Tennessee Waltz

by Simmons, Trana Mae

  "It's like this," Dan began.

  His stern voice confirmed her fear, and Sarah curled her hands, her nails digging into her palms.

  "This school is somethin' we have always supported ourselves," Dan went on. "We're proud of the fact that we've always managed to have a teacher here for every term, and always had enough money to pay her. Maybe our books and supplies ain't like a teacher would find in a large town, but they're the best we can do. The absolute best."

  Sarah leaned forward. "But don't you see, Dan? If you had better books and supplies here, you'd attract better teachers. I'm sorry, but that Miss Elliot was incompetent. She . . ."

  Quickly interpreting the look growing on Dan's face, Sarah leaned back and shut her mouth. Now she'd done it. Not only had she denigrated the precious books probably every mountain family had helped gather up, she'd also maligned their choice of teacher. Prudence Elliot was probably the only teacher they could afford, or at least the best of a poor bunch. She hung her head in shame.

  "I'm sorry, Dan. I didn't think."

  "I wish I could say it was all right, Sarah, but it ain't. You have to understand that you can't just come in here and decide you know better for these people than they do themselves. These people don't have much, but what they do have, they've earned all theirselves. They figger charity is for those who don't have any gumption or who don't have friends and neighbors to help them out. We all work together here."

  "Dan," Sarah said earnestly. "I truly didn't ask for new books. I think I know what might have happened. The church I attend supports a couple mission schools, and perhaps these books were initially targeted for those schools. But when Pastor Pollywig got the notification from my attorney, he probably diverted the books here. I admit, I . . . the Channing family has always made consistent and large contributions to our church, so Pastor Pollywig was probably showing his appreciation by giving the books to a school I'd brought to his attention. Please, Dan. Don't deprive the children of the benefit of those books. I'll write to the pastor and ask him if that's what happened."

  Brow furrowed in concentration, Dan puffed on his pipe. "Well," he finally said. "I supposed if they came from a church it's a little different. Even if they probably were bought with money that came from your own funds."

  "Oh, Dan. All the money Pastor Pollywig collects goes into one big account. There's no way to tell whose money bought what."

  Suddenly Dan broke up into laughter, shaking his head. "Pastor Pollywig?" he finally choked out. "Where on earth did he get a name like that?"

  Relieved at the break in tension, Sarah giggled back at him. "Oh. I didn't realize that's what I was calling him. His real name is Pastor Paulmeister, but as children we always called him Pastor Pollywig. It's sort of a play on polliwog. He always dresses in black and he sits a lot, so he's rather broad across the hips. When he walks, he's got a little sway to him, like a polliwog does when it swims. Sort of a wiggle."

  Dan continued to chuckle. "Sure hope I don't get like that from sittin' in this chair all the time."

  Sarah rose, hoping their discussion was ended on this more pleasant note. "I better go see if Mandy needs any help."

  "I'll be there in a minute."

  Sarah hurried from the room, but outside in the hallway, she leaned against the wall, closing her eyes briefly. Taking a deep breath, she reopened them and carefully checked to make sure Mandy wasn't coming to call them in to supper. She needed a minute to get her legs steady.

  Given his lecture on the schoolbooks, what on earth was Dan going to do when her other order arrived? She probably should just cancel it, but it was likely too late. It ought to arrive any day now.

  Intermingled with her feeling of chastisement, however, Sarah felt a tiny bit of anger. Why on earth should every attempt she made to help these people be resisted? Couldn't they see she had the means to do things for them and just accept that?

  Evidently they couldn't, and it made her realize more and more she would never fit in here. These people would never accept her. They would always turn every attempt she made to give them a better life over and over in their minds, suspicious that she was undermining their pride. How could she make them understand she only wanted to help the children?

  Wyn would side with Dan every time something like this came up, she realized. No matter how much they were attracted to each other, it could never be a long-term thing. Given all the thinking Wyn had said he would be doing, she supposed he was probably already coming to that same conclusion. After all, it wasn't as if they were two youngsters, like Lonnie and Carrie.

  Still, she mused, Wyn was enough younger than her to maybe not have the maturity to see the bigger picture. She would have to be the sensible one, although being a woman, she would be expected to bow to whatever male directives were passed out to her.

  She straightened and thinned her lips. Well, she would see about that. As long as she didn't have a father to order her around and control her by managing her funds, as well as not having a husband, she didn't have to bow to a man. If only there was some way to have a child without having to have a domineering man as part of the bargain . . .

  Huh, her mind told her. You weren't being dominated on the bed the other night. You were a full partner there, Miss Debutante.

  "Hush up, mind!" she whispered sternly. "And quit calling me that name!"

  "Sarah?" Mandy called. "Are you talking to Dan? If so, tell him to come on into the kitchen and eat."

  "Uh . . . we'll be right there, Mandy," she replied, avoiding admitting to Mandy she was talking to herself.

  She started back for Dan, only to find him already at the door of the room.

  "I heard her," he said. "I'm on my way."

  Sarah stepped aside and let him roll on by. After he'd gone part way down the hallway, she touched her cheek, confirming the rising heat there. Land sakes, if Mandy had heard her muttering to her mind all the way in the kitchen, Dan probably had heard it from only a few feet away. It certainly wasn't proper for a schoolteacher to go around talking to herself. Hopefully, Dan wouldn't add that to her growing list of sins.

  She followed him into the kitchen, and they ate a leisurely meal, with Sarah letting Dan and Mandy carry the bulk of the conversation. Distracted as she was with her own thoughts, she still couldn't avoid being aware of the changed atmosphere between Dan and Mandy. They sat across from her at the table, touching now and then when they felt like it and teasing back and forth at other times.

  After a delicious piece of apple pie, which Sarah could only eat a couple bites of, Mandy shooed her from the table.

  "I could help you with the dishes," Sarah offered. Anything would be better than sitting around her cabin for the next twenty minutes, wondering whether or not Wyn would show up.

  "Dan will help," Mandy told her. "And let me wrap up that pie for you to take with you. Maybe you'll get hungry for a snack a little later. Why, you barely even touched your stew."

  As Mandy carried the pie to the counter, Dan gave her a pondering look.

  "Mandy's right, Sarah. You didn't eat much at all. I hope you're not upset over the talk we had."

  "Oh, no, no," she assured him. Although if she'd been totally honest, that had started her upsetting train of thought. "I just need to remember . . ."

  The scream came from outside, faint with distance but leaving no doubt in Sarah's mind of the panic interlacing it. Mandy dropped the pie and saucer she was carrying, and the saucer shattered on the floor. Both women froze, eyeing each other in dread.

  Dan didn't hesitate. He was halfway down the hallway in his wheelchair before he called over his shoulder, "That's Sissy! Come on!"

  His order thawed both her and Mandy, and they picked up their skirts and raced after him. She had no idea how Dan determined which one of his daughters had screamed, but she knew with certainty whatever had caused the panic was serious. The scream had been blood-curdling, and she could only hope that nothing had happened to either Bobbie or Baby Sarah.

>   Dan barely paused at the newly-constructed ramp, but it was long enough for Sarah to bypass him and race toward the store, leaving Mandy to follow with Dan. A strange horse stood cock-hipped at the hitching post, along with a horse she thought she recognized from Dan's stable. Both saddles were empty, and the people on the porch were gathered around something.

  As Sarah pounded up the steps, Wyn turned as though in response to the noise her feet made. Past him, inside the circle of people, she saw a body lying on the floor. Sissy knelt beside it, sobbing and reaching out a hand, then drawing it back.

  Wyn caught Sarah and pulled her to one side. "I don't think you better look at this. It's Robert, and he's burned pretty bad."

  "Burned?" Sarah asked, horrified. "How? Is he . . ?"

  "He's hurt seriously, but he's still alive. Look, the best thing you can do is keep the children occupied and out of our hair right now. Can you help Mandy do that?"

  "Of course."

  Dan yelled from the bottom of the steps, "Damn it, Wyn! Get me up there! What's happened?"

  Wyn left her and leaped down beside Dan's chair. As he turned it backward to pull it up the steps, he shot orders over his shoulder.

  "You young'uns go on over to Sarah's cabin and wait. Carrie, you stay here to help Sissy and Mandy out." He pushed Dan's chair up beside the figure on the porch and left him, gently taking hold of the arms of the younger children and urging them down the steps. "Go on now. Sarah will take care of you."

  She followed them on down the steps, nearly stumbling when she heard Dan breathe, "Goddamn that still! I've told that boy to make sure his connections are always tight."

  "Hold on, Pa," Wyn soothed. "Cabbage said he'd already sent one of his boys after Leery. We'll get Robert inside and wait for her."

  This time when Sarah glanced back, without the crowd around the figure blocking her view of the porch, she could see Robert. His upper body was wet, but what drew her horrified gaze was the side of his face. It looked as raw and red as a piece of uncooked beefsteak. Covering her mouth to hold back the rising bile, she hurried toward her cabin, with a pack of sobbing children following her.

  As soon as she got into the cabin, she wished she'd gone to the schoolhouse instead. Her place was far too small for all the children, especially when she noticed Pris carrying Baby Sarah and Bobbie tugging on Mairi's hand. But she would make do the best she could. In fact, the closeness necessitated inside the cabin might even be better for the scared children.

  She lit a lantern and hung it on the hook on the ceiling beam. "Put the baby on the bed," she directed Pris. "And I'll spread one of the extra blankets on the floor for the rest of you. We can tell stories to each other."

  Jute stuck out his lip and screwed his hands down further into his denim bib overhaul pockets. "Don't want to tell no stories," he muttered. "Want to go out there with an ax and chop up that stupid still, so Robert don't get hurt again."

  "Won't do no good," Luke assured him. "Robert'd just build 'nother one."

  "A still?" Sarah asked, recalling that Dan had mentioned the same word. "What is a still?"

  "Makes white lightnin'. Moonsh . . ." Jute began, then hollered, "Ow! What'd you kick me for, Pris? That hurt!"

  Pris ignored him and scooted up onto the bed beside the baby. When Sarah glanced at Mairi, the other young girl also avoided her gaze. Lifting Bobbie, she laid him on the bed and, following Pris's example, stretched out beside her charge.

  "Oh," Jute said next, as though something had suddenly dawned on him. He sidled a quick glance at Sarah, then asked his twin, "Uh . . . did you bring Swishy with you, Luke?"

  "Swishy?" Sarah demanded, immediately distracted. "Look, I've told you before that I don't care for snakes. Where is he?"

  Luke gave a heavy sigh and reached into the front flap of his overhauls. When he pulled his hand back out, Swishy dangled from his grasp.

  "He won't hurt you none, Miss Sarah," Luke pleaded. "I'll make sure he don't get loose."

  "I'll bet," Sarah said grimly. "There's all sorts of ways he can crawl out of that flap on your overhauls."

  "I gots a pocket sewed inside for him," Luke said. "Sissy sewed it for me. She . . ." Suddenly a sob escaped him and a tear tumbled down his already streaked cheeks. "Robert ain't gonna die, is he? Sissy won't be able to stand it iffen he does. She loves him an awful lot."

  Wanting nothing more than to rush forward and hold the twin, Sarah nevertheless eyed the snake uneasily. "Put Swishy back in his pocket, and we'll talk about it, Luke."

  "Aw right," he said with a sniff.

  As soon as he complied, Sarah knelt and held out her arms. Both he and Jute rushed to her and buried their faces on her shoulders.

  "Robert's nice to us," Jute said. "We missed him when he went to West Virginie to look for a job. And if he d . . . dies, he'll be gone forever, like Ma."

  Luke spoke up next. "We already don't even 'member what Ma looks like that well, Miss Sarah. But Pa gave us each a picture of her. And I don't think Sissy's even got a picture of Robert. She was gonna have that travelin' picture taker take one for her, but Robert'd already gone to West Virginie when the picture taker came back through."

  Sarah knew they were babbling because of their worry over their sister and her husband, and she couldn't for the life of her think of anything to ease their fear. The sight of Robert's face lingered in her mind, and the twins had seen it too. She had no idea how badly Robert was injured, either. He'd appeared to be unconscious, but that could also have resulted from the horrible pain he must be feeling.

  She held them a little tighter, but loosened her hold when she felt something wiggling against her breast on the side where Luke clung — the snake, she was sure.

  "I'll tell you what," she said, awkwardly leaning back on her heels. "Let's pray for Robert. We can tell God how much we love him and that we'd like him to stay with us down here for a while, not go up to Heaven."

  "But you hardly even knows Robert," Jute said logically. "Won't you be a tellin' God a lie if you say you love him?"

  Despite her worry, Sarah had to smile at the child. Jute would probably never learn tact, and his habit of speaking his honest mind was endearing, rather than troublesome.

  "I'll tell God that I love Robert as a fellow man, Jute. That will work, won't it?"

  He studied the question for a minute, then nodded his head. "Reverend Jackson says we's s'posed to love our fellow man, so that should do it." He pulled away from her and grabbed Luke's hand to lead him over to the bed.

  "Come on, Luke. And you and Mairi get down on the floor and kneel with us, Pris," he ordered. "We wants to be real respectful to God, so he knows how important Robert is to us."

  Sarah joined them in kneeling beside the bed, folding her hands and bending her head over them. She allowed Jute to take the lead, and he poured out his little heart in his prayer, telling God how Robert had showed him the secret place where the fish always bit and where the wild strawberries his pa loved grew the sweetest.

  Luke added that Robert had spent all day once searching the woods after a spring rain because Sissy had mentioned she was hungry for mushrooms. "That's when Baby Sarah was still in her belly, God," Luke told him. "Pa says that sometimes women gets powerful hungry for certain stuff when they's a carrying a baby in their belly. Sissy, she cried when Robert come in with that sack of mushrooms that evenin'. Pa says women cry lots easier too when they gots a baby in their belly."

  By the time Pris and Mairi had told their own stories of Robert's kindnesses to them, Sarah was teary-eyed. She clenched her fingers even tighter, choosing her words carefully.

  "Even though I don't know Robert that well, God, I love him as a fellow man. And part of the reason I'm sure he's a fine man is what these children say about him. Also, I've seen him and Sissy together, and I know there's a powerful love there. For Sissy's sake and the sake of their children, as well as the other people who love him, please heal Robert, God."

  The "Amens" echoed from all fi
ve throats together, and Jute sniffed, wiping at his nose with his shirtsleeve.

  "Let me get you a hanky, Jute," Sarah said, rising to her feet. "Anyone else need one?"

  Three other heads nodded, so she grabbed several hankies from her bureau drawer. After Pris blew her nose, she sat back on the bed, scrunching up her face when Baby Sarah whimpered a bit.

  "Uh-oh, she's waking up, Miss Sarah," Pris said. "And she always wakes up hungry. What's we gonna do?"

  "Feed her, I guess," Sarah said with a shrug. "I'll run over and get a bottle for her, if you children will wait here and be good."

  "Ain't got no bottles," Jute said, frowning at her. "Sissy al'ys feeds her from her breast. Guess that's what you'll have to do, Miss Sarah. You's the only one here with breasts."

  "What? Oh, Jute . . . uh . . . I can't feed Baby Sarah. I . . . I'm not . . ." She gazed into the expectant, innocent blue eyes beneath that mop of reddish hair, floundering for an explanation that wouldn't humiliate both her and the child.

  "Miss Sarah can't do that," Mairi said in a superior voice, which nonetheless relieved Sarah's stupefaction. "She's not a mama, and only mamas have milk for babies. She'll have to take Baby Sarah over to Sissy."

  Nodding agreement, Pris picked up the baby and held her out to Sarah. "We'uns will be all right, Miss Sarah," she assured her. "We'll just sit right here and be good till you come back."

  "I can read everyone a story now that we feel better after our prayers," Mairi put in. "If you've got any book here that's got words in it I know."

  After shifting the precious bundle Pris handed her into the safety of her hold, Sarah said, "As a matter of fact, I brought The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn home this afternoon to paste some of the pages back in. It's probably dry by now, if you want to try that."

  "Yeah!" both Jute and Luke yelled, with Jute as usual getting the floor for what came next. "Mairi knows lots of the words and we can all help her if she comes across one she can't read. We'll get to hear the next chapter a'fore the rest of the class, but it won't matter if we hear it again tomorrow."