herself relieved of responsibility to coax cooperation from them. She had never been one to play the fool, and if she had the opportunity, she would tell the school superintendent exactly what she thought of his tactics.

  Mr. Tarkington cleared his throat to open the meeting. “It has come to my attention that some student grades are falling.”

  Margaret raised one eyebrow. The principal called a special meeting for this? Every year some students struggled. Competent teachers knew what to do.

  “I have four of them in my class.” Mr. Snyder taught the seventh grade. “I’ve spoken to Mr. Vaughn at the high school. The same thing is happening there.”

  Miss Hunter gave voice to Margaret’s question. “What exactly is happening?”

  Mr. Tarkington pushed his lips out. “Those of you teaching the younger grades may not have observed what is happening in the older grades.”

  “If they would simply turn in their work,” Mr. Snyder said, “the grades would correct. As it is, I will have to give failing grades for the first quarter.”

  “I understand,” Mr. Tarkington said, “that these students refuse to complete work, but only in certain subjects.”

  “Let me guess,” Margaret said. “Assignments are missing in health and hygiene, literature, and world geography. At the high school, we might add higher mathematics, world history, art, and music.”

  Mr. Tarkington checked notes jotted on a sheet of paper. “That is correct.”

  “And the pupils you’re referencing are Amish students,” Margaret said.

  “That is also correct.”

  “The Amish are not accustomed to those subjects,” Margaret said. “I would go so far as to guess that the parents of these students would say that the subjects are not relevant to salvation or the practice of their religion.”

  Mr. Tarkington shifted his weight. “I’m a churchgoing person. I would venture to say that every person in this room is. But we offer an education that prepares students for the modern century. While we certainly hope to impart proper moral values to our students, our direct aim is not the furtherance of religion.”

  “I think you’ll find the Amish don’t make that distinction,” Margaret said.

  “Nevertheless,” the principal said, “our task is to ensure the pupils conform to the standards we have established.”

  Margaret’s mind withdrew from the discussion that ensued. The law said the children had to be in school, and many families complied. But just as the law did not say which grade they must enroll their children in, neither did it specify that the children must earn passing marks. Failing marks would ensure both that the students would not learn the objectionable material and also that they would not advance to higher grade levels. Margaret’s lips curved in slight admiration at the ingenuity of the Amish strategies.

  “I’ll feel better if I see for myself that David is all right.”

  Rachel’s determination greeted Ella as she pulled the buggy onto the Hilty farm after spending most of the day on lessons with Gertie and Savilla. Ella relaxed the reins in her hands but did not get out.

  “Right now?” Ella asked. There was barely time to go into town and back before supper.

  “The meal is in the oven,” Rachel said, “with enough wood for a slow heat. I don’t want to wait another day. I hope you’ll come with me.”

  Ella offered a smile and a nod. Rachel climbed into the buggy, and Ella signaled the horse again. Tomorrow would make two weeks since David’s departure. Perhaps it would help Rachel’s recent temperament if she saw for herself that David was safe and cared for.

  Rachel fidgeted all the way into town, and although Ella infused her words with optimism and cheerfulness, Rachel did not settle. Any mother would want to know her child was looked after, but at least half of Rachel’s nervousness might be in anticipation of what she would say to her old friend under circumstances neither of them would have imagined when they were girls—or even a few weeks ago.

  Af
ter a while, Ella abandoned attempts at easy conversation and concentrated on coaxing better speed from the horse. Finally they turned onto Lindy’s street. Ella let her eyes linger for a moment on Margaret Simpson’s bungalow, wondering if Margaret missed Gertie as much as the little girl seemed to miss her. Ella tied the horse up in front of Lindy’s house, and she and Rachel paced to the back of the lot where Lindy’s workshop sat.

  “What was that?” Rachel hurried her steps.

  “I didn’t hear anything,” Ella said, trying to keep pace.

  “There it is again,” Rachel said.

  Scraping and scuffling. It could just be Lindy pushing a piece of furniture across the room.

  Thud.

  A splintering sound.

  A yelp.

  The door of the workshop opened, and a man darted out and across a patch of grass before disappearing behind the neighbor’s thick hedge. Ella caught a glimpse only of a blue shirt. She didn’t recognize the man.

  Rachel and Ella burst into the workshop. Splintered against the far wall were the remains of several birdhouses. A bookcase lay on its back, the bottom shelf kicked out of place.

  “Lindy?” Rachel called.

  A moan. A foot.

  Rachel cleared the debris and found her friend, taking Lindy’s face in her hands. “Open your eyes! Talk to me!”

  With a sigh, Lindy complied. “Did you see him?”

  “Who was that?” Rachel asked.

  “I don’t know.” Lindy raised a hand to her head. “I’ve already got an egg on my scalp.”

  “Who would want to do this?” Ella scanned the shambles.

  Lindy pushed herself upright, leaning on one arm and delicately exploring her ankle with the other. “He came in and went crazy before I could ask what I could do for him. I tried to stop him, but he pushed me, and I tripped.”