I saw handsome Victor Harper edge his way in, followed by Glen Mortimer, a really mild young man who had one day come to school with a murderous bowie-knife thrust in the top of his boot, that being his means of achieving some distinction. Following him was Wendell Troughton, accompanied by Sterling Baker, who, being observed by his mother, was emphatically motioned to leave. This device failing, Mrs. Baker hissed across the room, “Go home, Sterling! Go home!” But Sterling had been obeying his own will too long to be reformed in a single night by his doting mother. He slunk near the door, apparently deaf to the insistent message and blind to the admonishing gestures. The doorway was crowded with high-school boys, and as far out into the darkness of the hall as my eyes could distinguish them.
From my point of vantage I could see everybody in the room. The long line of high-school boys at the back was interspersed here and there by men of the community. I noticed that in the exact center of this line stood Mr. Mead. He never looked more grimly the counterpart of Woodrow Wilson. And farther along the line was Meredith Spenlow’s father, who had come, as had most of the farmers present, in his overalls, nor waiting to shave. I considered this a higher tribute than if the farmers had decided upon personal pride, which would have meant bed instead of coming to see me through.
By the side wall were Mr. and Mrs. Bagnel, both untiring workers, and intelligent, their children distinctly among those most carefully reared in the community. They obeyed their parents respectfully, an astonishing tribute in these days when all that parents are allowed by offspring is the right to spawn them.
Grouped together at the center rear were the four women whose names headed the petition against me. I frankly studied their faces, but they carefully avoided meeting my eyes. In the next row to me and on the front seat, without a desk, I could see the bald head of Larson, who had tiptoed into the room, eyes averted from me.
Mrs. Brady was dressed after the flamboyant style preferred by her daughter Clarissa, whose idea of being perfectly attired was a few scant yards of red satin. She was a showily good-looking woman, radiating animal vitality and considerable intelligence, but common—a woman of common, coarse standards. The other three women, Mrs. Laudenslager (Rosa’s mother), Mrs. Baker (Sterling’s mother), and Mrs. Duggan (Alberta’s mother), were all women of natural refinement.
Mrs. Duggan had two distinctions for me: she had an enormous amount of beautiful rich-brown hair, like a cap, over almost her entire head; and she had confessed at one of the Mormon testament meetings that one night the Devil had tried to smother her. The wonderful hair I envied her. I do not know why, but it was always the yearning of my heart to sit on my hair. Of course, I know that extremely long hair simply typifies woman’s subjection to man, but I have always felt that if I could stun a few men with a Lady Godiva cape of hair, I’ll boun’ you I could get my own way a good part of the time. As for the Devil—I regarded Mrs. Duggan with roundeyed awe. The Devil manages to smother all of us without letting us know it, but she had known!
I liked those three women very much, and I had another little sadness at my heart to think that, Mormon women as they were, I was now the object of their attack. The Mormons had always been my friends. And certainly I had been to the Mormons, as Mrs. Mead would have said, “true-blue.”
The room was now crowded, packed—people jammed in windows and crushing each other along the side walls; and out of the dark hall stared a craning mob. Big Trustee Jensen was splendid that night. Injustice he had done me in the past; injustice he would do me in the future; but that night he was magnanimous. The mob spirit occasionally—very occasionally—works for betterment. That crowd was there to have the truth sifted out of the bushels of lies they had been forced to store in the granary of their minds for months. Even Herbert, I am sure, was there for that purpose, though he believed the truth would damn me. Beside him had crept his friend Willard Ingoldsby, a lad I had been forced to reprimand; he had gone home thinking I would beg him to remain, but I had done nothing of the kind. Willard was probably hoping something would happen to cause the ejection of both Larson and me, for he had some right to his grievance against the Professor.
Never before had Trustee Jensen been given the opportunity to harangue so large an audience as it was his duty, as chairman of the trustees, to address that night. All Mormons are easy speakers, some of them too easy, damning their religion with their boring flow of words. One might almost suppose that the repressed desire to speak in public had been the reason for many conversions to that faith. Sometimes I think that I might have been a Mormon had I not been talked out of the communion of Latter-Day Saints. I shall never be saint enough to bear being bored to death, no matter how earnest the long-winded speaker.
Jensen saw before him every important individual in the community where he most desired to be a person of consequence. Particularly was this a chance to impress those he would have think well of him—the other church folks, those who attended the Union Sunday-school in the Acequia High School assembly-room. Every one present was distinguished by Jensen through all the thoughts he had accumulated around them, carrying them in his head, as he had, for years. They were the voters who had made him trustee and who might make him so again, the only political position to be had in that community. And they should see how fair he could be.
Justice herself could not have held her scales more carefully than did Trustee Jensen that night. He stood near the center of the room, among the desks, turning to meet the gaze of all as he spoke. I was glad he had chosen that particular position, for it made possible my observation of the drama of that whole hall while keeping him in view every minute.
“Ladies and gentlemen!” (There was an unmistakable Scandinavian accent.) “I suppose you all know why we are here. A petition has been presented asking that Mrs. Greenwood be put out of the school. Now, I want Mrs. Greenwood and you people to understand that the trustees have nothing to do with this here petition.”
Mrs. Baker interrupted somewhat indignantly. “Mr. Jensen, you told us yourself to get up this petition!”
“Certainly I did. I told you if you wanted Mrs. Greenwood fired, you would have to get a petition of the taxpayers, otherwise us trustees couldn’t do nothing about it.”
I stood up. “Of course, Mr. Jensen, I understand.” There were other things I understood that I did not see fit to reveal—such as that a petition from the taxpayers might forward his Old World compatriot’s plan to be rid of me.
Jensen nodded his thanks to me. “It’s jest this-a-way. Some folks ain’t suited with what Mrs. Greenwood does. We’re here tonight to give everybody a square deal. We’re here to listen to what these folks has to say. We want to do right by the parents of the children what goes to our school. But understand me. We gotta have some real charges agin Mrs. Greenwood, and what’s more, we gotta prove them charges. Otherwise, if we try to put Mrs. Greenwood outta her job, she can sue us in the courts and collect her salary just the same as if she taught.”
It flashed upon me that I had told Mrs. Mead of such an incident, quite innocently, my first week in Acequia. She had evidently recounted this case to the Board at some moment when they were thinking of acceding to Larson’s demand that he replace me with the woman at Rupert. A queer coincidence that I should have prepared, unconsciously, so weighty a rebuttal.
“Now, the first thing to do,” Jensen continued, “is to call off this here list of names and have the ones tell their grievances that petitioned.”
Mrs. Baker gasped audibly. “I didn’t suppose when we came here we had to say anything. It’s all written in the petition.”
Jensen turned to Mrs. Mead. “Being Clerk of the Board, will you read the petition, Mrs. Mead?”
Mrs. Mead looked embarrassed. “I can’t do it. I left my glasses home.”
An imperative undertone came from the pretty despot, Mrs. Mead’s daughter, Helen Mead Gillespie. “Herman, you read it!” Herman, being one of the best husbands in the world, without any hesitation took the
petition from Mrs. Mead and, laying it on the desk I used when teaching, sat down before it and began to read:
“To the Members of the Board of the Acequia High School:
“We, the undersigned parents and taxpayers of the Acequia School District, do hereby respectfully petition that Mrs. Annie Pike Greenwood be dismissed from her office as teacher in the Acequia High School for the following reasons, to wit:
(Ah, ha! That to wit! A rather curious expression for four farmers’ wives to think up all by themselves! I glanced thoughtfully at the bald head on the front seat.)
Gillespie was reading:
“First, she is too nervous to be in a school-room.
“Second, she has a bad temper.
“Third, she uses language unbecoming a teacher.
“Fourth, she punishes misdemeanors with low grades in class work.
(Misdemeanors! How many farmers’ wives customarily use that word, or even consider its meaning? Again I regarded the bald head on the front seat.)
“Fifth, she has spoken to pupils in a way that no teacher should.
“Sixth, she has circulated vile things among the girls.
“Seventh, she has miserable discipline.
“Signed (first of all) by Adelaide Brown Baker!”
Gillespie paused. Everybody in the room was regarding me with unconscious intentness. Those were pretty serious charges to make against any one. Yet I could not keep from smiling. I suppose there were those present who attributed my unseemly amusement to brazen lasciviousness, considering the indictment just read. In fact, I must confess further that the amazing falsehoods in that document assumed for me such gigantic proportions in the literature of humor that I could scarcely keep from laughing aloud. I knew at last, and it was as though I had imbibed an intoxicant. I sniffed the scent of battle joyously, with a particular ecstasy such as nothing before in my life had ever aroused.
“Adelaide Brown Baker?” repeated Gillespie interrogatively.
“Mrs. Baker, will you please give me your reasons for wanting Mrs. Greenwood turned out of her position?” prompted Jensen.
“Why, I thought the petition was clear enough without my saying anything.”
“Clear enough, yes,” Jensen said. “But clearness don’t put nobody outen a job. You gotta prove beyond a doubt what you say when you bring charges like them. Now, please speak up, Mrs. Baker!”
“Well,...I have got something to say against Mrs. Greenwood. She told Tom Wrench that he might as well study out of Sterling’s history book because Sterling never did.” (Text-books were supplied by the district and therefore were not the property of the pupil.)
She stopped and looked directly and accusingly at me; and I rose to my feet, with a smile, to fire the first gun.
“You are right, Mrs. Baker,” I said. “I did say that to Tom Wrench, and it is true. Sterling never studies.”
Mrs. Baker showed great indignation. “Then, Mrs. Greenwood, why have I never been informed of this?”
“You certainly have been informed, Mrs. Baker, to the very best of my ability. Every month...”
Mrs. Baker did not let me finish. She knew the ears of the crowd were alert, and she was sure of exposing me now. “Mrs. Greenwood, this is the first time I ever heard of this state of affairs, and I think I had a right to know.” She looked around at all sides with the air of one now sure of supporters.
I turned to the bald head on the front seat. Strangely enough, Larson had not once turned to look at the two speakers in the dialogue just recorded. His were the only eyes not fixed upon us. “Professor Larson,” my voice was imperative, “kindly bring the report cards.”
Without answer or look Larson obediently sneaked past the crowded side wall to the door, worming his way through the hall. While he was gone, Mrs. Baker sprang to the attack again, as one who, having an advantage, might as well annihilate the victim at once. “And, besides, Mrs. Greenwood, you told Sterling to go and never come back!”
“No, Mrs. Baker, I did not say that.”
“You did, Mrs. Greenwood!” Mrs. Baker’s voice rose excitedly. “I have it from witnesses who heard you say it.”
I wasted no words, nor gave warning of my intention. With perfect calm I moved quickly down the aisle, and, grasping Sterling Baker by the arm before he had time to think of evading me, I faced his mother and the breathless silence. “Sterling,” I said, regarding him earnestly so that he must meet my eyes and yet so that his face would be exposed to the crowd, “Sterling, tell me truthfully, did I not say when you asked about your coming back, did I not say, ‘Come back when you can control yourself’?”
It may have been the psychological effect of all those faces fronting him with their stern expectation of the truth that made Sterling answer, without equivocation, “Yes, Ma’am.”
“Did I ever tell you to go and never come back?”
“No, Ma’am.”
I needed to say no more. His mother gasped; her face flushed vermilion; she seemed stricken. Had I been without sympathizers before, I was left in no doubt as to the feeling of the majority then. The crowd burst into spontaneous cheering, stamping, and clapping. Now the packed school-room was alertly awaiting developments and expecting them to be favorable to me. I had raised their expectation of the drama so high that if I had failed to give a perfect performance from that time forth, they would have felt the fury, not of outraged parents, but of betrayed connoisseurs. Their course in moving pictures had made them relentless critics.
Larson came back with the report cards and handed that of Sterling Baker to me, slinking into his seat again with his back still to the crowd, most abnormally the only person facing that way. I advanced to Mrs. Baker, and, holding the back of the card for her to see, I asked, “Mrs. Baker, are those your signatures for five months?”
Mrs. Baker answered falteringly, “Yes, they’re mine.”
After informing the people that it was Sterling Baker’s report card for the previous months, I said: “Mrs. Baker, you have just said that you signed this report card, and at the same time you say that you were not aware that Sterling was failing, consistently, all year. How can you say this, Mrs. Baker, when these are Sterling’s reports to which you signed your name? September, U; October, U; November, U; December, U; January, U. It is printed in plain type on the front of this card that U means ‘unsatisfactory.’ Mrs. Baker, I had not time to walk the three miles to your house and the three miles back in order to inform you that Sterling’s work is unsatisfactory. This card was supposed to keep you informed. It cannot be considered my fault that you did not so understand it. You learn by this card that Sterling, also, has nothing but U’s under Professor Larson, proving that my class is not the only one he neglected. I wish to say this, Mrs. Baker. I have never had any real trouble with your boy. He does not study, and he is mischievous, but he has always been a gentleman toward me.”
There was now a feeling of expectancy so great that, to put it in the words afterwards used by Mr. Mead, “you could cut it with a knife.” Jensen directed Gillespie to read the next name. The three women who were left were beginning to look self-conscious and extremely uneasy.
“Sarah W. Laudenslager.”
Mrs. Laudenslager moved her arms on her desk nervously. Then she began: “What I have against Mrs. Greenwood is that when Rosa took part in a play and couldn’t be here, Mrs. Greenwood docked her credits in English for it. And I can testify that Rosa could not be here.”
I smilingly faced Rosa’s mother. “That is what Rosa accused me of doing, Mrs. Laudenslager, and she refused to believe me when I assured her that I would do nothing of the kind. In fact, she made a disgraceful disturbance over the incident, a disturbance which I am sure you, her mother, would have condemned. Professor Larson, please give me Rosa Laudenslager’s card.”
Larson meekly passed the card to me, his gaze returning to the flooring at the front of the room. His eyes were the only ones not fixed intently upon me. He had evidently found something of inter
est in the planking of the floor. He had been a carpenter in the Old Country, you know. I remarked to Mrs. Laudenslager, “This failure to take part in the play was in December. I would like to read Rosa’s record in my English class for the year so far. Kindly observe whether there is any remarkable dropping of grade in the month of December. September, F, which you know means ‘fair’; October, F; November, G; December, G; January, G. Rosa’s grade in December is as high as she ever got in any month. At the beginning of the year, Mrs. Laudenslager, you explained that Rosa was behind the others in her school work, but that she would try to keep up with them, and that you would do all in your power to see that she studied. I promised my help also, and, believe me, Mrs. Laudenslager, I have faithfully, and without variation, assisted her, even though Rosa in December was as rude as possible concerning the play. I do not think a teacher should be so childish and petty as to take revenge for misdemeanors.
“Now let us compare Rosa’s record under Professor Larson with her record under me. She has three subjects under me, all of which have shown improvement since November. She has one subject under Professor Larson, and in that subject she has never made a grade higher than F, and two months she even sank as low as U. In all fairness, can you attack me as having lowered Rosa’s grade over her absence from the cast of the play?”
I seated myself, and smiles and whispers went around the room. Gillespie read from the paper, “Jennie B. Duggan.”
Mrs. Duggan began at once, as though she felt her position, at least, to be unassailable. She was possessed of a thin, somewhat nasal voice, pitched too shrill and high. In spite of this speaking tone she sang rather sweetly. When she began, the notes of her words were high, but not extremely loud. “Mrs. Greenwood talked to Alberta in a way no teacher should do. One day when Alberta didn’t put her books away quick enough to suit Mrs. Greenwood, she screamed at Alberta, ‘Alberta Duggan! You put your books away!’” Mrs. Duggan’s voice arose to a most offensive, piercing shriek. So offensive, indeed, that had the episode occurred as stated, it would have been most damning for me.
Annie Pike Greenwood Page 46
