Brightest and Best

by Newport, Olivia

  “I’d like to escort you to church on Sunday,” Gray said. “May I?”

  In the evening’s obscurity, she could not see his eyes, but she smelled the cherry pie on his breath and felt the stroke of his fingers on the back of her hand.

  CHAPTER 25

  The answer came to Ella during the family’s Friday morning devotions after her father’s brief meditation on Isaiah 26:3: “Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee: because he trusteth in thee.”

  In the last week, since Gideon asked her to take on teaching the Amish students temporarily, Ella had gone out of her way three times to pass by the new school building on the Mast farm. Each time she paused to pray, wanting only Gottes wille. If she took on this challenge, God’s will must be certain in her heart. On the Wittmer farm, gradually, Gertie had settled into the new routine, and Savilla remained as steadfast in her work as she was in most things. The time they spent on lessons seemed more efficient each day, and Ella began to see how it would be possible for her to rotate between groups of children learning at different levels.

  When she opened her eyes on Friday morning, Ella felt the peaceful certainty she had sought all week. Seth was soon out the door to catch the bus—perhaps for the last time—and Ella was soon on her way with the family’s buggy.

  This time she entered the one-room school with her mind buzzing with plans. She started at the back of the classroom, pulling the larger desks slightly farther apart. Memories of being in the seventh and eighth grades with inadequate space for lengthening legs had come to her in the middle of the night. Then she re-spaced the front desks, resolute in tolerating the jagged aisles in exchange for the certainty that no child would have to wrestle with whether to admit she couldn’t see the board. On the teacher’s desk—her desk—at the front of the room sat a tin of new chalk. Ella took out a piece, reached high, and began printing letters, capital and small in pairs, across the top of the chalkboard. She worked carefully but efficiently, the same approach teaching would require. Tomorrow was Saturday. The girls would not be expecting her for lessons, and Ella could spend as much time as she needed preparing the classroom. She stood at the back now, pleased with the start she had made. The mercantile would have packages of paper, and the students would know to bring pencils. A bookcase at the front of the room awaited textbooks, which Gideon had promised to retrieve from the old school after he shored up a beam for safety.

  Ella had not said anything to her father yet. She supposed she ought to ask his permission; she was not a married woman yet. But Jed would support an Amish school. He would see all the reading Ella had done in all the years since she left school herself as divine preparation for this moment. Like Esther in the Bible, she was called “for such a time as this.”

  Her wedding day was less than two months off. Gideon believed God would provide a teacher who could begin right after Christmas. Ella would burn the candle at both ends helping Rachel scrub down the house in preparation for the wedding while also planning lessons, but Rachel would be grateful to have Seth out of the English school. All things work together for good to them that love God and are called according to His purpose, Ella reminded herself.

  If she wanted to catch Gideon before he left the house for his own work, Ella couldn’t dawdle all morning in the schoolhouse. She gave the door a satisfied tug behind her and put the horse into a canter.

  Miriam was standing on Gideon’s porch shaking out a rug when Ella arrived.

  “The girls are ready for you,” Miriam said. “I told them to wait in the kitchen and not to make you spend half the morning looking for them.”

  Ella smiled. Savilla would be doing exactly as she was supposed to be doing. It was Gertie who might wander off distracted by any one of a hundred things.

  “I’d like to see Gideon first,” Ella said.

  “I think he’s working on his papers.”

  Ella stood behind Gideon’s desk in the alcove for nearly a full minute before her presence disturbed his concentration. He met her gaze, and his eyes crinkled.

  “You’re going to do it, aren’t you?”

  “It makes my heart pound in terror to think of it, but yes, I want to try.” She would be married in a few weeks. If she did not try now, she would never have another chance to find out if she could manage a classroom.

  Gideon stood, and Ella was certain he wanted to be alone as much as she did. But neither of them would risk one of the children—or Miriam or James—finding them in an embrace.

  “I’m nervous,” she said. “Civil disobedience has never been my strength.”

  “But obeying God has always been your strength,” Gideon said. “Can you start on Monday?”

  Three days—only two if she did not count the Sabbath.

  Ella nodded. “Eight o’clock.” She would be ready, even if Savilla and Gertie were still her only students.

  The dispassionate warning in Gray’s tone the evening before lingered in Margaret’s mind for most of the night. She doubted he wished harm to anyone and believed he wanted her to be safe. He simply saw no reason for the sheriff or the school officials to concern themselves with what became of the Amish.

  Gray had never mentioned conversing with any of the Amish men. He had helped them set up for their auction, and most likely that had not been the first time. Certainly he would have no occasion to speak to an Amish woman, but if he ran into one of the men in the hardware store or the mercantile, would he greet him? Could he truly hold himself so separate from the Amish that he could not at least nod his head and say good morning?

  It wasn’t so easy for Margaret. She had been to the farms. She had shared small gifts with the mothers, met with the fathers, and kept a protective eye on the children while they were in school. Margaret had tried telling herself they weren’t her responsibility—just what Gray was saying. All her efforts to befriend the Amish and understand their ways were undercut by Superintendent Brownley’s impatience and Deputy Fremont’s utter lack of humility. Mr. Brownley had asked her to take on a task and then ensured she would fail.

  Yet when Margaret stood in her classroom every day and looked at Hans Byler, she thought he was the bravest little boy she had ever known. He was the youngest and smallest of all the Amish children in the school, and since Gertie Wittmer had stopped attending, he was alone in the classroom with his black suspenders and bowl-cut hair under straw hat. Nearly every day, as Margaret took attendance and checked off twenty-four names of children who resembled each other and one who did not, she thought of Jesus’ parable of the shepherd who left ninety-nine sheep to find the one lost lamb and carry it home on his shoulder.

  On Friday after school, Margaret walked home, changed into more comfortable shoes, and took her car out. In her own mind, she could not think what to do for the Amish children. Never one to consider prayer confined to church walls—or any walls—Margaret wondered if God might yet show her what to do and give the courage to do it. No matter what Gray Truesdale thought.

  A sign, she murmured. A sign.

  She drove out toward the Amish farms, trying to remember details of the turns she had taken when the summer sun was still high in the sky, even at this hour of the day, and optimism propelled her awkward attempts at befriending families she understood almost nothing about. The superintendent might just as well have assigned her to make sure the Creoles of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, reported to school in Seabury, Ohio. She’d fumbled the job. They all had. The only difference was that Margaret would take another approach if she had a fresh opportunity.

  The automobile whizzed through an intersection. Margaret was a hundred yards down the road before recognition niggled at her. Intersection was an overstatement. It was only a narrow lane that came up on one side from a farm.

  An Amish farm. She couldn’t remember the family’s name. The faces of two older boys floated through her mind. Mace? Macky? Mast? Elijah Mast had been the boy attacked in the upstairs hall at school.

  That was it. But
something looked altered.

  She told herself it was only the bare branches, whose leaves in full summer bloom would have hidden untold details. But it was more than that. A flash of shiny whitewash had caught her eye, and she distinctly remembered the Mast house as being a nondescript gray.

  Margaret braked, turned the car around, approached the lane, and navigated into it.

  And there it was, in the corner of a fallow field. A one-room school that looked like so many dotting the Ohio countryside, except this one was brand new.

  Outside, an Amish horse, still hitched to a buggy, nuzzled the ground in the shade. Realization dawned. Margaret shut off her engine, stunned. At least four minutes passed before she felt her breathing was under control and her heart would not explode through her sternum. Fumbling for the handle on the driver door, Margaret slid out of the automobile.

  At the school’s door, with her fingers on the knob, Margaret filled her lungs. She had dared to ask God for a sign. Was this it?

  “Hello?” she called before the door was fully open.

  “In here,” came the response.

  Margaret stepped into the immaculate room and stared into the face of Ella Hilty.

  “Your people have built a school!” Margaret said.

  “I won’t try to deny it.” Ella spread her arms wide.

  Margaret envied the excitement in Ella’s voice.

  “On the day I first met you, Nora Coates was trying to persuade you to be a teacher,” Margaret said. “But … I’m confused.”

  “But I’m not qualified,” Ella said. “It’s all right to say it. I know that truth better than anyone.”

  “So you’ve found another teacher?”

  “Not yet,” Ella said. “Gideon is making inquiries. I’m only going to fill in for a few weeks so the students don’t lose ground.”

  “I want to help.” The words tumbled past Margaret’s lips before her mind caught up with their meaning.

  Ella’s eyes widened.

  The benches were loaded in the wagon to be taken to the next home that would host worship in two weeks. The young people were organizing a walk along the river and probably would not be back until it was time for the evening’s Singing. With a basket of empty dishes hanging from one arm, Miriam was herding Gideon’s daughters toward the buggy, while Tobias and James hitched it to the team of driving horses.

  Standing beside his buggy and clutching her shawl around her shoulders, Ella offered Gideon a smile across the yard. It was time.

  Gideon touched the elbows of Isaiah Borntrager and John Hershberger.

  “Ready?” Isaiah said.

  Gideon nodded. He had waited until the last minute intentionally, preferring to avoid a lengthy discussion. Persuading other fathers what they must do was not on his mind. He only wanted to be sure they all received the same information upon which to base their decisions. They would meet in the barn, but they would not be there long enough to need seats.

  “The school is ready,” he said a few minutes later. “Classes will begin tomorrow. For now Ella Hilty will teach, until I hear from the teachers college about someone who might come in the middle of the school year.”

  Gideon glanced up and saw Bishop Garber enter the barn.

  “I cannot afford any more fines,” Aaron King said. “I’ll have to leave my children in school in town until we’re sure everything is in accordance with the law.”

  “I understand,” Gideon said. “I respect the decision of your conscience.”

  “I don’t see how the English are suddenly going to leave us be,” Joshua Glick said. “They’ll only see this as more reason to object to our ways.”

  “Maybe so,” Gideon said. “But we have to prove we can manage a school on our own.”

  “My kinner will be there,” John Hershberger said.

  Gideon nodded. Mrs. Hershberger was sure to be relieved of the expectation that she should manage lessons along with eight children, including a colicky baby. His eyes went from one man to the next, and he was fairly sure what each one would say. Opinions had not changed much over the last two months.

  “We’re not here to argue today.” Gideon said. “Every man has to decide for himself, though I’m sure if any of you wants to talk, the bishop would be happy to help.”

  The bishop nodded.

  “And of course you can talk to me privately,” Gideon continued. “Today I only want some idea of how many children Ella should expect tomorrow. It’s only fair that she know. Now raise your hand if you intend to send your children to an Amish-run school beginning tomorrow.”

  John Hershberger’s hand shot up. Gideon smothered his chuckle and waited for others, mentally tallying the number of school-age children each man had.

  CHAPTER 26

  The morning, the first Monday in November, still carried the overnight chill, and Ella poked at the wood in the potbelly stove once again to coax new flames to cast their heat into the schoolhouse. She smoothed her apron and adjusted her kapp, but she wasn’t ready to throw off her shawl. As long as she was cold, she presumed the children would be cold, so the fire was warranted.

  Unless it was her nerves that drained the heat from her body.

  Ella had wound the clock on her desk as soon as she arrived, but she checked it again now. At the center of the desk, where only she would see it, was the day’s schedule—or at least Ella’s best guess about how the day might go. The wide, high windows welcomed abundant morning light, but lamps stationed around the room were at the ready, their bases filled with oil.

  Moistening her lips for the umpteenth time that morning, Ella paced down the center aisle to look out the window on the front of the building. She was determined to welcome her pupils individually as they arrived. Gideon estimated she might have sixteen or seventeen, but it was hard to be certain. Fathers might change their minds in either direction—put their children on the buses as usual, or send them to Ella even though they had not raised their hands when Gideon asked. Sixteen students would not include everyone up through eighth grade, but it was a solid beginning.

  John Hershberger was first. Four children scrambled out of his buggy. Ella mentally rehearsed the girls’ names: Lizzy, Katya, and Esther. Or was Katya the youngest one? Panic surged up her throat, and Ella took a deep breath. Miriam had told her three times that Esther was the youngest of the four school-age Hershbergers. Ella didn’t know why she had such trouble remembering. The lone Hershberger boy was simple, named for his father but called Johnny.

  James arrived with Gertie and Savilla, and Ella was grateful for the familiar faces. Isaiah Borntrager came, and then the Bylers. Seth loped over the hill, and the two Mast boys were the last to appear, though their house was within view.

  They all looked startled to Ella, and with good reason. At best, some of them learned the previous afternoon that the school would open, but others learned only that morning at the breakfast table or intercepted on their way out the door to meet the bus. Several arrived with books in their arms—books someone would have to return to the school in Seabury.

  The older ones knew what to do in the one-room school. The Mast boy walked straight to the stove and satisfied himself it was performing, and Ella supposed this had been his task in the old building. Lizzy Hershberger settled her stair-step siblings according to where children of the same ages would likely sit.

  By three minutes after eight, Ella stood behind her desk, returning the stares of fifteen pairs of eyes.

  “Gut mariye,” she said.

  “Gut mariye,” came the unison response.

  “This is an important day for all of us,” Ella said, “and you might have been expecting a very different day when you woke up this morning. I want each one of you to know how glad I am to see you here, where we can help each other learn. I hope you’ll be patient with me, and I promise to do my best to be patient with you. If we’re kind and respectful, we can enjoy a wonderful school together.”

  Ella had meant to reassure the children,
but as she listened to the words she had rehearsed a dozen times, her own pulse slowed. She believed what she said.

  “I need time to get to know you,” she said. “If you are fourth grade or older, please take out two sheets of paper and a pencil. While I listen to the younger ones read, you may work on an essay that will help me discover your abilities. On the board, you’ll see three questions. You may choose the one that interests you the most and construct an essay with at least three supporting points. If you are in grades one, two, or three, please gather around my desk, and we’ll take turns with the primer. Are there any questions?”

  No hands went up. Instead, older students shuffled papers as they began their work, and younger ones shuffled their feet as they took places around her desk. Today would be language skills. Tomorrow she would find out what arithmetic skills the pupils had mastered.

  A little hand tapped Ella’s shoulder, and she smiled at an earnest face. “Yes, Gertie?”

  “May I read first?”

  “Thank you for volunteering,” Ella said, pressing open a primer along the binding.

  “And then Hans,” Gertie said.

  Ella’s two youngest students seemed equally satisfied to be together once again.

  After dropping the girls off at school, James took a team of two horses and his wagon into Seabury. Rather than the mercantile or Lindy’s workshop, though, his first destination was the Seabury branch of the county sheriff’s office.

  “I wondered what news you had about the man who attacked Lindy Lehman.” James looked Deputy Fremont in the eye and braced his feet shoulder-width apart. “It’s been ten days.”

  Fremont poised a fountain pen over an official-looking sheet of paper. “Unfortunately, ten days is plenty of time for the trail to go cold.”

  “May I ask whom you have interviewed?” James asked. It seemed to him Deputy Fremont had done nothing but throw ice on the trail to ensure it went cold.