A Distant Music

by BJ Hoff

  But what about the Bible story Mr. Stuart had related to them only this week, about how Jesus had fed an entire crowd with only five loaves and two fish—and had still had twelve full baskets left over? Maggie knew that she and her friends didn’t have much chance of raising anything more than what they already had, but if the Lord could multiply bread and fish, He could certainly do the same with a jar of money, couldn’t He?

  If nothing else, perhaps they could find a store that would take their twenty dollars as a down payment on a flute and let them pay the rest on time.

  She wouldn’t give up, not for a minute. She would continue to pray that God would work in one of those mysterious ways Ma was always speaking of, that He would somehow turn the money and the wishes into whatever it would take to buy a flute for Mr. Stuart.

  Five

  Maggie and Summer

  God bless the house where friends can enter,

  where little is enough for all within.

  Where the hearth is warm,

  as is the welcome,

  where there are no strangers,

  but all are kin.

  Anonymous

  After church on Sunday, Kate gave in to Maggie’s pleas to have her friend, Summer, come for dinner. The two girls skipped ahead of the rest of the family as they walked home. Before long, though, Summer couldn’t keep up because of her cough and shortness of breath, and the girls fell back to a slow walk.

  “Are you sure whatever that girl has isn’t catching?” Matthew said.

  He stopped long enough to shift wee Ray in his arms, and Kate reached up to tug the tyke’s knit cap more snugly about his ears.

  “I can’t think how many times you’ve asked me that, Matthew—and how many times I’ve given you the same answer,” Kate said as they started walking again. “Rose Rankin says it’s nothing catching. According to Dr. Woodbridge, Summer has a bad chest. Her lungs are weak, and her heart too, from the fever she had as a wee one. It’s nothing we need fear for ourselves.”

  She paused, dropping her voice even lower. “But she’ll never get any better. Only worse.”

  Matthew made a sound under his breath. “I’d not be trusting anything that quack has to say.”

  Kate sighed. Ever since Matthew had broken his arm last winter, he’d blamed Dr. Woodbridge for the pain that continued to plague him, especially in cold or rainy weather. Kate secretly suspected that if he’d gone to the doctor first thing after the accident, his arm might have healed without the stiffness. But Matthew, being who he was, had spent hours helping the other injured men out of the shaft before looking after himself. By that time, the doctor had had to make a clean break before setting the bone. The result was that Matthew might always have an aching shoulder. And Lebreen Woodbridge would always be a “quack.”

  She shook her head, watching Maggie and her young friend as they trudged along in front of them. Poor little Summer was as pale as a glass of bluejohn, no bigger than a willow branch, and just about as sturdy. Kate could see a noticeable decline in the child almost every time she was around her.

  How was Maggie going to cope, losing her best friend and their teacher? The girls had been as good as inseparable for close on three years now. Maggie had taken it upon herself to look after Summer almost since they’d first crossed each other’s paths at the schoolhouse. Sometimes it almost seemed that they were blood sisters, so dependent on each other had they become.

  And like most of the other children, they both purely adored their Mr. Stuart.

  He was good to the children. Anyone could see that Jonathan Stuart was a good man, a kind man who cared about the students almost as if they were his own. He was forever going out of his way to give them some extra bit of learning or bringing things into the schoolroom to make it more pleasant for the children. It seemed he was never overly stern or demanding of the students in his charge, yet if her own girls were any example, the young’uns worked extra hard to gain the teacher’s favor.

  What was the likelihood, Kate had wondered more than once, of a town as small and poor as Skingle Creek being blessed with such a schoolmaster?

  It weighed on her heart that what had at first seemed such a blessing would only make her daughter’s loss that much more difficult to bear.

  After Sunday dinner, Maggie and Summer escaped to the bedroom. Perched in the middle of Maggie’s bed with Sadie napping at the foot, they launched into working on their Christmas card project for their parents and Mr. Stuart.

  “Making Christmas,” Summer called it.

  Maggie frowned at her own efforts. The Three Wise Men she’d drawn on Mr. Stuart’s card looked more like a trio of grasshoppers, and the star they were following resembled nothing so much as a lopsided windmill.

  She glanced over at Summer. The younger girl had cut out of white paper a lacy snowflake and was carefully gluing it on a thin piece of starched blue material, which she had earlier trimmed into a perfect square. She had already finished a card for her parents: a heavy piece of brown paper, on which she’d sketched a lighted candle and stitched its outline with red and green thread.

  Again Maggie scanned her own pathetic scene before setting it down with a long sigh. “It’s awful.”

  Summer glanced up. “It’s not awful,” she said, studying Maggie’s picture. “It just needs a bit more work, is all. Here, let me see.”

  Maggie watched, fascinated by how easily Summer managed to turn the windmill into a graceful star and then change the three grasshoppers into the Wise Men they were meant to be.

  “You’re going to be an artist someday,” she told her friend.

  Summer smiled and then coughed. After a moment, she held up a much-improved version of Maggie’s drawing and examined it. “No, I’m not,” she said, her voice grating from the cough. “I’m going to be a teacher. Like Mr. Stuart.”

  ”I expect you can be both, if you want to.”

  “I’d like that. I’ll do the artist stuff just for fun, though, when I’m not teaching.”

  Maggie sighed. “I wish I could find something I was good at.”

  Summer seemed about to protest but got caught up in a coughing fit that shook the bed. Maggie turned her head away. She hated watching her friend fight for air when these spells came upon her.

  When Summer finally got her breath back, she went on with her stitching as if nothing had happened. “You’re good at lots of things, Maggie,” she said.

  Maggie sniffed her skepticism, but Summer seemed not to notice. “You’re the best speller and the best writer in school. And you’re better’n any of the boys when it comes to playing toss. You’re the smartest of us all too.”

  Maggie pulled a face. “What good’s throwing a ball or out-spelling the likes of Lily Woodbridge? That doesn’t mean much, I reckon.”

  “You can out-spell Kenny Tallman too,” Summer pointed out. “And he’s the smartest boy in the whole school. And you tell the best stories of anyone I know. Your stories are even better than my daddy’s.”

  Maggie thought about that. She reckoned she did do pretty well in the storytelling department. And she liked making up tales well enough. It was also pure pleasure to beat the boys out at spelling or anything else, especially playing ball. Still, she’d rather be artistic like her friend.

  Summer began to pick up her artwork. “I ought to go now,” she said. “Mama don’t like me out in the night air. Can I leave my cards here? If one of the young’uns gets hold of them, they’ll end up all ruined.”

  “Why don’t you stay over? Mama won’t care.”

  Summer hesitated, but after a moment she shook her head and continued to slip her supplies into one of the old flour sacks Maggie’s mother had given them. “I better not. I cough a lot at night anymore, and I’d keep you and your folks awake.”

  Maggie clenched her hands behind her back until they hurt. The thought of Summer coughing so hard through the night brought a knot to her own throat.

  She tried to laugh. “You know you wouldn’t k
eep me awake. I can sleep through anything.”

  Summer smiled at her but again shook her head. “I reckon I better go.”

  “Well, then, for certain you’re welcome to leave your Christmas cards here.”

  Maggie stood on the porch, hugging her arms to herself as she watched Summer turn onto the road. The wind was up, and she was cold, but there was another coldness, a different kind of cold, someplace inside her that had nothing to do with the raw wind of the evening.

  Her mother called her twice, but not until Maggie lost sight of Summer altogether did she turn and go back inside.

  Six

  Faced with a Painful Decision

  Whate’er for Thine we do, O Lord,

  We do it unto Thee.

  William W. How

  After two weeks Maggie figured the collection was as big as it was going to get, at least for the time being. They had a little more than twenty-five dollars, and although such an amount sounded like a fortune, she couldn’t help but wonder just how far it would get them in a music store.

  A conference was held in the school yard at noon on Thursday, where it was decided that the next step should be to determine the actual price of a new flute. Maggie doubted that they’d raised nearly enough money for even a down payment, but she agreed that they needed to know exactly what they were up against.

  Kenny Tallman wasn’t doing a blessed thing to quell her nervousness. He seemed dead set on the idea that they were too far away from their goal to expect any respectable music store owner to take them seriously.

  At times Maggie wanted to box his ears. Other times she couldn’t help but secretly agree with him.

  Even so, no one wanted to wait until they could accumulate more money. Indeed, they all appeared to be of the same mind, that to wait much longer might mean waiting too long. Mr. Stuart wasn’t looking any better, and that was the truth.

  In the meantime, they agreed to search for odd jobs about town to keep money coming in for the fund. That way, Maggie pointed out, they would be able to make ongoing payments each month, should they manage to acquire a flute on credit.

  Without the contrariness of the Crawford twins, who had been out of school the entire week, it was fairly easy to reach a unanimous decision on how to proceed. All they needed now was an adult who would be willing to investigate what would be required to make the purchase and settle on the necessary arrangements.

  Lily immediately volunteered her father, pointing out that since he had made the largest contribution, it was only right that he act as their “agent.” It occurred to Maggie that if Dr. Woodbridge were successful, they would most likely never hear the end of Lily’s carrying-on.

  On the other hand, she reckoned she could put up with Lily’s blather and any number of other annoyances if the doctor managed to bring home a flute for Mr. Stuart.

  When the bell rang, signaling the end of the noon hour, Maggie and the other children entered the schoolroom in a state of high excitement. She could tell that most of the others were as jittery as she. The awareness that they were a step closer to the fulfillment of their plans seemed to stoke them like a furnace.

  Had Summer been there, at her desk next to Maggie’s, no doubt the two of them would have giggled over their shared secret throughout the afternoon. But, like the Crawford twins, Summer had been out of school all week, her lung sickness worsened by the cold rain and sleet that had fallen during the past weekend.

  Maggie was rummaging among the clutter in her desk for her spelling book when Mr. Stuart caught them off guard by rapping his pointer to get their attention. Maggie glanced up, surprised to see that instead of listing the day’s spelling words on the blackboard as he usually did during lunchtime, he had written only two names: Mrs. Hunnicutt and the Crawford Family.

  Maggie stared at the board, puzzling as to why their spelling words had been replaced with these two names. And what did one name have to do with the other?

  The Widow Hunnicutt was a nice older lady who lived in a log cabin on the Hill not far from the Rankins. The Crawfords lived in one of the company houses nearest the tipple. So far as Maggie knew, they weren’t kin.

  Mr. Stuart had put the pointer down and now stood gripping the back of his chair. His knuckles were white, as if the mere act of standing required a great deal of effort.

  Still, his voice was strong enough when he spoke. “We have two special requests today, class,” he said. “One is for the Crawfords—Duril and Dinah’s family. The other is in regard to Mrs. Alice Hunnicutt. I want to stress that in both cases the needs are urgent, and I think we should do everything we can to help.”

  The entire class now sat quietly in their seats, intent on the teacher’s words and sensing that this afternoon was going to be different from other days.

  “Pastor Wallace and Father Maguire stopped by at lunchtime with some disturbing news,” Mr. Stuart continued. “It seems that the Widow Hunnicutt is very ill and has also suffered a bad fall.” He paused, his expression plainly distressed.

  “Apparently, she was found to be…malnourished as well.”

  Some of the students glanced at each other. Maggie felt really bad for Mrs. Hunnicutt, of course. The elderly widow was known to be kind, especially to children. She recalled that once, when her own mother was abed with the pneumonia, the Widow Hunnicutt had brought them a tasty pandowdy and some blackberry jam from her cellar.

  Mr. Stuart stood watching them. “Do you understand what ‘malnourished’ means, class?”

  Lily was the first to reply. “It means the Widow Hunnicutt hasn’t been eating right,” she said, her tone edged with a hint of disapproval.

  “It means she’s had nothing to eat.” Mr. Stuart’s tone was sharper than usual. He even looked a bit angry, his face stained with more color than Maggie had seen for a long time.

  “More than likely, she’s been without food for several days,” he went on. “And her coal bin was nearly empty.”

  Again there were questioning glances among the students. Maggie reckoned they were all of them wondering the same thing she was. Why would anyone’s coal bin be empty in a town where coal was mined every day of the week except on Sundays?

  “Mrs. Hunnicutt has been taken to the hospital in Lexington for treatment,” Mr. Stuart told them. “The doctors believe she’ll be all right with the proper care.”

  For a moment he stood studying his desk as if deep in thought. “I don’t know about you,” he finally said, looking up, “but I felt… ashamed when I heard about this. Such a gracious Christian lady—one of the town’s oldest residents—living in such deprived circumstances. And it seems that things are scarcely better for the Crawford family. You know that Duril and Dinah’s father was injured in the mine recently?”

  Everybody nodded.

  “Well, there’s a new baby now, and neither the child nor Mrs. Crawford is doing very well. With Mr. Crawford unable to work for who knows how long, there’s no money for food and medicine.”

  Maggie tried hard—though it took some real effort—to feel as sorry for the Crawfords as she did for the Widow Hunnicutt. And she did feel bad for the family, especially knowing that the new baby and Mrs. Crawford were both poorly. But she had to offer up a hurried prayer before she could muster an equal measure of sympathy for Duril and Dinah, bossy and annoying as they were.

  She turned her attention back to Mr. Stuart and was struck by how hollow-eyed and sickly he looked. But his voice was still strong as he went on.

  “Mrs. Hunnicutt is completely alone, as you know, but apparently she couldn’t bring herself to ask for help. If Pastor Wallace and one of the deacons hadn’t called on her when they did…”

  His words drifted off, his meaning unmistakable.

  Maggie swallowed, unable to shut out an image of the Widow Hunnicutt, cold and hungry in her tiny house, with no one to help. Mr. Stuart’s voice drew her back to the classroom.

  “Pastor Wallace and Father Maguire are asking for donations to help stock both Mrs
. Hunnicutt’s pantry and the Crawfords’. They’re also hoping to collect enough to purchase coal and help pay Mrs. Hunnicutt’s hospital bill.”

  A sense of uneasiness began to nag at Maggie as Mr. Stuart continued to explain.

  “They understand that no one has a large amount to give,” he said. “The dropping prices in coal have made for a difficult year. But Mrs. Hunnicutt’s situation is most desperate, and so is the Crawfords’. If the town doesn’t come to their assistance, the Widow Hunnicutt could lose her house and have to go to the county home. And I can’t think what will become of the Crawford family.”

  Maggie saw that the teacher’s hands were trembling on the back of the chair. “With that in mind,” he resumed, “it seems only right that we take up our own collection here at school. Naturally, we won’t be able to contribute a large amount, but anything will help.” He paused. “And if you’re worried about using scrip, I’m sure I can work out an arrangement with Mr. Ferguson at the company store to convert the scrip to cash money.”

  He glanced about the room, his gaze stopping to rest on Maggie. “Would you go to the supply pantry, Maggie,” he said with a smile, “and get a container for us? There should be a tray or a jar on the shelves we can use.”

  Maggie swallowed, and then she slowly twisted out of her seat. As she trudged down the aisle, she met a number of anxious looks from some of the other students.

  She figured they were all thinking the same thing. The collection was almost sure to be a huge failure.

  No one had any money left, that was the thing. Not even scrip. They had given everything they could raise to their own collection for Mr. Stuart.

  A collection he knew nothing about.

  The tray reached Lester Monk last, who sat staring at it for a moment before digging down into first one pocket, then the other, only to come up empty-handed and red-faced. Maggie virtually held her breath as Lester shambled up to the front with the tray in hand.