The Wind Harp

by BJ Hoff

  “Even after I came here and talked with the school board, however, I was reluctant to take the position. I wasn’t exactly…captivated by the appearance of the town.”

  “I can certainly understand that,” Maggie said.

  “Nevertheless, I accepted the job. Almost in spite of myself. The truth is that I simply couldn’t refuse it.” He expelled a long breath, adding, “I knew it was where I was meant to be.”

  Although Maggie had heard every word he said, her mind locked on the fact that there had been a broken engagement. Did that mean he’d been jilted? Surely he had been the one to break it off? She couldn’t imagine any woman being so foolish as to reject a man like Jonathan Stuart. Whatever had happened, it might answer another part of the mystery as to what had brought Mr. Stuart to Skingle Creek. There had always been much speculation about why he’d remained single all these years. Now she could only wonder if it was because he had never recovered from the pain of a lost love.

  Maggie flinched as her old flair for melodrama reared its head. Still, it seemed such a terrible waste, that a man who loved children as much as Mr. Stuart so obviously did would spend his life caring for everyone else’s children but his own.

  “I’m so sorry, Mr. Stuart,” she said quietly.

  “Sorry?”

  “About…what happened. Your engagement—”

  He smiled and shook his head. “That was a long time ago, Maggie. I was just a boy. It was all for the best. And what about you?” he asked, still smiling. “I find it difficult to imagine that you didn’t leave behind at least a few broken hearts in Chicago.”

  Maggie quickly glanced away. There were no broken hearts in her wake. In fact, she hadn’t even been kissed since she’d said goodbye to Kenny Tallman just before they went their separate ways to different colleges. But she wasn’t about to tell Mr. Stuart that.

  “No broken hearts for me,” she said, her tone light. “Unless you want to count a pair of ornery, freckle-faced twins who imagined they had a terrible crush on me. Bernie and Brian Callaghan. Seven years old, and holy terrors they were. They used to brawl in front of the entire class over which one would pound the erasers for me.”

  “Ah. I always knew you’d grow up to be a heartbreaker one day.”

  She glanced over to find him watching her with a teasing glint in his eye.

  She grinned back. “Miss Addams gave us little time for lollygagging with the fellas. Bernie and Brian were all I could handle.”

  They rode along in silence until he brought the buggy to a halt in front of an unpainted shack. Grayed from the elements, its front steps sagging, and a part of its tin roof pulled away from the sheathing boards, it had the grim look of abandonment.

  There were no curtains at the windows, only brown paper replacing a missing pane in front. Tall weeds and grass had grown wild, but there were no flowers to provide even a touch of color. On a clothesline at the side of the house hung a pair of men’s overalls and a few pieces of girls’ clothing. Nothing pointed to even the slightest effort to make the place a home.

  Maggie’s breath caught in her throat at the sight of the place.

  “Yes, it’s bad, isn’t it?” said Jonathan Stuart.

  It was worse than bad. It was appalling. The thought of wee Huey and his sister living in such a forlorn-looking hovel wrenched Maggie’s heart. Most of the houses in Skingle Creek, her own home included, were company houses. Erected quickly and as cheaply as possible, they were entirely without adornment. But many of the families who lived in those houses did what they could to make them more attractive inside and out. They painted the exteriors every few years, planted flower and vegetable gardens, tended their yards, and kept things neat and presentable. A few, like Maggie’s father, obtained permission to add improvements: a porch, a storage shed for tools, shrubbery, stone pathways, and other niceties.

  The Lazlo place looked as if it had not been inhabited for years. And yet a family lived here. A family with two young children. Huey Lazlo, Maggie’s student, was a thin little boy with enormous, sorrowful eyes partly concealed by a shock of dark, untidy hair. The boy’s clothing, and that of his older sister, always appeared heavily patched and none too clean. Huey’s uncertain smile and timid manner had endeared him to Maggie. It was an unpleasant shock, seeing the crude conditions in which he lived. And yet, to be objective, she had to remember that most of her students lived with little more than the basics required to sustain life. There were no wealthy mining families in Skingle Creek. For the most part, life was hard for every child in town.

  She could only hope the inside of the Lazlo home would be a marked improvement over its exterior.

  Chapter Four

  Prayer Is No Small Thing

  But the child’s sob in the silence curses deeper

  Than the strong man in his wrath.

  Elizabeth Barrett Browning

  At first Jonathan thought it was going to be the same scenario as before, that the Lazlo woman would block him from entering. She stood staring, her flat, broad features impassive, her small eyes devoid of any expression except perhaps a glint of confusion.

  Uneasiness crept over him. Perhaps the woman simply didn’t know what to make of two teachers showing up on her doorstep on a Sunday afternoon, but there was something more than a little troubling about that empty stare, the opaque eyes.

  Jonathan was puzzling over what tack to take when a man came up behind her, edging her out of the way.

  The children’s father, Jonathan assumed. “Mr. Lazlo?”

  He was a big, dark-haired, black-bearded hulk of a man with thick shoulders, a paunch, and a wide, angry scar that lined his forehead and wrapped around his right eye. The look he settled on Maggie and Jonathan was less than friendly, but at least he seemed to be more alert than the woman.

  “You’re the teacher?”

  “Jonathan Stuart. I’m Selma’s teacher and the school principal.” He extended his hand, but the man ignored it. Jonathan hesitated, then nodded in Maggie’s direction. “And this is Miss MacAuley, Huey’s teacher. Would it be all right if we came in and talked with you for a few minutes?”

  The man took his time replying. Without looking directly at Jonathan, he stepped back and finally, with a short nod indicated they could enter. The woman’s expression never changed.

  Inside, Jonathan looked around for the children but saw no sign of them. What he did see was a sight he had encountered before on the Hill. This was worse than some, but not quite so bad as others. Standing there, breathing in the close, fetid air of rooms shut up too long with no ventilation—and heavy with the odor of cheap cigar smoke—he made an effort to squelch a threat of dizziness.

  There were almost no furnishings in the room—only a stained, overstuffed chair with the batting spilling out from a torn seat; two beds with iron bedsteads and thin, sagging mattresses, carelessly covered over by quilts that appeared none too clean; and a faded picture of a field with a hunter and a dog on the wall next to the door. The bare, plank floor had gaps as wide as a man’s foot in some places, and its corners were cluttered with items of clothing, papers, and other odds and ends.

  Out of the corner of his eye he caught a glimpse of the woman watching Maggie, her eyes no longer quite so dull, though still showing only a minimum of interest in the younger woman. He saw that the man’s gaze had also turned to Maggie, but his was an entirely different expression, one that made Jonathan decidedly uncomfortable.

  Instinctively he moved closer to Maggie. She surprised him by taking his arm, and he realized then that she also was aware of the man’s dark, clinging stare. Lazlo’s gaze followed Maggie’s movement before darting back to Jonathan.

  “If you want to sit, th’ only place is th’ bed,” said Lazlo. His voice was low and rough, as hard as a blow, with a hint of an accent Jonathan didn’t recognize.

  “We’ll stand, thank you,” Jonathan replied quickly. The idea of sitting on one of those two dingy looking beds, much less allowing one to tou
ch Maggie, made him cringe.

  The man shrugged and rested his hands on his paunch, both thumbs braced behind his suspenders.

  He was a disreputable-looking sort. That thicket of a beard and untamed hair gave him a wild look. But the ashen skin tone that made him look unwell and the air of defeat and failure that hovered round him negated any real sense of threat. In that instant he saw that Lazlo’s hands were scarred far worse than the slash on his face. Jonathan couldn’t be certain, but he thought they might be burn scars.

  The man’s clothes were clean, which was more than could be said about his wife. Her long, black skirt was torn and soiled with what might have been grease, her bodice stained in several places. A few tangled strands of hair had escaped the knot at the back of her neck and hung limply around her face.

  “Are the children at home?” Jonathan asked abruptly, remembering why he had come.

  The man’s eyes met the woman’s for a fraction of a second before he shook his head. “Out somewhere,” he said shortly.

  Jonathan looked around. The house was eerily silent, the only sound that of a dog barking somewhere outside. Something made him wonder if Lazlo was telling the truth about the children being gone.

  Maggie had dropped her hand away from his arm, but stayed close as she spoke. “I’ve been concerned about Huey. He was absent four days last week. Has he been ill?”

  She directed her question to the mother, but it was Lazlo who replied, his gaze again roving over her in a way that made Jonathan want to get her out of the house as quickly as possible. “Th’ boy was sick.”

  Maggie hesitated and then said, “But…he’s well enough to be outside?”

  “He’s better now. Be back to school next week.”

  Jonathan attempted to engage the woman in their conversation. “Mrs. Lazlo, you’ll recall that last term both children missed a great deal of school. I hope that’s not going to be the case this year.”

  The woman’s eyes were like dark caves, her expression unreadable as she looked at her husband, who again answered in her stead.

  “If they sick, they stay at home. When they well, they go to school.”

  Jonathan studied the big man standing across from him. Lazlo’s expression wasn’t exactly belligerent, but close to it. “May I ask where you’re from, Mr. Lazlo?”

  Lazlo’s eyes narrowed slightly. “Ashland first. Then here.”

  “You’re from Europe originally?” Jonathan prompted.

  “We come from Ukraine. Two years ago, maybe more.”

  That might account for the man’s defensiveness. It wasn’t unusual for some of the immigrants who worked in the mines to be guarded, even suspicious. A new country could be daunting, and they weren’t always treated the best, after all.

  Jonathan sensed it was time to go. It was clear they would learn nothing more about the children today and for Huey and Selma’s sake he didn’t want to alienate their parents by seeming to pry.

  “Well, we’ll leave you to the rest of your afternoon,” he said. “We’ll look forward to seeing Huey back in school tomorrow.” He paused, then added, “You have fine children. We’re glad to have them with us.”

  Lazlo was paying no attention to him whatsoever, but instead was watching Maggie with that same dark, furtive expression that Jonathan found unnerving if not downright offensive. He clasped Maggie’s elbow and moved her toward the door.

  Outside he looked around but saw no sign of Huey or Selma.

  Neither he nor Maggie spoke until they pulled away and started down the Hill.

  “Do you think the children were really outside?” Maggie said.

  Jonathan looked over at her. “I don’t quite know what to think. The place is small enough that it would be difficult to keep them hidden for any length of time. There looked to be only two rooms. On the other hand, there seemed to be no sign of them outside either.”

  “We weren’t there all that long. Only a few minutes.”

  “You think they were in the house?”

  She frowned. “I don’t know.” She pulled in a long breath as if to steady herself. “What a terrible place. The whole time we were there I felt something wasn’t…right. I did think the man might be lying. And that woman—”

  She shuddered visibly.

  “I know. I wonder—” Jonathan stopped, uncertain as to whether he should voice what he was thinking.

  “What?”

  “It sounds unkind—and I could be wrong—but I wouldn’t be at all surprised if the mother isn’t…slow.”

  Maggie began to rub her arms, as if a chill had seized her. “This Mrs. Lazlo—she reminds me of another woman,” she said. “There was a family who used to live on the outskirts of town. I remember going with Mum once to take a basket of food to them. The man had been injured in the mine, and they had all these children—”

  “The Teagues.”

  “Yes! You remember them, too.”

  “I called on them a few times, trying to convince them to send the children to school. But they never did.”

  As soon as Jonathan thought of Elsie Teague he understood why Maggie had mentioned her.

  “You might be right about Mrs. Lazlo,” he said. “There’s a similarity there to Elsie Teague.”

  “Mum said Mrs. Teague was feeble-minded,” Maggie said, watching him.

  A sour taste rose to Jonathan’s mouth. The thought of just how dismal Selma and Huey Lazlo’s living conditions might actually be made his stomach knot. “I don’t know if that’s what it is or not, but there’s something wrong there, no doubt about it.”

  “Oh.” Her soft word sounded more like a sob. “Those poor children. If their mother really isn’t right and their father—”

  She broke off.

  “Maggie?”

  She turned toward him.

  “I don’t know why you would have reason, but please don’t ever go up there alone. In fact, you needn’t go at all. If the need arises again for a call, I’ll take care of it.”

  She frowned. “But that’s my responsibility. I’m Huey’s teacher.”

  “And I’m Selma’s teacher and the school principal, so both children are my responsibility. I mean it, Maggie. I don’t want you going up there alone.” A heavy knot of dread settled in his chest at the very thought.

  He felt her studying him, but finally she agreed. “All right,” she said, her tone reluctant but resigned.

  They rode the rest of the way in silence. As they finally pulled up in front of the MacAuley’s house, Jonathan wondered what Maggie was thinking. She had to have seen the way Lazlo had looked at her. She was young, yes, but surely she wasn’t so naive that she hadn’t noticed the man’s insolence.

  She avoided his eyes as he helped her out of the buggy.

  Jonathan stood watching her for a moment. “Maggie?”

  Finally she looked at him.

  “Huey and Selma will be all right.”

  He regretted the words the instant they left his tongue. Maggie MacAuley had never been one to be soothed by empty words, even as a child. Why would he make the mistake of being glib with her now?

  She searched his gaze, and Jonathan found himself unnerved by the depth of her intensity.

  “No, Mr. Stuart,” she finally said, her tone hard, even bitter. “Most likely they won’t be all right. We both know that. It’s doubtful that Huey and Selma will ever have a chance to be all right.”

  When she would have moved past him, Jonathan stopped her with a hand on her arm. “Perhaps we’re their chance.”

  She frowned.

  “Maggie, do you pray for your students?”

  “Of course I do. But there have always been some—not just here in Skingle Creek, but in Chicago as well—that I don’t know how to pray for. For some children life seems so hopeless that you begin to believe nothing you can do will ever make a difference.”

  Jonathan knew all too well what she meant. He had faced that seemingly impenetrable wall of hopelessness too many times himse
lf to be anything less than completely honest with her.

  “Maggie, I’ve been a teacher now for a very long time, and I’ve come up against some altogether desperate situations. Situations that tested my faith more times than I can count. It’s not likely to be any different for you. But I know you well enough to know that you became a teacher because you love children and you want to make a difference in their lives. Am I right?”

  She nodded, her expression puzzled.

  “Then believe me when I tell you that the longer you work with children, the more faith will be required of you. You’re going to encounter situations that will force you to realize that sometimes praying for your children is the only thing you can do.”

  Again he paused, struggling to find the right words. “You’ll find that most times praying for them will be the most important thing you can do. There’s nothing small about prayer. The more you cover your students with it every day, the more you’ll eventually help to deliver them—and yourself—from the heartbreak of hopelessness.”

  Her gaze, troubled and uncertain, again searched his, and Jonathan wished he could somehow imbue her with the kind of strength he knew she was going to need to carry her through the years ahead.

  She had always been so quick to hurt for others, so determined to staunch their wounds and right the wrongs all around her. Even when she was a child herself, she had mothered the younger children, defended those weaker or less fortunate, often growing frustrated and even angry when her fierce attempts were somehow thwarted. And today he had seen that this part of her hadn’t changed. This fire in her soul to rescue, to heal, to bring things right for those who couldn’t do it for themselves—it was still the very essence of Maggie and all that made her so special.

  His own spirit groaned for the pain she would face. And yet he knew without a doubt that it was that very passion in her, that zeal to change and redeem and restore, that would bring to Skingle Creek’s children a hope they might otherwise have never known.