That night Larson took a special trip to Rupert to see a certain woman there. I know it looked to him as though the Lord were helping him to prepare an opening for the teacher he had in mind. A mean man will have a mean God. Such a God requires only that you keep your brains constantly, patiently on the end you wish accomplished; pretending to others that your intention is totally different; turning every occasion into the channel of your desire; and being perfectly ruthless, as you are sure God must be, with your enemies. There was one other factor on which Larson counted—the superior advantage of a man because he is a man, coupled with the inferior wits of a woman because she is a woman.
I HAD BEEN HAVING a very disagreeable time with that school. Each day brought a new crisis which seemed to push me farther from my ideal of what my work should be. But suddenly there came the preternatural calm of a week when I had no need to quell incipient rebellions; there were only those curiously watching eyes I could detect fastened upon me. On that night which marked the start of the unraveling of the whole contemptible plot, I was preparing to go home when I remembered I had left a book on Larson’s desk. He taught one period of penmanship to the whole high school, at which time I studied in his room at his desk. I took the book and was leaving, when Larson, who was at the blackboard, turned half-way toward me, still continuing to write, and said, in a remarkably uninflected voice, “Have you heard about the petition, Mrs. Greenwood?”
“Petition...petition?” My thoughts were bewildered; then they flew to his recent trouble with Wendell and Sterling. “Have they circulated a petition to dismiss you?”
Still continuing to write and never looking into my eyes, he murmured, “No, Mrs. Greenwood, they’ve got a petition against you.”
“Against me!” I threw back my head, and involuntarily I laughed aloud. After a while I was able to say, “That’s the funniest thing I’ve heard in many a day. A petition against me! What in the world is the matter with them? I have done nothing wrong.”
Larson did not join in my mirth. With very strange concentration he still wrote slowly on the blackboard, without facing me. He spoke again in a somnabulistic monotone: “I know you haven’t done nothing wrong, Mrs. Greenwood. Don’t you let them bluff you. You stand up for your rights.”
“Certainly I will!” I returned with light-hearted confidence. “Who is getting up this petition?”
“Why,...some women I believe.”
“Have you seen it?”
“Why, yes, I...” He consulted his book and wrote industriously.
“Of what am I accused?”
“Why, I don’t just remember...”
“When is it to be presented?”
“Tomorrow night. I thought you ought to know.”
“Well, I should think so!” I agreed, with some levity. “Did they contemplate for a moment presenting a petition to the Board of Trustees and allowing me no knowledge of the affair?” I was beginning to catch a glimpse of some secret plan to oust me without representation, and my fighting blood was up. “It doesn’t worry me,” I added with a calm which I felt completely, reiterating what seemed unanswerable argument in time of trial, “It doesn’t worry me for I have done nothing wrong.”
With what simple, childlike faith I considered that because I had done no wrong, no harm could befall me! As though the world were run that way! I was ripe for the lesson of my life. And I approached it with smiling calm.
On my way home I decided to run in to see Mrs. Sanderby at the little old school-house opposite, where she taught. My face was wreathed in smiles, and I spoke eagerly, “You can’t guess the news, Mrs. Sanderby! Some women are getting up a petition to put me out of the school. Isn’t it funny?
At the word petition Mrs. Sanderby’s jaw dropped, and a pained expression came into her eyes, changing quickly as she noted the smile upon my lips. “Oh, Mrs. Greenwood! I’ve known it for a week, and I wanted to tell you, but I was afraid of the effect it would have on you. If I had only known you would take it like this!”
“Why, of course I take it like this! How else would I take it? I have done nothing wrong. Professor Larson just told me so. He said, ‘You have done nothing wrong, Mrs. Greenwood. Don’t you let them bluff you. You stand up for your rights!’”
Mrs. Sanderby’s mouth dropped entirely open, then shut with a snap, then opened suddenly for speech. “Well, then, I’ll just have to tell you! I wouldn’t have, if he hadn’t said that. I heard it from a good source, promised not to tell who, that Professor Larson wrote that petition himself for those women, sent them out himself to get it signed—Mrs. Baker, Mrs. Laudenslager, Mrs. Duggan, and Mrs. Brady.”
“Oh, I can’t believe it!” I spoke with entire conviction. “He has been such a good friend to me all along.”
“That’s just what you think. I have been told by those who know that he has kept a trail hot to the three trustees, talking against you and trying to get you out.”
“I can’t believe it! Somebody who is his enemy has circulated the story. I won’t believe it!”
“Mrs. Greenwood, I wouldn’t tell you if it wasn’t so, and if I didn’t know positively. I thought you ought to be told. You’ll find out what I say is true.”
“But why should he want me out? He has praised my work to me again and again and never offered any criticism.”
“He’ll say that to you, but he’ll tell another story to the trustees. He wants you out to put another woman in your place. He has another woman waiting at Rupert for your place. She has been waiting ever since school began. Some one told me who made me promise not to tell that this woman is his polygamous wife—he is a Mormon, you know, and all those women who started the petition are Mormons; that’s where he gets his pull with them—and this polygamous wife has been teaching with him before now....”
“But there’s no such thing as polygamy any more. Good Mormons don’t practise it, nor do they recognize it as right,” I said.
“Well, you can call it what you want to. His other woman has been living in Rupert ever since he came. You know his first wife is ten years older than he is, and you know how she dresses and looks. And that child they say is adopted is the living image of Professor Larson!”
“The child does look like him. But still I will not believe it.”
“Well, I am just telling you what I was told by some one who knows. Larson goes nearly every day to Rupert, you know. What would he be running into Rupert for all the time, and what would he adopt that child for that is the mortal image of him when he has children of his own, and he in debt bad, and why should he have been dinging at the trustees every day to hire a woman he can get for them at Rupert? That is his polygamous wife, and he wants her to support herself and help him to get out of debt. That boy Hans is hers.”
“Well,...thank you, Mrs. Sanderby. I know you believe these things, but I am sure you will find they are untrue. I know you will be glad to find them false.”
“You certainly have been a true friend to him, Mrs. Greenwood.” She looked admiringly and pityingly at me.
“Of course I am his true friend,” I replied, unaffected by the quality of her regard. “Why should I not be?”
I did not credit for a moment these stories, which I believed the rankest slander. I went at once to the Mead home which was next to the little house I rented. Mrs. Mead, a middle-aged, competent brunette, was in her bedroom, lying down. She said she was sick. She did not explain then, as she did to me later, that it was the petition against me that had made her sick. She was a woman of conscience, and she was not persuaded of my iniquity, even though she had become unsettled enough no longer to be intimate with me. Her eyes faltered and dropped when I said, smiling, “Mrs. Mead, some one has started a story that Professor Larson has written a petition against me and is trying to get me out of the school. I don’t believe it.” There was the fraction of a second’s hesitation before Mrs. Mead answered, scarcely lifting her eyes, “I hope you may prove right, Mrs. Greenwood.”
“Oh
, I know it!” I responded. “He has always been such a good friend to me. He has continually expressed his satisfaction with my work.” Then, becoming aware of something extraordinarily constrained in Mrs. Mead’s attitude, I added, “If he has not been a true friend to me, if he has been treacherous, I shall know it as soon as I get to the meeting tomorrow night. I presume it will be in the school-house and that I may be allowed to be present?”
“Yes, it is to be in the school-house; the trustees have not been meeting at my house for some time. And of course you can be present. I want you to understand just how this is, Mrs. Greenwood. These women came to us with a petition to have you discharged. We told them that we could not act unless they had the names of the majority of the taxpayers on that petition. We trustees had nothing to do with that petition.”
“Mrs. Mead, Professor Larson never once told me of a single thing that he disapproved in my teaching or in my behavior. If I have made any serious mistakes, I am wholly unconscious of them. There can be no truthful charges made against me, and I am not afraid of the untruth.”
As I creamed the potatoes for dinner that night, I noticed Professor Larson cross the yard before my kitchen window on his way to visit Mrs. Mead. I felt sure he was going to protest in my favor, that his visit was probably entirely in my behalf. How comforting it is to have a true friend! If we have done right and have one true friend in the world, nothing can hurt us for long.
How should I have felt if I could have heard the words that were being uttered at the very moment I was thinking those thoughts? Mrs. Mead told me later that she was saying, “There is one thing I can say for Mrs. Greenwood, Professor Larson, in spite of all you have said against her: she had never said one thing against you. On the contrary, I have criticized you several times when I feel sure you were entirely to blame, and she has tried to assume all the fault. I can tell you, Professor Larson, Mrs. Greenwood has been true-blue to you!”
Joe and Rhoda had scarcely said their prayers and been tucked into bed with a kiss apiece when a knock came on the kitchen door. There was a fire only in my cheerful little kitchen, which I used also for a dining-room, and there I was settled to make out my lesson plans for the next day. My visitors were Mr. and Mrs. Troughton, the latter looking apologetically doubtful in spite of her Dantesque eyes and nose, and the former looking firm and masterful in spite of his watery red eyes and not too magnificent proboscis. When we were seated, Mrs. Troughton fixed her melancholy, dark gaze upon her adored Jake, who at once declared, “Mrs. Greenwood, something happened today that made me so dog-gone sore I hain’t over it yit. Them women come and got my wife to sign their dog-gone petition.”
Mrs. Jake interrupted piteously. “I didn’t want to. I kep’ a-sayin’, ‘Jake’ll be here in a minute. Wait till Jake comes!’ An’ they kep’ sayin’, ‘It don’t make no matter. They’s got to be a change in the school,’ they says, ‘an’ this’ll he’p to start things right.’ An’ I kep’ sayin’, ‘Jes’ wait till Jake comes ..!’”
Jake snorted. “They knowed better’n to wait. I’d a-showed ‘em where to head in. We got plenty agin Larson—the way he throwed Wendell down them stairs, and a-tryin’ to put him in the Reform School; but, Mrs. Greenwood, we hain’t got nothin’ agin you, an’ never have, an’ I told my wife here that we jes’ got to hoof it over here and let you know how she come to sign that there dog-gone petition. An’ now I want to know. Hain’t they ways that we kin git her name off’n that there petition?”
“I’m afraid not.”
“Gosh! That makes me so dod-gasted mad I could wallop some one. An’ in my opinion it ‘ud be that there skunk Larson. He’s at the bottom of this, Mrs. Greenwood; believe me, you’ll find it’s so. Hain’t they nothin’ we kin do? Gosh! I sure hate it to git out we signed a petition agin you. Why, when we was a-leavin’ tonight to come here, Wendell, he says, ‘Why don’t they sign up a petition to put ole Larson out ‘stead o’ her? They ain’t nothin’ agin her!’”
“Ain’t they nothin’ I could do, Mrs. Greenwood?” faltered the repentant Mrs. Troughton.
I had been considering. “I’ll tell you, Mrs. Troughton. Tomorrow night you be sure to come to the school-house, and you can say there that you want your name withdrawn. That will make it all right, I think.”
“You bet we’ll be there!” answered Troughton heartily. “That’s what we’ll do, Ma. We’ll show them women they can’t put nothin’ over on Jake Troughton jes’ becuz he hain’t to home when they call with their dog-gone petitions!”
That night I composed myself calmly for sleep. Before I drifted into tranquil dreams, I prayed earnestly: “Dear Father, I don’t know how to manage this case. Wherein I have done wrong, I know that you will punish me as I deserve, and I do not ask for mercy; only let me learn the lesson that I may not do wrong again. Wherein I have done right, I know you will be with me. I fear no evil.”
I went to sleep as a babe upon its mother’s breast. For the first time in weeks a masked man with a stiletto did not appear in my dreams. Not being superstitious, I had not paid any attention to this constant nightmare. But I know now that God tries continually to warn us of trouble from ourselves or others by means of our dreams, and while Freud is, in the main, right, Adler and Jung come much nearer the truth. The masked man with the stiletto was not a sex symbol; the mask, the stiletto, meant the deceiving and base plotting of Larson. And after I turned the case over to God, the symbol of this menacing danger was abolished, for where there is perfect trust in God, there can be no danger.
I have muddled my affairs more than once, trying with all my wits to compass my desire. I want you to note how God managed this case after I turned it over to Him. Do you think that one mere mortal woman could have brought to pass the astonishing details of all that followed that prayer? If you do, you attribute to me greater powers than I possess, and you credit Chance with properties which insult the intelligence and must place you in the ranks of those who believe in coincidence so extraordinary as to make it, in reality, God of All. It will mean simply that you choose Chance working as God, while I choose Intelligence.
Next morning God put it into my mind to write a letter of invitation to every one in the district to be present at my trial. I knew there were people in the neighborhood who wished me well. It would be pleasant to see their faces leavening the antagonism. My enemies had reason for being present. My friends knew nothing whatever of Larson’s machinations, if such there were, and they would not be present unless...unless they were invited. Then why not invite them? Was not this my particular party? Were not all the ceremonies in my honor—or dishonor? Therefore let my friends as well as my enemies witness them.
I was not crude enough to make any line of demarcation. I wrote neat little invitations to every mother and father in the district, smiling as I indited my request to those whom I knew to be responsible for circulating the petition. “Dear Parents” (I put in the actual names, to make the appeal more personal): “This is to inform you that there is to be a meeting at the school-house tonight to consider a petition for my dismissal from the Acequia High School. You are respectfully invited to be present.”
THOSE INVITATIONS I placed in the hands of every pupil in the high school, with the admonition to be sure to take them home, which I had every reason to believe had been done when I saw the immense throng that packed the big assembly-room that night, filling every seat, sitting in the deep sills of every window, leaning against all the walls, and overflowing into the hall, or, rather, never having been able to flow into the room. I had never seen so large a crowd at the school-house.
I had been hopeful that Larson would be among the early arrivals, for I wished some immediate strengthening of my conviction that he had not failed me. I felt that I could tell whether he had been treacherous as soon as I should see him that night. He would not be able to conceal the aura of truth or falsehood which would surround him on such an occasion. Instead of Larson, the first arrivals, after I had entered the big ro
om, were Mr. and Mrs. Troughton, who seated themselves immediately back of me. The door was in the rear, and I had taken a seat near the front so as to be able to observe the crowd by turning to face them, and also to make note of every person entering the door without being under too close observation myself.
The crowd began to come, to grow, to overflow. I felt a pleasurable excitement, I could not have told why. I should have been weeping over my coming disgrace. Instead, I was thrilled by the prospect of I knew not what. Part of my emotion was eager anticipation of the exoneration of Larson, and part of it was my unacknowledged desire to face him in event of his guilt. That latter a strange matter for enjoyment!
Before the crisis that faced me, I realized that most women would have been depressed and nervous. Something peculiar about me. I was as calm and gay as a June morning, with all the birds singing and the sun shining in a clear, blue sky. Instead of hiding my weeping eyes in the curve of my arm, bowing down thus on the desk before me, or sitting with lowered, red-rimmed lids, which would advertise a night spent in worry and tears, or gazing about agonizingly for one friendly face...only one friendly face!—instead of any of these possibilities for some women—but not for me—,with a half-smile on my lips I sat turned in my seat, watching the door expectantly, as the crowd oozed into the room, slowly but surely—the biggest crowd that had ever been together in the Acequia High School’s large assembly-room.
One curious thing suddenly struck me with its unpredictable import: uninvited, nearly every high-school boy was there, and they had unconsciously formed themselves in a long, packed line at the back of the room—for what purpose, I asked myself, glad, not dismayed, at the sight. They were lead by Herbert Thompson. That made me a little sad for a moment. “He has come to see me disgraced,” I thought. For I had had serious trouble with Herbert. I had always felt sincere concern that this lad with the fine brain should have given me so much trouble in my school work.
Annie Pike Greenwood Page 45
