Brightest and Best

by Newport, Olivia

  Four students absent on Tuesday, it said. One more than on Monday, and all with influenza. At least that was the substitute’s opinion.

  Steps in the hall so early—well before she expected any of the other teachers—startled Margaret, and her spine straightened as she cocked her head toward the open classroom door. A moment later, a man’s form filled the space. Margaret rose to her feet.

  “Mr. Brownley,” she said. “Good morning.”

  “Good morning.” Brownley stepped into the room. “I understand you were not present here yesterday.”

  “That’s correct.” Margaret’s throat went dry.

  “Now, Miss Simpson, you and I have known each other for some time now.”

  Brownley began to pace the perimeter of the room, a habit that irritated Margaret more each time she witnessed it.

  “Four years,” she said, though only in the last few months would the superintendent have recognized her as one of his teachers in any circumstances outside her classroom.

  “And you are happy working for our school district?”

  Margaret stretched her lips into a wan smile. “Quite.”

  “Then I must admit I find it confounding why you would put your position at risk as you have.” Pace. Pace.

  “I’m afraid I don’t understand.”

  “Ah, but I believe you do.” Brownley stopped moving at last and turned to face her, hands behind his broad back. “I have it on good report that you were seen yesterday driving off one of the Amish farms with a number of Amish passengers. This happened at a time of day you should have been here discharging your duties.”

  “I followed protocol in requesting the time away,” Margaret said, “and made suitable arrangements for my classroom.”

  “I originally engaged your help to be sure the Amish students consolidated with minimal disturbance,” he said. “I’m sorry to say your efforts disappointed me.”

  “Perhaps,” she said, “if you had not taken matters back into your own hands without waiting for the benefits of the woman’s touch you espoused to desire, I would have succeeded.”

  There. She’d said it. She might as well continue.

  “You asked for my help, and I gladly rose to the challenge,” Margaret said. “With a bit more time, I might have been able to assure the Amish families that our school administrators were capable of listening to their very reasonable concerns. Instead, you ensured that they would see me as no more than a puppet without even the strength of strings to do as it was told.”

  “Your job was to serve the interests of the committee.” Brownley glared.

  “I am a teacher, Mr. Brownley. My job is always to serve the interests of the children.” Margaret returned the glare.

  Brownley resumed pacing. When he reached the door, he turned once again to face her. “Miss Simpson, when is your contract due to expire?”

  “Not until June 30.”

  “Ah.” He put one hand on the door. “You do understand that there are always extenuating circumstances that may void a contract.”

  The door closed behind him. Margaret dropped into her chair, trembling but without regret.

  CHAPTER 37

  My advice is to accept the offer.” Percival Eggar looked at each man’s face on Wednesday afternoon. His eyes settled finally on Gideon.

  “It’s what they always wanted,” Chester Mast mumbled. “We’ve sat in jail for a week for nothing.”

  “I’ve spoken with your wives again as well,” Percival said. “They are most anxious to have the children home.”

  “And the only way the children can go home is if we give in and put them in the town school,” Gideon said.

  “This is not the end,” Percival said. “Everything that happened during the last week can work in our favor when we take the case to court.”

  “Court. I don’t know.” With seven people in the cell, there was no room to pace. Instead, Gideon lifted himself up on his toes and then lowered his heels.

  “It’s the next step,” Percival said, his eyes insistent through his spectacles. “You file your own suit to establish infringement of your religious liberty and free speech rights. Sending the children to school will take the focus off the truancy question and allow us to explore the issues that can settle this question once and for all.”

  “Can we make an offer of our own?” Gideon asked, pushing up on his toes again.

  “I’m not sure we’re in a position to counter,” Percival said. “We want to get you out of here.”

  “I want their promise that if we do this, our children will also be returned to our homes—today.”

  Percival nodded. “More than reasonable.”

  “Do they know you are thinking of a court suit?”

  “I have not said so overtly,” Percival answered.

  “Then we do have something to bargain with. Tell them we will pay the fines and send the children to their schools. Then tell them you will delay the suit if they agree to sit down with our bishop and a few of our men to listen to our viewpoint. Perhaps we can still avoid starting our own legal action.”

  “Don’t you want to settle this permanently?” Percival said. “This could be a landmark case.”

  “I do not wish to be a landmark,” Gideon said. “I wish to be a father whose children are brought up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.”

  “And if the authorities do not agree to such a meeting?” Percival said.

  Gideon shrugged and looked around the cramped cell. “Then we speak of the court question again.”

  Murmurs circled the room.

  “You all agree?” Percival asked.

  The men nodded, and Percival called for the guard to let him out of the cell.

  “I’ll have to speak to the sheriff,” he said, “and then see the judge. I don’t know how long it will take.”

  “We’ll wait.”

  A minute later, Gideon watched Percival disappear through a door.

  The six fathers remained in one cell, some sprawling on bunks, some leaning against walls, some shifting their weight from one foot to the other and back again in a slow, swaying rhythm.

  “Will we really go to court?” John Hershberger asked. “Will the bishop allow that?”

  Gideon took in a slow, deep breath, praying it would not be necessary to answer John’s question.

  They waited.

  Lunch arrived, and they picked at the trays.

  They waited.

  Someone came for the abandoned trays.

  They waited.

  Finally Percival’s solid footsteps approached. All six men crowded against the bars.

  “Get out of the way,” the sheriff said, turning a key in the lock. He swung the door open. “Your attorney has taken care of the fines. You’re free to go.”

  “And our children?” Gideon said.

  “The paperwork is already in progress,” the sheriff said. “We’ll take you all home in a bus and send another for them.”

  “Thank you.” Gideon was the first of the men to step out of the cell.

  The sheriff pointed a warning finger. “Those children had better be in school tomorrow. I’ve already notified Superintendent Brownley. The principals will know to expect the return of their wayward students.”

  “How long?” Ella asked David. She laid a hand against Lindy’s hot cheek.

  “She felt fine yesterday,” David said. “Then this morning, she didn’t get up. I couldn’t go to school and leave her like this.”

  “Of course not.”

  “I’m fine,” Lindy muttered. “Just a little under the weather.”

  “A lot of students have been absent with influenza,” David said.

  Ella moistened her lips. She did not have to read English newspapers to know that influenza had decimated Cleveland, thirty miles away. Authorities had closed schools, theaters, and even churches in an effort to contain the disease. She looked again at Lindy. Perhaps it was not influenza.

  “We should call the
doctor.” Ella glanced toward the telephone in the front room.

  “No doctor,” Lindy said. “I’ll be right as rain tomorrow.”

  Ella doubted this. And if David stayed out of school, the authorities might take him to the Wayfarers Home for Children along with the others.

  “David,” Lindy said, gasping for sufficient breath. “I want the new birdhouse. I’ll feel better later, and I can paint it in the kitchen.”

  “I’ll get it when you’re ready,” David said.

  “Get it now, please.”

  Ella nodded at David, certain it would do Lindy no good to get worked up in a minor argument.

  “I’ll get another cool cloth,” Ella said. She went into the kitchen, found a drawer of small towels, and tentatively turned the knob next to the faucet. Water coming straight into the house certainly would have advantages. Cold water drenched the towel, and Ella wrung out the excess. As she filled a glass with water as well, she wondered how quickly influenza might infect the Amish. Had she already invited germs into her own body by touching Lindy? What about the men in jail? The children at Wayfarers? The students in the consolidated schools already experiencing absences? When Cleveland closed its schools, towns like Seabury ought to have done the same.

  Ella was not going to leave Lindy suffering because of her own fear that she might catch the disease—if it even was influenza. Without hesitation, she carried the damp cloth and the glass of water to Lindy’s bedroom.

  David returned just as Ella coaxed Lindy to sip the water.

  “It’s not there,” he said.

  “My birdhouse is gone?” Lindy pushed away the glass. “Has someone smashed in again?”

  “No,” David said. “There’s no sign of vandalism this time. But there are a few things missing. And I found this on the workbench.”

  He handed a note to Ella.

  You’re getting what you deserve. Stop helping those people.

  “That’s it,” Ella said. “I’m going to see Deputy Fremont.”

  “What does it say?” Lindy asked.

  Ella ignored the question and turned to David. “You’re staying here, right?”

  He nodded.

  “Fluids,” Ella said. “Whether or not it’s flu, she needs fluids. I’ll be back.”

  Ella marched through the Seabury blocks until she reached the sheriff’s outpost. Deputy Fremont looked up and raised an eyebrow. Ella pressed the note flat on the desk in front of him.

  “Someone left this for Lindy Lehman,” Ella said. “Is this not grounds for further investigation?”

  Fremont glanced at the note. “How do I know where the note came from?”

  “I just told you. Someone left it for Lindy. David Kaufman just found it on her workbench—and more items are missing from her workshop.”

  “Why isn’t Lindy here on her own behalf?” Fremont asked.

  “She’s ill.”

  “Not the influenza, I hope.”

  ‘“I suppose that would be for a doctor to say.”

  “Is the boy ill?”

  “No,” Ella said. “Not so far.”

  “I can’t go where there’s flu,” Fremont said. “That will only spread the sickness.”

  “But someone is threatening Lindy,” Ella said, “and it’s because of her kindness to the Amish in the school question.”

  “That’s a moot point now.” Fremont nudged the note to one side of his desk. “I just had a phone call from Chardon. The men have agreed to send their children to school.”

  Finally Gideon’s farm was in sight, the familiar roll of ground under barren trees wrapped in a warning of the winter to come. Had it snowed while he was in that windowless cell picturing his children crying themselves to sleep or his betrothed hustling between Rachel’s bereft spirit and Miriam’s frail health?

  The truck did not make the turn down his lane. Instead, the driver, wordless, stopped where the paved road gave way to gravel in one direction and simply waited for Gideon to disembark. Gideon shook the hands of the two remaining passengers, supposing their throats to be as thick with anticipation as his own. He had taken nothing with him when the sheriff came last week, and he carried nothing with him now. One of three horses in his pasture noticed him and trotted to the fence, where Gideon scratched its neck. Then he turned his head toward the house. With each step, he hoped for an outburst of some sort. Savilla impatient with Gertie. Pans clattering from the kitchen. Miriam chastising chickens who had dared too close to the front porch.

  But he heard nothing, which only made his chest clench more deeply.

  Without going in, Gideon rounded one side of his home and followed the path to the dawdihaus. He knocked softly. The door swung wide, and Miriam tumbled into his embrace. When she pulled her neck from the curve of Gideon’s neck, she shouted for James, who emerged from the bedroom and strode across the sitting room.

  “A cake!” Miriam pronounced. “We need a cake. I’ll put jelly between the layers.”

  Gideon laughed and tried to pull her back, but Miriam was already headed out the door to the main house where she kept her best baking dishes.

  “There’s no stopping her now,” James said.

  “I was afraid she might be unwell,” Gideon said.

  “She is,” James said quietly. “In an hour, she will refuse to admit how tired she is.”

  “Then we should stop her,” Gideon said. “I don’t need a cake.”

  “No, but she needs to make you one.”

  They had ambled outside as they spoke, and now Gideon raised his head to the welcome sight of the Hilty buggy traversing the hardened cold ground. He ran to greet Ella, and she leaped off the bench into his arms and leaned fully against him. Her winter bonnet slid off her head, and even through her prayer kapp Gideon could smell the invigorating scent of her hair. He inhaled and wrapped his arms around her, resolving not to be the first to disturb the embrace.

  Finally, without letting go of him, Ella turned her face up. Gideon kissed her mouth before she could release the torrent of questions rising through her throat. She tasted of the brisk air she must have been gulping all the way to his farm.

  “The children?” she finally said.

  “Not yet,” Gideon said. “But they promised today.”

  Arm in arm, they went inside the house, where Ella deftly took over the responsibilities of stirring cake batter, arranging wood to produce the proper temperature, and setting the pans in the heat.

  When the pans came out of the oven and the children were not home, the mood sobered.

  When the cake was cool enough to frost and still the children were not there, silence shrouded the darkening kitchen.

  Gideon watched the sky grow gray. James coaxed Miriam into the front room where she could rest more comfortably. Ella frosted the cake and sat down at the kitchen table beside Gideon.

  “I want to be here,” she said, leaning against his shoulder, “but …”

  “But Rachel is waiting alone,” Gideon said. He kissed the top of her head. “Go. If Seth comes home, you will know my children are also home.”

  “I’ll come first thing in the morning,” Ella said. “I know they have to go to school, but I can’t wait all day to see them.”

  Gideon walked Ella to her buggy for a reluctant good-bye. Then he followed the buggy up the lane and watched her disappear around the curve in the road. He stood for ten silent gloomy minutes, praying that it would be God’s will for the sheriff to keep his word, before he saw the flicker of an automobile headlight.

  Then came the sound of the motor.

  Then came the shadowed shape of a bus.

  Then came the cries of his children’s voices.

  Then came the tumble of arms and legs of his offspring safe in his embrace.

  Margaret never liked to admit to favorites among her pupils, but the sight of Gertie Wittmer back in her seat, swinging her feet, warmed Margaret with satisfaction. Beside Gertie, Hans Byler sat straight and attentive. Even with his hat on his he
ad, Margaret could tell it would be weeks before his hair would grow back out to a proper Amish boy’s haircut. At least they had not cut Gertie’s hair. Her braids still wound neatly against the sides of her head.

  But even with Gertie and Hans back, the number of students absent from Margaret’s classroom had risen to five. In a sober impromptu meeting with all the teachers after the final bell, Principal Tarkington relayed the somber news that Geauga County officials were dispatching nurses to make the rounds and determine the severity of the influenza outbreak that had reached even Seabury.

  Margaret gathered her things and walked the six blocks to her house, which had grown cold in her absence. She turned the knob on the radiator in the front room and heated the oven in the kitchen.

  She had promised Gray a pie. Probably the last one. Perhaps they would not even get so far into the evening as to eat it. His last visit to her home had ended in an argument. What might he be expecting tonight?

  When she had the pie in the oven, Margaret found she could not bring herself to sit quietly and wait for Gray. The sun was long set, but Margaret did not care. She donned a coat, took a bushel basket from the back porch, lit a lantern, and pulled dead growth from the spent flower bed along the side of the house.

  She had expected to have time to straighten herself up before Gray’s arrival, but he startled her with an early appearance. Surely it was not seven thirty yet. She pulled her gardening gloves from her hands and raised her fingers to her cold cheeks. In the darkness, he drew near.

  Margaret wanted him to kiss her. This might be the last kiss in her entire life, and in this moment, she wanted it very much. His warm breath settled on her face as he leaned in, and she willingly raised her lips to meet his. His kiss deepened, more than ever before, and she allowed it. Once they began to speak, the exquisite moment would be gone, and she might never know another like it.