As Lucy came around the desk, she noted that Cora seemed supremely untroubled by the town chatter, which, according to Miss Viola, was quite troubling. She said it was gaining momentum by turning the Moonlight Schools campaign into something quite unrecognizable.
Lucy wished she had more of Cora’s single-minded focus. By contrast, the information given to her by Miss Viola only added to the swirl of worries in her head, mostly spinning around Angie Cooper.
ANGIE HAD BEEN IN A CROSS MOOD all Monday afternoon, after she’d come into the schoolhouse at lunchtime and found Lucy and Fin together. It was unfortunate timing. Lucy had been standing on a chair to erase words off the chalkboard and taken a step backward, tumbling right into Fin’s arms.
Watching them, Angie’s eyes narrowed until they formed slits. “I guess you two want to be alone!” She stomped out, down the steps of the schoolhouse, and off into the woods.
Lucy wanted Fin to go after her, but he refused. “Serves her right. She thinks she owns me and she don’t.” He gave her a big grin. “And besides, she’s right. I do want to be alone with you.”
“Fin, I’m flattered, but I’m much too old for you.”
His face clouded over. “If you be the man and I be the girl”—he shrugged—“t’wouldn’t be no problem a’tall.”
“I suppose you’re right on that account, but that doesn’t change the facts. You’re still a young . . . man”—Lucy nearly said “boy” but caught herself just in time—“and I’m a grown woman.” Though at this moment, Lucy felt like anything but an adult in this silly triangle of misunderstandings. “I don’t have romantic feelings for you, Fin.”
He blinked, trying to make sense of her meaning. “So there ain’t no hope for us? None a’tall?”
“I’m sorry, Fin. But . . . no.” It hurt her to be so blunt, actually pained her, but it was better for him.
Crushed, he turned and left the schoolhouse, shoulders slumped.
Later, at the Cooper cabin, Angie hardly spoke to Lucy all through preparing supper, eating supper, nor afterward, while cleaning up. Lucy had tried coaxing her out of her foul mood, but to no avail, so she gave up. Upstairs in the loft, she noticed her saddlebags by her side of the bed. She paused, then yanked the stuffed bear out of one of the bags and set it in the middle of the bed.
Moments later, Angie climbed the loft ladder and stopped at the top rung to glare furiously at Lucy. She stomped across the small room to grab her nightdress off the peg, spun around, and stopped abruptly, staring at the bed with a startled look on her face. She reached out to pick up the bear. “Mr. Buttons!”
Twenty-Two
AFTER A SULKY DAY OR TWO, Fin’s good spirits returned, largely because he was starting to best Angie Cooper in just about every subject. This morning, as Lucy gave Fin a new list of Latin verbs to conjugate and memorize, he happened to mention that Wyatt was back in town and working on some project for Miss Cora in the livery. As soon as school let out, Lucy saddled up Jenny (all by herself again!) and rode straight to Morehead. She found Wyatt in the back of the livery, chiseling small numbers on wooden slates. He had done a double take when Lucy had knocked on the door of the tack room, and she felt pleasure spiral through her.
She shook off such a distracting thought. She had interrupted him for a very specific reason, to tell him exactly what had happened last evening.
He leaned back against the barrel top. “Did you ask Angie why she called the stuffed bear Mr. Buttons?”
“Yes, of course I did. She seemed puzzled at first, then said it was because his eyes were made of buttons.” She held up a hand. “I know what you’re going to say, Wyatt. It’s true that the bear has buttons for eyes, but if you could’ve seen the look on her face when she saw him on her bed. Why, that look was all Charlotte! She adored that bear. They were inseparable.”
He looked down at the carving tool in his hands, turning it over and over, and she could tell he was thinking this all through. That was why she had come to him this afternoon. She needed Wyatt’s help to sort out the mess in her mind.
Finally, his hands stilled and he gave her a level look. “Lucy, what do you plan to do?”
She took a step inside the tack room. “I wrote a letter to Charlotte . . . I mean, to Angie. I told her everything that had happened. About to whom she really belongs.”
He crossed his arms over his chest. “You haven’t given it to her?”
“Not yet.”
“What’s stopping you?”
“Nothing.” Everything. “I suppose I want to wait for the right time.”
“You do realize this will change her life profoundly. How she views her father, her brothers, her life in the hollow. Her place in the world.”
“Of course. Of course, I realize that.” But what about how Angie would view Lucy? And Father? And her place in the Wilson family?
“What about sharing this information with Cora?”
Lucy shook her head. “She’s terribly distracted with the Moonlight Schools campaign, and besides that, once she knows, everything will change. I fear she’ll feel compelled to tell Father . . . and I wouldn’t blame her. They’re almost like siblings.”
“And your father? What are your thoughts about telling him? Or not telling him?”
She clapped her hands on her cheeks. She’d gone round and round on that very question. “Not yet. He’s so . . . happy right now. His marriage to Hazel, the coming baby. I feel hesitant to stir up feelings of grief and regret.”
Wyatt set down his tools and came close to her, taking her hands in his. “Lucy,” he said softly. “Is it so much better? The life you came from?”
Lucy looked away. She thought of the heavy silence of the Lexington mansion. Of being sent off to boarding school before she was ready to leave home. Of the crushing loneliness that accompanied her childhood. “Not . . . necessarily,” she admitted.
“And has it been such a bad life for Angie?”
Lucy thought of the important role Angie played in the Cooper household, the way her father and brothers depended on her. The noisy happiness that filled the little cabin. “If you’d asked me that months ago, I would’ve said yes. That it’s been a terrible shame to grow up in poverty and ignorance. Yet the more I see of these people, of their lives and their hearts, I wonder if I’m the one who grew up in poverty and ignorance. Poverty of spirit. Ignorance of heart.”
His eyes grew tender. “Lucy, sometimes what we choose not to do is just as important as what we choose to do.” He squeezed her hands and released them, and returned to his work.
BROTHER WYATT HAD FINISHED the wooden slates for the Moonlight Schools, all one hundred of them, and stacked them neat in a jolt wagon at the livery. Fin picked one up to admire it, running his finger along the sanded edge, soft as silk. “You shore do good work.”
“You helped, Fin. Getting that wood for me was a big help.” Brother Wyatt raked a hand through his hair and fixed his hat jest so. “You never did tell me where you found it.”
“Some things is best not to know,” Fin said, grinning. He had rummaged through scrap wood at the lumberyard to collect enough for Brother Wyatt, and he might not have bothered to ask anyone for permission. He saw the concern taking shape in Brother Wyatt’s eyes, and he worked quick to redirect him. “Ain’t you late for the town meeting? Jest saw Andrew Spencer strutting toward it.” Come to think on it, Andrew Spencer did remind him of a strutting peacock. Always dressed in his Sunday best.
“I’d better get going. You coming?”
“I’ll be along shortly.” Fin wanted to check Sheila’s hooves and make sure no stones were jammed in her frogs. As he ran a hand down her leg and lifted her hoof, he noticed ol’ Angie Cooper sniffing around the jolt wagon.
Angie picked up one of the wooden slates out of the wagon. “What’s all this?” That girl poked her nose into everybody’s business.
Fin barely glanced at her as he cleaned Sheila’s hoof. “Don’t touch ’em. Wagon’s heavy. Don’t want it tipping over.”
“But what are they?”
“Something for Miss Cora’s Moonlight Schools. Miss Lucy and I are going to take ’em to each of the schoolhouses.”
“Together?” She squinted, and then her expression turned angry. “That don’t seem like a job that takes two people. Why cain’t she jest do it alone?”
“Because . . . jest because.” Because Miss Lucy had asked for his help, and he’d do anything for her. “Asides, what I do ain’t no business o’ yours.”
He turned away to check Sheila’s other hooves for stones, for this fine horse wasn’t a complainer. Not like most women.
He half expected Angie to start up with another objection to spending his time with Lucy, but by the time he finished checking the last hoof, she was gone. He cleared his thoughts and got back to business.
WHEN LUCY ARRIVED at the town meeting, she was shocked to see the room was packed full, people standing shoulder to shoulder. Andrew had been watching for her and he lifted an arm in a friendly wave, smiling his dazzling smile, pointing to an empty seat next to him.
She ignored his gesture, slipping through the crowd to take a spot near an open window. The room was oppressively warm, that stuffy, heavy air thick with the scent of unwashed bodies, and she feared it would get only worse.
The sheriff stood in the front of the room to address the gathering. “Folks, we come here today to talk about Mrs. Stewart’s Moonlit School notion. The real truth behind this . . . campaign o’ hers . . . is she wants to turn us into a progressive county.” He made it sound like a dirty word. “And you know what that means, don’t you?” He surveyed the sea of faces. “The government’ll start interfering in your very home, telling you what to do and how to do it. It’s happening all over the cities.”
“How so?”
Everyone turned to Lucy. The words had come out before she could stop them. She felt her cheeks start to flame. “I, um, I’ve lived in cities all my life.” Unlike everyone else in this room. She cleared her throat and raised her voice. “I haven’t noticed the government coming into our homes to tell us what to do just because people have learned to read.”
Frowning, the sheriff ignored Lucy’s objection and carried on. “They’ll be poking around your stills.”
Finley James spoke up. “You’re the only one poking around stills.” He brought his hand to his mouth like it was a bottle and made a glug, glug, glug sound.
The sheriff pointed a finger right at Fin, scowling. “Boy, I been getting complaints about you. Cease and desist from carving your name all over public and private property or I’ll toss you right in jail.”
Fin’s eyes went wide as he sunk down in his chair.
Satisfied he’d put the fear of authority into Fin, the sheriff turned back to the matter at hand. “Now, where was I? Oh yes. Once the government starts poking around, they’ll be raising taxes.”
A low buzz of murmurs started around the room. The sheriff had hit his mark. Nothing raised ire more than taxes.
“The government will have to start raising taxes. You know as well as I do that Mrs. Stewart don’t have no budget for this campaign.” He crossed his arms against his chest. “Reading ain’t necessary for everyone. Womenfolk, for example. There’s an old saying among the Indians, ‘Will learning help a woman to blow the fire?’” He swept the room with his gaze, and Lucy was astounded to see how many men were nodding in agreement. “I think not.”
“That is outrageous!” The words suddenly exploded out of Lucy, surprising even herself with her vehemence. Heads swiveled in her direction, wide eyes staring at her, and she nearly faltered. But this prevailing attitude toward women couldn’t, shouldn’t continue. The education of women was one of the most basic problems of Rowan County. Cora had told her that only 4 percent of the county’s women could read and write. “That kind of ancient thinking about women,” her voice lifted in frustration, “belongs in another century.”
Somehow, her outburst fed right into the sheriff’s argument. “Men, do you want your daughters to act like that little gal?” He jabbed his thumb at Lucy and her mouth dropped open. “Not knowing their place in the world?”
Lucy stared at Cora, wondering why she was being so calm. Why wasn’t she defending the literacy campaign? Speaking out? Why wasn’t she flustered, upset, angry—the way Lucy felt? Cora sat in the front row, hands folded on her lap, relaxed and at ease. She could have been in church.
Before the sheriff could ratchet up another notch, the door opened and he stopped to see who it was that had come. Heads swiveled. There stood Angie Cooper at the door, an odd expression on her face. When nobody said anything and continued to stare, she said, “Am I late?” Ears turning pink, in the continuing silence she added, “I guess I lost track of time.”
“You come right on in, Angie,” the sheriff said.
From where Lucy stood, she could observe how Mrs. Klopp’s eyes followed Angie as the girl moved to a spot across the room, and she realized she’d never seen them in the same room before.
“Now, folks,” the sheriff continued, “Angie’s given us a prime example of what I been talking about. Females . . . they jest don’t have the same kind of brains that menfolk do.”
Nobody spoke. Lucy bit her lip, furious.
“Have females not lived many years without knowing how to read and write? And it ain’t hurt ’em at all. Jest the opposite. Womenfolk need our help and guidance.”
A sprinkling of clapping started through the room. Men only.
“You old buzzard!” Shakily, Miss Viola rose to her feet. “Why, if women could vote, you’d never been elected in the first place.”
Lucy saw a smile tug at Cora’s lips. Finally! Some outward sign of her fighting spirit. She scanned the room, noting those who nodded along with Miss Viola’s bold declaration and those who shook their heads. Finley James glared at the sheriff. Angie seemed preoccupied, as if she hadn’t heard what the sheriff had said about her gender. She stood against the door, not reacting to the heated discussion, in a way that was very un-Angie-like.
Lucy scanned the room and noticed Wyatt on the far side. When their eyes met, he gave her a reassuring smile. Don’t give up, was what his smile conveyed.
“There’s clearly another issue here. I’d put a dollar to a dime that grown folks jest can’t learn to read. It’s a fact. Some folks are born to be educated, and others are born to till the soil.” He sent a smug smile at Mrs. Klopp. “As our late judge was fond of saying, ‘Folks need to not get above their raising.’”
Mrs. Klopp nodded in agreement.
“Mrs. Stewart means well, I do believe that, I surely do. But she’s asking for something that just ain’t possible. She’ll end up embarrassing folks, making ’em feel like they ain’t worth a plug nickel.”
Pride. It was the mountain people’s most cherished value.
“I don’t have to remind you that as soon as your boys and girls git educated, they’ll run off to the cities to find better-paying jobs. They’ll leave y’all behind to fend for yourself in your old age. You’ll never see ’em again.”
Lucy stilled. That prediction was hard to refute—after all, look at Roy and Sally Ann Duncan. Or Miss Mollie’s daughter and son-in-law. They did leave for better-paying jobs, never to return. The sheriff had just thrust a dagger into the heart of the Moonlight School campaign. Heated whispers traveled across the room, and it seemed as if plans for literacy among the mountain folks would die then and there.
But then Cora stood up. “So, Sheriff, let me get this straight. You are against the Moonlight Schools because you care so deeply about the pride of the mountain folks. About the next generation staying in the hills.”
“Exactly right.” He folded his arms across his wide chest. “And I’m against raising taxes.” He eyed the assembly in a wide sweeping gaze. “I am for preserving the family and not letting the government butt itself right into your homes.” He walked back and forth, looking through the rows, shaking his head. “No doubt it
’s as obvious to you as it is to me that we got to shut this campaign down.”
Cora, undaunted, continued. “What’s obvious to me is that you don’t want things to change because the system of ignorance works so well for you.”
He pointed a chubby finger at her. “That is slander if I’ve ever heard it!”
“The reason you ignore repeated requests to follow up on complaints with lumber companies’ selective harvesting contracts is because you’re benefiting from an arrangement with them. I believe it’s called . . . ,” she paused for emphasis, “ . . . a finder’s fee. Otherwise known as a kickback.”
His mouth opened and shut, opened and shut. “Why, I never . . .”
Ah! So this was why Cora had waited to let the sheriff spin his web. She was absolutely right. How did Lucy miss that? Spinning through her mind were all the families she had met during the census, and how many spoke of their harvested loblollies. She looked over at Wyatt and realized this was no surprise to him. Her mind flashed back to the first time she met him, in Cora’s office, when he had seemed deeply concerned about something. Had he known, months and months ago, or suspected of this finder’s fee arrangement? Lucy cast a sideways glance at Andrew, seated a few rows behind Cora. Staring at his profile, Lucy could tell he was angry. His mouth, tight and pinched. His hands, tight fists on the tops of his knees.
“Hold on a minute.” Finley James rose to his feet. “You been collecting money off my maw’s loblolly pines?” He looked around the room. “From all our loblollies?” He locked his hands on his hips. “Ain’t it your job to protect us, idn’t? Ain’t that the reason we pay taxes, idn’t?”
The sheriff sputtered. “I never . . .”
“You know exactly what them lumber companies done to us. Divertin’ creeks and puttin’ roads in where they don’t belong. You said there weren’t nothing you could do about it. A contract is a contract. Well, you never said nothing about gittin’ money for them contracts.” Fin pointed a long finger at the sheriff. “You are one heckuva worthless lawman.”
The Moonlight School Page 25