A Love to Treasure

by Irene Brand

  “Wise parents,” Lena said.

  “Yes, they are. I’ll admit I resented having to work when I was a child, but as I grew older I saw the wisdom of it.”

  The three women were a tremendous help and soon they had the floor swept and mopped, the windows clean, and the furniture dusted and polished. Dainty white curtains hung at the freshly washed windows.

  After the women left, with Marie’s grateful thanks for their help, she continued to organize the room to suit her, storing books and other supplies in places that would be convenient for the children. She found a poem, “Four-Leaf Clovers,” which had been copyrighted the previous year by Ella Higginson in a book titled When the Birds Go North Again. The poem was illustrated with the pictures of two girls and a boy playing in an open field, somewhat like the area around the school building. Marie read it aloud, slowly, remembering when she’d memorized poetry as a child, and decided it would be a good poem for her medium-age pupils to learn.

  “I know a place where the sun is like gold,

  And the cherry blooms burst with snow;

  And down underneath is the loveliest nook,

  Where the four-leaf clovers grow.”

  She’d enjoyed poetry, but Earl had always laughed when he heard her reciting a new selection. One day he’d accused her of sounding like a bleating sheep when she’d been learning a portion of one of William Shakespeare’s sonnets.

  Wondering if she would encounter Earl during her stay at Cades Cove, or if she would even recognize him if she did, Marie was startled by a knock on the door. She was standing on a stool, shelving some books, so instead of stepping down, she called, “Come in!”

  A man opened the door and stepped inside. It wasn’t Daniel, as she’d expected, but a stranger. Heavily bearded and, with a hat pulled over his forehead, it was difficult for her to see his face. The man looked like a rough customer, and momentarily she was fearful, wondering if he was one of the men she’d heard about from Chestnut Flats. Leaning against the doorjamb, the man laughed jovially before he said, “Now I’ve seen everything! The spoiled daughter of Vance and Evelyn Bolden, dressed up like a servant and doing menial labor. What’s happened? Did you get disinherited and have to take up cleaning for a living?”

  Stepping off the ladder, Marie raised a couple of the window blinds so she could get a closer look at her visitor. He didn’t look like anyone she’d ever known, but walking closer to him, she noticed that the man’s eyes were exactly like her mother’s.

  “Earl?” she questioned, finding it difficult to believe that this broad-shouldered, bewhiskered man was her brother. When he’d returned from the fighting in Cuba in 1898, he was a near invalid, having been ill with malaria during his time in the tropics. After spending a few weeks at home and not improving, he’d decided to go to the Cherokee nation for healing. He’d heard all of his life about his mother’s Cherokee friend, Taynita, who had been instrumental in saving his life when he was only a baby. She’d used herbs and other native methods to restore his health. He believed it was worth a try to see if the same treatment could cure him. Looking at the brawny, healthy man who stood before her, Marie knew that the treatment had been successful.

  “Earl, is it really you? I was just now thinking of you and wondering if I would get to see you. I heard you live around here.”

  He grabbed her in a bear hug and squeezed her so hard that she couldn’t breathe.

  “Stop it,” she mumbled. “I think you’ve cracked my ribs.”

  “Nonsense! You’re a Bolden, remember? We don’t bruise easily.”

  He lifted her and swung her around and around before he finally released her, and being dizzy she staggered to sit down in the nearest chair.

  “Hey! I’m not a child anymore. Stop that. But I’m surely happy to see you. Tell me where you live. Is it far?”

  “My home is on the nearest mountain—about two hours’ walk away. It’s on the edge of the Cherokee reservation. One of the natives told me that a woman by the name of Bolden had come to teach in Cades Cove. I was sure it wasn’t Mother, but thought it might be you. What possessed you to come here?”

  “No other community would hire me. Female schoolteachers are not popular in the Carolinas. Apparently teaching in Cades Cove isn’t a job anyone else wants. When they approached me, I accepted right away because I didn’t have answers from any of the other places where I’d applied.”

  Earl straddled a bench in the front of the schoolroom, facing Marie.

  “But I still don’t understand why you’re teaching. It can’t be that you need the money. Isn’t Dad prosperous anymore?”

  “Of course he is. But I wasn’t content to sit at home, let my parents support me, and end up marrying somebody I didn’t love just because it was expected of me. I’ve thought about it a lot—we have the same blood in our veins as our parents, and that’s why we’ve chosen to make our own decisions about how to live. We’re adventurous. Why didn’t they stay in England, rather than risk a voyage across the Atlantic? When our father was killed in a shipwreck, our mother could have gone back to Europe but, no, she agreed to marry Vance Bolden and emigrate from Charleston to the mountains of North Carolina. Wanderlust is in our blood!”

  Nodding, Earl said, “You’re right, of course. And I have a feeling this school teaching isn’t going to be an easy task, either.”

  “I don’t expect it to be. But that’s enough about me. What have you been doing with yourself? Mother prays daily for you and wishes you’d come to see her. Dad misses you, too, for that matter.”

  “I know I disappointed them, and people probably think I’m crazy for giving up the easy life to live in a log cabin in the woods. But I haven’t been wasting my time.” He walked to the door, opened it and scanned the area around the schoolhouse. Then he sat on a chair close to Marie, reaching into his pocket for a leather pouch.

  “Hold out your hand,” he said, and when she did what he asked, he sprinkled some of the contents of the pouch into her hand. The small chunks sparkled brightly in the beam of sunlight that flashed through one of the windows Marie had cleaned. She stared at him, speechless.

  “About a year ago, I found a small pocket of gold on the land I bought from the Cherokee tribe. I’ve been mining it off and on since then, and I have quite a stash of gold. Besides that, I’ve managed to make a good living from hunting and trapping in the wintertime. Now I’ve decided to use that money, settle down, buy some farmland and raise a family, but I’m not in any hurry. I want to be sure I make the right decisions.”

  “Really? What caused you to change your mind?”

  Smiling broadly, he walked to the door again. In words that Marie supposed were Cherokee, he called out while motioning with his hands. Soon a young Cherokee woman stepped inside the door. She stood with averted face, but Marie noted that she had soft, dark skin. Her long black hair was wavy and neat. Her head reached only as far as Earl’s shoulder, but the luminous shine in Earl’s eyes as he looked at the girl proclaimed his love for her.

  “This is my friend Awinta, which means fawn in English. We’re going to be married in a traditional Cherokee ceremony, but I intend to make it legal according to North Carolina’s laws, too. Do you know any of the preachers around here?”

  Marie shook her head, while wondering what her parents would think of the match. “I just arrived in the Cove not long ago myself.”

  Hearing a horse’s hooves on the road, Marie looked out and saw Daniel approaching.

  “Here comes the man who can tell you. He’s a native of the Cove.”

  Earl glanced out the window. “Oh, that’s Daniel Watson. I’ve seen him a few times around Canaan and Cades Cove.”

  Daniel dismounted in one fluid movement as he usually did and bounded up the steps. He stopped short when he saw Earl and Awinta.

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” he said
to Marie. “I didn’t know you had company.”

  “Daniel, this is my twin brother, Earl Bolden,” Marie said, smiling. “As you know, I haven’t seen much of him for the past few years. I intended to try and find him while I was at the Cove, but he saved me that trouble. This is his friend Awinta,” she added.

  The two men shook hands, and Daniel bowed slightly toward the Cherokee woman. Daniel glanced from Earl to Marie. “I can easily see the family resemblance. I thought you reminded me of someone I’d met before. As I mentioned, I’ve seen your brother a few times.”

  Smiling, Marie said, “Well, we are twins, though of course we’re not identical, Earl being a man and all.”

  “Awinta and I are planning to get married,” Earl explained to Daniel. “She wants the traditional Cherokee wedding, but I want to marry her in a church, too. We came to make arrangements for the wedding. My parents may not approve of our marriage, but it will be less bothersome to them if we have a church wedding, too. Awinta is a Christian, and we decided to be married in a church here in the Cove and have another wedding later on at the reservation.”

  “I can introduce you to one of the preachers,” Daniel said. “Are you thinking that the local preachers will hesitate to marry you because of Awinta’s Cherokee heritage?”

  When Earl nodded, Daniel pointed at the church across the road. “That may be the situation in some instances, for there is some prejudice in the Cove against the Cherokee, but I feel sure the pastor of that church will marry you.”

  Awinta had said very little up until that time, but she spoke, and Marie was surprised at how well she spoke English. “I do not want to bring any trouble to Earl. I love him very much, but if our marriage will displease his people, I will not marry him.”

  Earl and Marie exchanged glances, and Earl shrugged his shoulders.

  “I’ve told her that it won’t matter one iota to our mother. However, I’ll have to admit that Father might object,” he said. “Since Mother was raised in England and came to this country as a missionary to the local Indian tribes, she will certainly approve. She’ll convince Father that it’s the right thing to do.”

  “That’s true, but Father doesn’t object to the fact that our mother’s best friend is a full-blood Cherokee,” Marie said, “so we’ll pray that he will accept Awinta.”

  Marie stepped closer to Awinta and hugged her. “I, for one, will certainly do my best to make you a beloved member of our family. I’m looking forward to having you for a sister.” Looking over the girl’s shoulder, Marie met Daniel’s glance, and he nodded approval.

  “The preacher is clearing weeds from the cemetery across the way,” Daniel said, “If you want me to, I’ll go along and introduce you to him. I don’t think he’ll hesitate to perform the ceremony.”

  Earl nodded. He turned to Marie and said hesitantly, “I’d like for Mother and Dad to be here when we get married. I know Mother will want to attend, but I’m not sure that Dad will approve, so I don’t suppose he will come to the wedding.”

  “I’m not so sure about that. Dad has mellowed a lot in the past few years,” Marie said. “I think he’ll come.”

  Marie stood in the doorway of the schoolhouse and watched as they walked the short distance to the church. Awinta was a small woman, and she was dwarfed by the two tall men who walked beside her. The pastor apparently agreed to perform the ceremony, for Awinta and Earl went into the church with him. When Daniel returned, he lounged on the bottom step and Marie sat beside him.

  “Are they going to get married right now?” Marie said. “I’d like to have attended.”

  Shaking his head, Daniel said, “The pastor is just counseling with them now, but Earl wants to invite your parents to be here, so the ceremony probably won’t take place until the spring. Awinta wants a traditional Cherokee wedding, which will be held at the reservation after they’re married here. Do you have any problem with that?”

  “Of course not! It’s obvious they’re very much in love. It must be wonderful to find a person you love that much.”

  “I assume you’ve never found that person?” Daniel said, a solemn expression on his face. Without looking at her, he continued, “Or am I getting too personal?”

  Marie’s face grew warm, and she hoped that Daniel didn’t notice her blushes.

  “I can’t answer that question because, if I have met that special person, I don’t know it,” she said. “I’ve heard the expression ‘love comes softly,’ which says to me that love between a man and woman doesn’t necessarily hit the couple like a bolt of lightning. Rather love sneaks up on them in a slow and gentle manner. Perhaps that will happen to me.”

  He nodded solemnly and didn’t look her way. Marie wanted to ask Daniel if he had found a special person, but remembering what Viola had hinted about her relationship with Daniel, she didn’t want to know the answer.

  Chapter 4

  Since school was scheduled to start the following Monday, Marie spent the next few days preparing lessons and becoming oriented with the schoolroom and the textbooks that the children would use. According to the number of books, as well as the content, the school curriculum was apparently not as advanced as the school in Canaan. But, of course, Cades Cove didn’t have the support of people like Evelyn and Vance Bolden, either.

  That the school building and furnishings were somewhat inferior to what she’d known didn’t discourage Marie because she hadn’t expected the Cove’s culture to be on a scale with Canaan.

  Knowing that her mother would want to know every detail about the schoolroom, Marie sat at the teacher’s desk and wrote a description of where she would be teaching. After telling her mother about seeing Earl, she looked around the room as she continued:

  The building is boxlike, rectangular, about twenty-four feet by thirty feet, with windows along the sides, doors in front and back, ten-foot ceilings, wood framed and tin-roofed.

  A potbelly stove sits in the middle of the room, just like the one in the schoolhouse in Canaan. The fuel for the stove is wood or coal. I hope it will keep the room warm enough during the winter. Many of the children I’ve seen so far are not adequately clothed.

  The windows along the sides don’t let in very much natural light except during certain times of the day. However, I intend to keep the doors open on fine days. If the children don’t get too distracted by what’s going on outside, that is.

  The desks are simply made, four legs under a flat board. There is no other furniture. A wall map hangs on the wall behind the teacher’s desk.

  In the upper-right corner of the desktops is a hole for an inkwell or ink bottle to sit, just like the desks we had in the Canaan school. Pencils are penny cedar-covered lead with a small pointed rubber eraser. The slate pencil is a stone; round, with a paper covering to prevent breaking if dropped. Other supplies include a slate and tablet containing about fifty sheets of yellow paper ruled with lines. Copy books are available to the students who can pay ten or fifteen cents for them. I fear that many of my students may not be able to afford them, though. Perhaps we can think of a way to give each child one without it seeming like charity. The people here are very proud, like the people back home.

  Now that we’ve cleaned the building and I’ve put away all the books and supplies I brought, the room is comfortable and pretty.

  As she surveyed the room, Marie realized that the furnishings weren’t much different from the school she’d attended as a child in Canaan. There were twenty pupils’ desks, and each desk consisted of two parts. The seat could either be raised or lowered, and was attached to the front of another pupil’s desk who sat immediately behind. The desks were lined up in rows and bolted to the floor, and each one was supplied with a handheld slate.

  Remembering her days in school, Marie tried to devise a seating arrangement to keep any of the girls, who wore their hair in pigtails, from havin
g them dipped in an inkwell by the boy who sat behind her. This had happened to her when she was in the first grade, and although her parents had paid little attention to the incident, Aunt Fannie had thrown a fit that one of her “chiluns,” as she called Marie and Earl, would be so mistreated.

  She placed a bench in front of her desk where she could have students sit when it was their time to recite or report on the current assignments for the day.

  The blackboard seemed to be new, and she was pleased with that. In her childhood she’d used many blackboards that were in bad condition, and it had been a dreaded chore to write a sentence or a paragraph without a smooth surface beneath the chalk.

  Still remembering her childhood, her thoughts turned to her twin. Poor Earl! He had never wanted to become involved in any of the activities in and around Canaan, and that was why he had finally disappeared, leaving only a note to the effect that he was going to the mountains to live with the Cherokees. Silently, she thanked God that Earl had found a wife and was apparently making a good living by farming and trapping—and prospecting. Their parents would be pleased, but she would let Earl inform them about his financial circumstances.

  * * *

  When the schoolhouse was ready for students, Mrs. Turner volunteered to take Marie to meet some of her prospective pupils from Chestnut Flats since she had already visited most of the other students in Cades Cove. Daniel came by the house that evening, and when his grandmother mentioned she was taking Marie to the Flats soon, he said, “Don’t you think I’m the one to do that? Most of the people who live there are good citizens, but not all of them are.”

  “Oh, for goodness’ sakes,” Lena said. “Nobody is going to harm me. I’ve lived in this area most of my life, and I think I’m safe enough.”