A Tyranny of Petticoats

by Jessica Spotswood

  “It is indeed a good school, Mr. Jeffers,” I say. “And I am right grateful to be here.”

  “If it gets too cold, you can use the church,” Mr. Jeffers allows. “And there’s a good stack of wood for the stove.”

  “Thank you.” The words are almost a whisper.

  “We’ve arranged for you to room and board with Mrs. Franklin, down the street. She runs a ladies’ home. Got three seamstresses there already,” Mr. Jeffers says. “After this month, though, you’re to pay her direct with the fees you collect from the children.”

  “Thank you,” I say again. “I had a trunk that was sent ahead. Will it be there?”

  Mr. Jeffers laughs. “That’ll be at the general store,” he says. “One of the boys there’ll help you cart it back to the house.”

  The general store isn’t hard to find — there aren’t that many buildings on Main Street, and the painted sign above the large windows reads MCHENRY’S STORE in large blue-and-gold letters. The paint is peeling a bit, but the windows sparkle and the floor is immaculately swept.

  The shopkeep, McHenry, has my trunk waiting for me. I breathe a silent prayer of thanks to both God and Maggie.

  I might just survive this after all.

  The room Mrs. Franklin has for me is small and plain but serviceable. The same can be said of the food she serves for supper.

  I don’t allow myself to open my trunk until that night. At the top of the trunk is my mother’s wedding dress, made of pale-blue silk covered with ivory lace and seed pearls. It was a last-minute addition to the trunk. I do not expect to ever wear it. But the idea of leaving behind this last piece of my mother . . . I couldn’t do it.

  I imagine the way my mother felt when she wore this dress. I used to have a portrait of my parents after the wedding, their faces still and stoic. But when she wore the dress, she must have been filled with hope and joy. She truly loved my father, and I think he truly loved her. Before she died, I think my papa cared about things like love and happiness.

  The dress crumples in my hands, and I hold it against my face, breathing in the scent of cedar from the chest where it was stored. The tiny seed pearls at the neckline dig into my skin.

  As a little girl, I dreamed of picking apart the seams of this dress and refashioning it into my own.

  I take a deep breath and fold the gown carefully. Best to avoid wrinkles.

  At the bottom of my trunk are the eight books I felt most important to bring with me. King Lear is the most worn, my favorite play, but I’ve read my translation of Les Misérables almost as often. The McGuffey’s Reader I used when I was learning my letters. My father’s favorite book, A Pictorial History of the United States, is something I took just because it is something he loves.

  The other books — philosophies — used to bring me comfort. My fingers linger over Socrates, but the book I select is my old favorite, Thomas More’s Utopia.

  The words inside, however, do not calm my fears. They speak of a land I’ll never know, of happiness and peace I only thought I knew.

  The book drops from my fingers. I have been so, so stupid. What makes me think I can teach children? They don’t need philosophy in a schoolhouse made of planks. They don’t need pretty ideals for a life they will never have. They don’t need me.

  As Mr. Jeffers informed me, I have ten students from the various branches of the Cooke family. They are easily identifiable: they are the ones with clean faces and slates. The head of the family — Old Man Cooke, who owns the largest ranch in the area — sends them all to the school on a wagon.

  I have seven other students. Four are from the McHenry family, who own the general store in town; two are twin daughters of the preacher of the Episcopalian church with which we share a wall; and one is a little slip of a girl named Phoebe Ann. She’s the only one without her own slate, the only one without a lunch pail and no intention of returning home for a midday meal, and she squints so badly I’m not sure she can see the front of the room.

  “She won’t last,” one of the Cooke children informs me in a loud whisper.

  But Phoebe Ann — Annie, as she quickly tells me she likes to be called — pays me for a month of schooling with a small jar of berry preserves. She warns me she can only come now that there is no harvest and her momma hasn’t just had another baby for her to take care of and the next youngest has died of a fever, and if things change, she’ll have to go. She asks if she can pay with rabbit skins next month, since that’s the last jar of berries they have. I say she can.

  That’s how the subscription school works, I learn. The Cooke family bought the schoolhouse, and the McHenrys donated some money to get it all started, but that was only for the beginning. Now that the school is established, everything comes from the subscription fees the students give me. They all pay by the month. And I’m to use these fees to pay the church rent, to pay for the supplies I need to run the school, and to pay for my own needs with whatever’s left. Which won’t be much, as the teacher they hired originally scampered at the first sign of winter and took some of the supplies for the school with him.

  Despite living the farthest away, the Cooke children are the first to arrive. The boys load the stove with wood, and the girls help with the washbasin. They each have their own seat, arranged from youngest to oldest on the benches, two children to a little table. They have to shuffle around to accommodate Annie, who hadn’t bothered to come to school while the previous teacher was here, as she’d been helping her family on the farm — but none of the children really seem to mind. They make a point to remind me that all the Cooke boys will miss months at a time in the spring when new calves are born.

  We recite the Lord’s Prayer.

  Then the children look at me.

  Waiting.

  My stomach twists. I had planned what to do in this moment, but now that it’s here, now that all their eyes are on me . . .

  “Mr. Brooks started with numbers,” the oldest Cooke girl informs me.

  I cannot let them think of me as just a replacement, a poor imitation of their former teacher. I snatch up my McGuffey’s Reader from the table I use as a desk. There are no books, not aside from the ones I brought with me and a spare Bible.

  “We shall start with reading. Bridget McHenry,” I say, pointing to the eldest girl in the class, “you shall go first.”

  She swings her legs into the aisle, stands, and strides to the center of the room. She is only five years my junior, and she carries herself with more confidence than I have ever had.

  No . . . that’s not quite true. I used to have more confidence. I used to think the world would bend to my will too.

  Bridget takes the book from my hand.

  “Page one hundred and seventeen,” I say in a loud, carrying voice that betrays none of my nerves. “Read the story of the gouty merchant, please.”

  Bridget clears her throat and reads the tale, her voice loud and clear. It’s a very short piece, about a rich man doing his accounting when a stranger enters his building. The stranger at first acts kind, telling the man that he found the door ajar and that there seemed to be no one home, so he wanted to inform the rich man of the danger of leaving his door open. The rich man thanks him, telling him he’ll have his footman thrown in jail, that he is home alone and quite vulnerable.

  At which point the stranger smiles, thanks him for confirming he’s alone, blows out the candles, and robs the rich man blind.

  Bridget hands the book back to me and returns to her seat when she’s done reading. Before she can sit down, the eldest Cooke boy stands.

  “Yes, Joseph?” I ask him, hesitating only a moment for his name.

  “I read after Bridget. That’s how Mr. Brooks had us do it.”

  “We are going to discuss the story of the merchant and the stranger before we move on,” I say coolly.

  “Mr. Brooks didn’t have us discuss.”

  “I believe I have already confirmed that I am not Mr. Brooks,” I say, leveling him with a stern eye. Inside
my head, I think that should this boy go home and complain to his father, who bought my classroom with a cow, I may be fired. Or worse — he could lead a revolt against me himself, getting the other children to turn on me. There are far more of them than me.

  But he just sits.

  “Let us, ah, discuss the tale, then,” I say awkwardly, leaning against my desk.

  Little Annie’s hand shoots up. I nod at her, and she stands and faces me as she answers. “That rich man was right stupid,” she says, then sits down.

  I motion for her to stand again. “Elaborate.”

  Her eyes are fierce. “It’s like the story of the possum and the snake my momma tells.”

  One of the Cooke boys snickers at her but is silenced the second my gaze swivels to him. “I don’t know this story,” I say.

  “Snake asks the possum to tote him across the river in his pouch. Possum says no, can’t trust no snake. Snake begs and begs, and finally the possum totes him ’cross the river. Get to the other side, snake sneaks out and bites the possum. Possum cries out, but the snake says, ‘You knowed I was a snake ’fore you put me in your pouch.’”

  The snickering Cooke boy — Jebediah — stands up. “That’s not what it means at all,” he says. “The story means that people are generally good, unless you give ’em a chance to be bad. Can’t blame a man for stealing something you leave unguarded.”

  Before I can do anything, Annie spins around to face him. “So it’s all right to hurt someone, long as they can’t fight back?”

  “That’s not the same at all!” Jebediah says.

  “Why ain’t it?” Annie snarls. “Just cause something’s easy to steal don’t mean God ain’t watching you steal it.”

  “You got something worth stealing, it’s your job to protect it. But,” Jebediah adds, his voice lowering, “not like you got anything worth stealing, no need to worry ’bout that.”

  “Enough!” I roar. I can feel heat rising in my face. I had picked the story with the intention of talking about theft, perhaps seeing if the students would be interested in reading a translation of Les Misérables, but this conversation has hit far too close to home for me.

  “Annie is right; if you know someone’s a snake, you can’t trust him. The only problem is, you can’t always tell who the snakes are.” My gaze settles on Jebediah. “And I confess to being deeply concerned with the way you think theft is to be so easily forgiven. Taking something from someone just because you can is still a sin, Mr. Cooke. Go outside and chop more firewood for the class until you understand that lesson more thoroughly.”

  Jebediah starts to protest, but whatever fears I had of the students have been burned away by my rage, and they can all see it. He snaps his mouth shut and stomps outside.

  “Annie, would you like to read the next story?” I say.

  “Can’t,” Annie says, sitting down.

  It takes me a moment to realize she means she can’t read at all.

  A week later, Annie brings a gun to school.

  Well, that’s not fair. Annie — as well as several of the Cooke boys — always brings a gun to school, but they’ve been revolvers, carried in case they run across snakes or something else dangerous on the way to school or back home. It shocked me the first time I saw the glint of metal at one of the boys’ waists, but I’m becoming accustomed to not showing my shock anymore.

  But it seems like everyone is shocked by the rifle Annie brings to school on Monday and sets in the corner near her seat.

  “This is way too nice,” Jebediah says, hoisting the gun to his shoulder.

  “It’s not; the sight’s broke off,” his brother Joseph says. “And look at the stock.”

  “Give it back,” Annie protests.

  Jebediah is right — the gun is nice. Even I, who know very little about guns beyond a passing ability to shoot them, can see this, despite the damage to it. The sight’s been replaced with a silver dime sawed in half, and a crack in the stock’s been reinforced with wire, but beyond these flaws, the gun looks nearly brand-new. The octagonal barrel gleams and, aside from one deep scratch, looks perfect.

  “Give it back!” Annie demands again.

  “How’d your daddy get this?” Jebediah taunts, not bothering to return the rifle. “Steal it? Win it in a poker game?”

  “Maybe he killed an Indian for it,” Joseph says.

  “Not very likely an Indian would have a gun like this,” Jebediah shoots back.

  “Give it here!” Annie shouts.

  “Sight’s broke off, like the Indians do,” Joseph points out.

  “My daddy was given this gun, and you give it back to me now!” Annie stomps her foot.

  “Who’d give your daddy anything?” Jebediah says.

  Annie snarls and delivers a sharp kick to Jebediah’s knee, snatching the gun the second he lowers it. She races out of the room, but I see a sparkle of tears in her eyes.

  “Poorly done,” I tell the boys in a low voice. They’re decent enough to look ashamed.

  “More chopping?” Jebediah asks.

  “We’re running out of wood that needs chopping,” I tell him, cocking an eyebrow. “At lunch, you’re cleaning every single slate.”

  I find Annie sitting on the steps outside. Her tears were of anger, not sadness, and have already burned from her eyes.

  “He’s so mean,” Annie mumbles. She glances up at me. “Just like a snake.”

  I smile, remembering her story on the first day of class. “Maybe not quite a snake,” I say. “I’ve known snakes; they’re worse. Jebediah’s just a . . . just a lizard.”

  This earns me a smile, but it disappears quickly.

  “My daddy was given this,” Annie tells the gun, not me.

  “I believe you,” I say.

  “Some rich man came from Chicago. Hired my daddy to help him hunt, guide him around the land. They were gone for weeks.” She glances up at me. “You’re from Chicago, ain’t ya, Miss Davies?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you know the man? He was named Franklin Smithfield.”

  “Chicago is a big place, bigger than this little town. I didn’t know him.”

  “Wish I lived somewhere people didn’t know me,” Annie mutters.

  I start to rub her back but hesitate. Annie can be prickly. I don’t want to scare her off.

  “My daddy saved that man’s life, though. His horse threw him when a grizzly attacked. That’s how he broke the Ballard.” She strokes the wire holding the stock on the gun. “He gave it to my daddy after my daddy killed the bear for him.”

  “Your daddy sounds like an honorable man,” I say.

  “He is,” Annie mumbles. She stares at the gun. “Maybe I should go.”

  “Go?” I ask. “Where?”

  “Home.”

  “Why?”

  “Momma’s pregnant again. Half a year, I won’t be here anyway. Probably sooner.”

  I swallow, surprised. I shouldn’t be. But I am.

  I want to tell Annie that a lot can happen in half a year. That she is worth more than a caretaker for her siblings. That her own mind has value, and her own will, and that what she wants matters.

  But all I say is “Stay at least for today.”

  One of the McHenry girls tells me that the package I ordered from their daddy at the general store arrived, so the next morning before school, I walk down the street.

  Annie’s mule is hitched in front of McHenry’s store, and when I enter, I’m surprised to see Mr. McHenry sliding some coins across the counter to her. Her fingers are covered in dirt — no, dried blood. Mr. McHenry stacks up a pile of fresh rabbit furs she just sold him.

  “What’d you do with the meat?” Mr. McHenry asks.

  “Sold to Mrs. Hutchinson,” Annie says.

  “Bring me some next time; I’ll give you a fair price.”

  Annie nods, pocketing one of the coins and handing the other back to Mr. McHenry. “My daddy needs some more primers.”

  Mr. McHenry gets a small b
ox for her. As he hands it to her, he says, “Is it your daddy reloading the shells or are you doing it?”

  Annie doesn’t answer.

  “You giving him that other coin?” The shopkeeper’s voice is lower now.

  Annie nods.

  “Don’t you let him buy more drink, you hear? Hide it if that’s what he’s going to do.”

  Annie pockets the box of primers and turns to go.

  “Miss Davies!” Mr. McHenry says when he notices me. Annie starts in surprise, and red creeps up her cheeks.

  Before any of us can say anything else, Mr. McHenry’s children burst in through the back door, along with the twins. They crowd around the front counter.

  “See! I told you Daddy got more candy!” Bridget cries, pointing.

  The twins pull pennies out of their pockets, eyeing the glass jars eagerly.

  Mr. McHenry starts to serve me first, but I nod to the children. “Go ahead,” I say, smiling as Mr. McHenry starts doling out sweets.

  “Why don’t you get something, Annie?” I ask her gently.

  “She doesn’t eat candy,” Bridget says around a lemon drop. “She only eats rabbits and rats.”

  “Bridget!” Mr. McHenry glares at his daughter. She looks immediately ashamed, even more so as Mr. McHenry threatens her with a switch for her rude words. But as Annie slinks from the store, I can’t help but notice that Bridget still has the sweet in her mouth, and Annie has nothing.

  “Get on to the school,” I tell the children as they rush out. “I’ll be there in a minute.”

  “Now, Miss Davies,” Mr. McHenry says, leaning down the counter. “I just got the package you ordered. And I sold that pretty dress of yours for more than I thought, so I owe you an extra quarter.” He gives me the coin and the slender box together. The words HOPKINS & ALLEN are written on the side of the box, and it weighs heavily in my hand, but not so heavy that it pulls down my skirt when I slip it in my pocket.

  “Where’d you get such a nice dress out here?” Mr. McHenry asks. “Them little seed pearls were mighty fine.”