Brightest and Best

by Newport, Olivia

  “Please do, Mr. Wittmer,” Brownley said. The words were correct and polite, but Gideon had no confidence the superintendent would see the virtue in his proposal.

  “As you know, we already have a school building that was constructed at no cost to the public school district, the town of Seabury, or the county of Geauga.”

  Brownley’s eyes narrowed, but he was listening.

  “All we ask now,” Gideon said, “is permission to operate a private school to serve Amish students.”

  “It seems to me that is what you already attempted,” Brownley said.

  Gideon nodded.

  “But your teacher was not qualified.”

  Actually, Ella was well qualified. Gideon said, “It has been our intention all along to attract a teacher whose credentials the state would recognize. I regret that this process has taken longer than I had hoped, but it is still the course of action we intend to pursue.”

  “Surely,” Margaret said, “this is a reasonable compromise at least for the younger children.”

  “But this teacher would not be Amish,” Brownley said.

  Gideon kept silent. This gathering was not the place to reveal the fullness of his middle-of-the-night wrestlings with almighty God.

  “Perhaps,” Percival said, “all we need at this point is your agreement that the Amish families will be unhindered in their pursuit of establishing a private school. I will work closely with them on the necessary legal details.”

  “Suppose we were to agree to this proposal,” Brownley said. “Am I correct in assuming that such a school would only go through the eighth grade?”

  All the Amish fathers at the table were quick to nod.

  “Then we will have solved only half of the problem,” Brownley said. “I cannot recommend to the state authorities a solution that does not guarantee that the older children will also receive an appropriate education.”

  Gideon was well aware of this dilemma. Next year Tobias would be old enough for high school. Even if the girls were safely in the care of a teacher who understood the Amish ways, Tobias would be expected to enroll at the high school—unless Gideon insisted that his son remain in the eighth grade for three years.

  “With all due respect,” Percival said, “the point my clients—and Miss Simpson—have argued today is that for Amish children, completing the eighth grade is an appropriate education.”

  Brownley shook his head. “But the law is specific. Students must attend school until the age of sixteen.”

  “Unless they have work permits,” Percival said.

  Gideon’s shoulders straightened.

  “We are not talking about children who will be idle or unsupervised,” Percival said. “They will not be lurking around the streets stirring up trouble or burdening society. When the Amish students leave school, they take up their share of work on the farm or in the family business. In fact, it is my understanding that the labor they provide is essential to the financial success of Amish enterprises.”

  Percival glanced at Gideon and the bishop, who both nodded.

  “If they have work permits and demonstrate that they are in fact working, students between ages fourteen and sixteen may be excused from school.”

  Gideon marveled that Percival had not mentioned this to him before.

  “That seems a stretch,” Brownley said, predictably.

  “Not to me.” For the first time, a new voice spoke.

  Gideon looked across the table at a member of the school board who had remained in Brownley’s shadow for the duration of the meeting—and for all the weeks preceding.

  “I think we should consider that possibility,” the board member said.

  Gideon looked around the table. Chester Mast and Isaiah Borntrager had allowed smiles to form behind their beards. Miss Simpson was grinning.

  “I will prepare a full presentation,” Percival said. “My assistant will contact you to establish a date to meet and ensure that every point of law has been adequately covered in our agreement.”

  “I heard what you did.”

  Gray’s words did not surprise Margaret. That he would speak them at all had been uncertain in her mind for all of the preceding twenty-four hours, but she had known he would hear of her bold actions on Monday afternoon. All of Seabury must have heard by the time they finished dessert on Monday evening. Margaret would not have been startled to discover her presence at the school board’s meeting had made the headline of the Seabury newspaper.

  And now here was Gray, leaning casually against the brick wall of the school as he often did, as if he just happened to be there when she exited the building.

  Few occasions in her life had stolen her words, but this was one of them. She stepped an extra foot away from him, out of the circle of his scent. She would need her wits about her.

  “I had hoped you’d gotten it out of your system when you took those mothers out to the home,” he said.

  Margaret’s throat went dry. “I’ve only done what I truly thought was the right thing to do.”

  “Speaking at that meeting, Margaret? What were you thinking?” In their last conversation, he had said he could forgive her for getting involved with the mothers. They had not gotten so far as establishing that she was not sorry. She wasn’t sorry then, and she wasn’t sorry now.

  “If I … caused you any … embarrassment,” she said, “please know that was never my intention.”

  He turned his head to one side and chuckled. “And we thought the ladies at church were gossiping about us just for sitting together in worship.”

  “Yes. I suppose they’ve moved on to more consuming matters now.”

  “Why is it so important to you that you would …”

  “You can say it, Gray. Why is it so important that I would risk the fondness that has taken such gentle root between us?”

  “You have a prettier way with words than I ever will,” he said, “but that’s the gist.”

  Margaret gripped her satchel handle with both hands, bracing herself to look Gray in the face without wishing he would take her face in his hands and kiss her persuasively.

  “Who else was standing up for them?” she said.

  “Maybe they didn’t need anyone to stand up for them.” Gray shuffled his feet. “I thought they liked to mind their own business.”

  “I wish you could have heard them speak yesterday,” Margaret said. “They want nothing more than to care for themselves and do what is best for their families and their church. We are the ones who wouldn’t let them.”

  “Things change, Margaret. This is not the sixteenth century anymore—or even the nineteenth.”

  “I know. But their children, Gray. The sheriff’s department took their children just to send a message about who was in control. I suppose that was the last straw for me.”

  “It’s over now, isn’t it?”

  “I hope so. We’ll see if Mr. Brownley will keep his word.”

  Gray shrugged. “They have Percival Eggar now. They won’t need you.”

  Margaret reached into her satchel and pulled out an envelope. “I’m going to drop this off with Mr. Brownley now. It’s my official letter of resignation from the consolidation committee.”

  “Does it even matter now?”

  “Maybe not to the superintendent. It matters to me. I don’t want anyone thinking for even one more day that I in any way approved of the tactics used against the Amish.”

  “Then that’s that,” Gray said. He inched closer. “We won’t ever have to talk about this again. We’ll look back on it as a disturbance and nothing more.”

  “We’ll look back on it.” He still offered hope. He would still have her.

  But the strings already constricted her heart. He would have her because he believed nothing would ever prompt such behavior from her again, or because he believed that once they married she would better adapt to the decisions he would make for the both of them. That he would indulge in this wishful thinking revealed how firmly he had begun
to regard their futures as intertwined, and this thought softened her posture.

  “I’m sorry, Gray.” As soon as Margaret spoke the words, she recognized the space they left for misinterpretation, so she continued quickly. “I’m sorry to disappoint you. I’m sorry I hurt you. I’m sorry that I won’t get to bake pies and wait for you on Thursday evenings or sit beside you in church.”

  I’m sorry I won’t be your wife.

  I’m sorry we won’t grow old together.

  I’m sorry I let you hope for this long.

  The Amish children would never be behind them, but between them.

  CHAPTER 42

  Ella stood for a moment on Wednesday outside the schoolhouse before going in, savoring her mind’s image of children carrying their lunch buckets and books, arriving to greet the teacher and begin the day.

  She turned toward the touch on the back of her shoulder. Gideon’s approach had escaped her perception, but the sight of him warmed her.

  “What are you thinking?” Gideon asked.

  “I was imagining the school open and thriving,” Ella said, looking at the man who would soon be her husband. How good God was to turn Gideon’s heart toward Ella.

  “We will thrive,” he said.

  “We just need a teacher.”

  His answer came a few seconds later than Ella expected. “God will provide.”

  She allowed silence to linger as they gazed at the schoolhouse and Gideon’s fingers grazed hers. Only three more weeks and she could be in his arms every day. Every night.

  “It will be odd not to have English students like the ones we knew when we were children,” Ella said. “Sally Templeton and I sat side by side for four years. I sometimes wonder whatever happened to her.”

  “High school, I suppose,” Gideon said.

  “Yes, no doubt.” Sally would have gone to high school in town about the time Ella’s mother passed away. Ella had always expected to take her share of the farm chores after she finished school, but having to keep house for her father on her own was a startling surprise. Not a day had passed in the last twelve years that Ella did not think of her mother and how her own life might have been different if her mother was still the woman keeping house and tending children on the Hilty farm.

  Ella looked around. “Where are the kinner? I thought they had the afternoon off of school for the Thanksgiving holiday tomorrow.”

  “Miriam insisted Gertie would be underfoot here,” Gideon said. “The sensible thing was to keep them all home. James is coming later.”

  “In time for the meeting?”

  Gideon nodded. “We should go in.”

  They walked together down the gentle slope. Chester Mast had propped open the door, and his sons were carrying in a set of shelves.

  “A place to put the lunch buckets and coats,” Gideon said. “This time when we open, we’ll be more than ready. Percival says we must not give Mr. Brownley any reason to suggest that we are falling short even in a small way.”

  Inside, while the Masts debated the most useful position for the heavy shelving, Ella and Gideon exchanged one last smile before parting. Gideon crossed the room to join the men stacking wood for the stove in one corner, and Ella joined the women organizing supplies.

  “Here’s Ella now,” Rachel said.

  Lindy stood beside her friend, looking more stable on her feet than Ella had judged her to be two days ago.

  “Ella,” Lindy said, “did you find it more useful to keep extra paper for the pupils in the teacher’s desk or in a separate cupboard?”

  Lindy gestured, and Ella’s eyes widened at the wide cupboard on the side wall.

  “It’s lovely!” Ella said. The young woman who accepted a position teaching here would have every reason to be pleased with the schoolhouse and its furnishings.

  “It’s probably a good thing we had nothing like this when we were girls,” Rachel said. “I would have hidden in the cupboard to avoid spelling tests.”

  Lindy laughed. “And I never would have told the teacher you were there.”

  “What about when you were a teacher?” Rachel asked. “Did you have students like that?”

  Ella drew a startled breath. How had she forgotten Lindy’s years in the classroom? Ella had been ten or eleven, old enough to remember her teachers. What else had she blotted out in the years after her mother’s death?

  “I was never a teacher.” Lindy waved a hand. “It was all my parents’ idea. The English teacher needed an extra pair of hands with the little ones, so I came in to help. I was sixteen, and my parents didn’t know what to do with me after …”

  Ella knew the unspoken end of Lindy’s sentence. After she decided that she did not want to be baptized and join the Amish congregation as an adult member.

  “Did you think about becoming a teacher?” Ella asked.

  Lindy shook her head. “Rachel married Peter Kaufman when we were nineteen, and it was time for me to make my own way. Marriage was not for me. I moved to town and started selling small crafts.”

  “You’ve done well,” Ella murmured. She stepped toward the cupboard and ran her fingers over the smooth pine finish. Surely Gideon knew Lindy had once assisted a teacher. He must. Lindy was his sister-in-law. Betsy would have told him. Ella glanced across the room at Gideon, who was stoking the woodstove. The room was chilly, and he would want it warm enough for the meeting that everyone would be attentive.

  Someone opened the front door again, and cold air whooshed into the schoolhouse. Ella shuddered against the sudden sensation and, like everyone else, looked to see who had arrived.

  “It’s Miss Simpson,” she said, surprised.

  Margaret’s arms overflowed with books and binders, and Ella rushed to catch the items threatening to topple off the precarious stack.

  “I’ve brought things a teacher might like to have,” Margaret explained as she divested her load on the nearest desk. “This will be such a nice place to teach. So cozy!”

  The room was warming nicely, and Margaret shed her coat.

  “I have some old textbooks for the younger children that have plenty of wear left in them. After all, learning to read doesn’t change much, does it?”

  Ella picked up a thick gray binder. “Neither does making sums, I guess.”

  “Those are old lesson plans,” Margaret said. “They worked well for me when I taught in a one-room schoolhouse. Maybe another teacher would find them of help in getting started.”

  “I’m sure any teacher would be grateful to have all this,” Ella said.

  “Any progress on the search?”

  Ella shook her head. “The teachers college has no candidates to recommend at this point in time. Apparently Gideon was about to respond to an inquiry when Deputy Fremont arrested him. When she didn’t hear back from him, the candidate took another position.”

  “That is unfortunate,” Margaret said.

  Margaret flipped open a binder and began explaining its contents. Ella listened politely but not attentively. All of this would make sense to a trained teacher, so Ella did not need to absorb the information. Instead, she wondered whether Margaret had burned her bridges with the school district. Would she be seeking a new position? After all Margaret had done for the Amish families, Ella could think of no solution more perfect.

  “Margaret,” she said.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” Margaret said without looking up from the binder. “But I don’t expect Mr. Brownley will be eager to continue our association, and if this school is going to succeed, the last thing you need is a teacher he regards as an adversary.”

  Ella swallowed back her hope. Margaret was right.

  “What will you do?” Ella asked.

  “My sister writes me letter upon letter about how much she misses me,” Margaret said. “I’m thinking of returning to Columbus next summer.”

  A stone of disappointment sank down into Ella’s abdomen. She raised her gaze at the somber sound of Gideon’s voice.

  “Let�
�s gather,” he said.

  “As you know,” Gideon began, “we are here today because all of us would like to see our own school open as soon as possible.”

  The nods Gideon expected greeted him.

  “An Amish teacher would be best,” he said, “and I’m sure you would agree that we are opening a school in the first place because we want the best for our children.”

  He dared not meet Ella’s eyes. Not in this moment. Not when his resolve must not fail.

  “That’s a cockamamy idea,” Aaron King said. “We tried that. It got us arrested.”

  “A qualified Amish teacher,” Gideon said. “Even Mr. Brownley would not object to this teacher, because she would demonstrate beyond question that she is more than capable for the job.”

  Lindy stood up. “I would like to volunteer to teach.”

  Chester Mast shuffled his feet. “I don’t understand,” he said. “What qualifications do you have?”

  Gideon hoped that having the school on Chester’s land would not make him feel he had a particular role above the other parents in the decisions they faced. They would need to form a proper school committee made up of several fathers.

  “It’s true I haven’t been to teachers college,” Lindy said. “But for two years I did assist an English teacher. I went to a one-room school myself. I understand the environment. I am willing to become qualified if Mr. Eggar can determine a route to qualification other than the teachers college. I might be a bridge between the school board and the church.”

  “But how long would that take?” Joshua Glick asked.

  “Perhaps there is some sort of probationary status,” Lindy said, “some way they could let me teach while I prove myself.”

  Gideon had not expected Lindy’s offer. He let his eyes drift to Ella now. Even when she began teaching his daughters and a few others, the plan had always been to find a permanent teacher. The stack of correspondence with the teachers college, on his desk at home, proved this intention. Only the last letter mattered now.

  We are unable to assist you further at this time, it said. We will of course retain your inquiries, and perhaps next summer we will have a recommendation for you when we have new graduates.