It didn’t take long for Little Wolf to feel comfortable, and pretty soon he and Zack and Artie and I got to be good friends. I was so happy for Zack to have some boys his own age to be with. He brightened up a lot and started really looking forward to going to school every day. When the three of them would go off together, I didn’t mind, because Miss Stansberry always treated me like her friend. She and I always had school things to talk about during free time and at lunch.
Tad and Becky and Emily had the time of their lives, although it wasn’t altogether pleasant having the assistant’s ten-year-old sister being the class cut-up. But there was no changing Becky! Emily, who was twelve, made up for Becky’s rambunctiousness by studying hard. And Tad did what all the other eight-year-old boys in the class did—worked as much as he had to, but spent most of his energy on recess.
Maybe nobody is what you expect them to be like. Miss Stansberry certainly wasn’t like I figured her to be. Knowing that she was crippled, and finding out she needed an assistant, made me expect her to be helpless or weak, and maybe not too interesting a person. But once she was in Miracle Springs, once I knew her personally, I realized I had figured on a dull, uninteresting, feeble lady with a soft, boring voice.
I couldn’t have been more wrong!
I’m not good at fixing people’s ages. One minute I’d almost think Miss Stansberry and I were friends and practically the same age. Then something would happen to make me realize she had taught in two or three other schools before coming to Miracle and was closer to Pa’s age than mine. When we knew each other better I finally asked her age. She said she was twenty-nine.
At first glance there was nothing unusual about Miss Stansberry. Her hair was blond and pulled straight back from her face in a bun. She was thin, which made her look taller than she was, although I don’t think she was more than 5ʹ5″ or 5ʹ6″. When I stood facing her she was an inch or two taller than I was. Her skin wasn’t pale like an invalid’s—it had a good creamy flesh tone. But when she got riled it could change to all shades of pink and red. When she was sitting quietly at her desk, her mouth seemed small, but then when she smiled it widened out, showing her teeth.
At first I didn’t even notice the color of her eyes. I think they were blue. Rather than the color of them, I noticed their activity—they were always roving about the classroom, wide awake, taking in more than her mouth or any other part of her features would have told you. By the second day of school, I could tell that nothing would get past this lady! Her voice wasn’t loud, but it was a bit on the deep side for a woman, a pleasant voice to hear. That voice made her even more in control when she spoke, and soon everyone in the class learned to shut their own mouths and listen when Miss Stansberry opened hers.
The first day she was nice, smiling and laughing with us, making the school enjoyable. Early in the afternoon, Jeffrey Hobbes forgot to leave some of his brawling outside after he came in from lunch. He was cutting up and being wild. Miss Stansberry let him interrupt only once. The second time, he turned around to tease little Mary Johnston, who didn’t need any help disrupting things despite the innocent look on her face! When Jeffrey turned back toward Mary, Miss Stansberry kept right on talking calmly, while she slowly limped in their direction.
All of a sudden—wham! Down on the middle of Jeffrey’s desk came Miss Stansberry’s cane with a loud crash! Jeffrey nearly jumped out of his skin!
I watched it all from my desk. The class was totally silent. Mary sat there with her face pale white and her eyes huge.
Miss Stansberry slowly made her way back to the front of the room, then turned around to face the class. She hesitated a minute while every one of the children stared at her.
Then she smiled broadly, showing no sign of anger, and said in a very quiet voice, “When I was young, I was taught that the moment a grown-up opens his or her mouth to speak, all children should immediately close theirs, even if the grown-up is not talking to them. This is especially true with teachers. I do not know if that is how your parents have taught you, but in this classroom that is the rule. I hope I do not have to remind you of it again.”
Right then I think all of us knew that our new teacher was a lady with gumption and that her being crippled wasn’t a handicap at all.
But you’d hardly know any of this about her just by seeing her walking down the street. If you did look a second time, it would likely be on account of her cane, and maybe you’d feel sorry for her. But if you were close enough and looked a second time, her face would draw you back for a third glance. She wasn’t so pretty all by herself, but that face needed a closer look.
When Pa was nice enough to invite her out to our place for dinner one Sunday afternoon, I saw Uncle Nick do all that I just described. He looked at her once, kind of glanced down in the direction of her cane, then looked back again, but this time his eyes were drawn to her face. She had brushed her hair down that day and it fell to her shoulders, so she looked different, and in that moment she’d taken her glasses off to scratch one of her eyes. So she looked a little more attractive than normal. But when he thought no one was noticing—and I suppose I was the only one who did—I saw Uncle Nick glance in her direction a third time, and this time he looked straight at her eyes.
After school one day she and I walked over to the General Store together. We happened to meet Rev. Rutledge on our way inside, just as he was coming out the door, and I saw him do the same thing. He already knew her pretty well, but after he first greeted us, he glanced back at her face twice. It was just two quick little looks, but I couldn’t help noticing. It seemed everyone found more in her face to wonder about every time they saw it, and they just couldn’t keep from going back.
I liked Miss Stansberry, and I think most of the other people around town did, too. Before a month was out, folks forgot all about her being crippled.
Chapter 17
Our Second Christmas
When Christmas came, we had a big dinner at our place!
It was Pa’s idea. He and Uncle Nick had steadily been working on the cabin all year. Now that they could afford to buy what they needed, and had a growing family of seven in all, the place had kept getting smaller and smaller. Pa added our room right after we came, and by now he’d had also put in another bedroom off on the other side of the cabin for himself and Uncle Nick. He was even talking about a third room, so the two boys could share one room and we three girls another!
In the meantime, though, in the process of putting on his and Uncle Nick’s room, he’d redone the main room. It was now a little bigger with more of a separate kitchen-place to work when I was cooking and fixing meals. It wasn’t just a cabin anymore but a good-sized house. I think Pa was proud of the place and wanted to show it off a little.
Or maybe he just wanted to be hospitable. Ma always said hospitality was what turned a house into a home, and Pa had mentioned that a time or two.
Whatever his reasons, one day about the middle of December he said to me, “Corrie, what would you think if we was to have some folks out here for Christmas afternoon?”
“I’d like that, Pa,” I answered him.
“I mean a great big fancy dinner. We’ll have it right here, and we’ll let folks see that we’re a family and this is our home.”
“Yes, Pa!” I replied, excited already. “You mean folks like Mrs. Parrish—”
“Sure,” he answered back quickly, “her and her minister-friend—”
“He’s our friend too, isn’t he, Pa?”
“Yes, of course—the Parrish woman, Rutledge, maybe your new teacher and her brother—wouldn’t want them to have no place to go right after comin’ to town—an’ Alkali.”
“Oh, Pa, I can’t wait! Do you want me to tell Miss Stansberry and Mrs. Parrish when I’m in town for school tomorrow?”
“No, Corrie, I’m the man of the house. I’ll do the invitin’.”
I’d noticed him mention being the man of the house or the head of the family several times lately. I think i
t was still heavy on his mind, like he’d explained when he’d read us the letter from Miss Morgan that he had a responsibility to provide for us and protect us and all. How Christmas dinner fit into that, I wasn’t quite sure, except that I think Pa had been looking for ways to do what I already thought he did better than any man I knew of—being what you’d call a “family man.”
He did invite them too, the very next day. He wouldn’t even let me go along. Wanted to do it himself, he said. He even took a bath and put on a fresh shirt for the occasion, as if going to Mrs. Parrish’s just to invite her to dinner was an event in itself. It looked to me like at last the two of them were starting to get along real well. I found myself secretly wishing something would go wrong with Miss Katie Morgan’s plans to come out West.
There was a change in Mrs. Parrish too. I noticed it for the first time when she arrived out at our place that Christmas morning. She’d always been so nice to me and I knew we were friends. Although she and Pa’d had their differences, she was civil to him and they’d been getting along fine for a long time.
But when she came out that Christmas morning, it wasn’t just that she was nice to me and the kids, she suddenly seemed a part of our lives—all of us, Pa and Uncle Nick too. She wasn’t like a stranger helping us out. She looked like she really belonged, like she wanted to belong to all of our lives—not just the part of us that came to town and visited her in her house.
Of course she came with Rev. Rutledge as usual. But as soon as they got there they went their separate ways, and the minister didn’t really seem to know what to do with himself. He tried to talk to Pa and Uncle Nick; they were polite and answered his questions about the mine and what they were doing around the place. But there was a kind of awkwardness too. It was clear he was trying to fit in where he didn’t really belong.
I don’t fault him for that, because that’s what a minister’s got to do sometimes—he’s got to be interested in what people are doing. And Pa was as polite to him as he could be. Pa had come to respect the minister’s willingness to dirty his hands and get blisters building the church and pitching in and helping folks when he could.
Even on that day, I saw them once standing by the creek together talking. The minister was kneeling down scooping up a handful of the gravelly dirt and Pa was pointing to something—probably a flake of gold—and explaining something to the minister. And I knew that the part of Rev. Rutledge that didn’t act like a fuddy-duddy about man’s work, Pa thought a good deal of. Yet there was still a difference between them—ministers, it seemed to me at least, just couldn’t ever really be like other men. Or maybe it was just that other men could never completely forget that a man was a minister, and therefore couldn’t help treating him just a little different. I won’t say Pa put on his good behavior around Rev. Rutledge. Pa wasn’t that sort of man. But he didn’t talk to him like he would to Alkali Jones either.
The minute Mrs. Parrish set foot out of the minister’s buggy that day, it was like she was one of our family, and Rev. Rutledge was the only guest. Always before, when we’d visit at her place in town, it was the two of them—Mrs. Parrish and the minister—with us kind of set apart. But this day it was different!
She marched right into the house, greeting everyone warmly, shaking Pa’s hand and smiling at him and thanking him for inviting her to be part of our family’s Christmas. She carried a big basket in her hand full of rolls she had made and cranberries and several pies. All the kids were clamoring around her as she went in, Pa following too; and when she set the basket down on the table and started pulling out the pies, Pa laughed and said he’d asked for them. It was such a nice friendly atmosphere, just the way Christmas ought to be!
And then as the men looked on, she pulled off her coat, took off her bonnet, handed them to Pa, then looked at me and Emily and said, “Well, girls, what’s to be done? Let’s get this Christmas feast underway!”
She strode into the kitchen like it was her own with Emily and Becky and me following behind her, proceeding to lift lids and sniff and poke around to assess what I’d already done. Within five minutes we were all working away on different parts of the meal. Mrs. Parrish sure brightened up the place!
When the men started to walk outside, I saw a look of hesitation on Zack’s face. Ordinarily he would have gone off with the men in a second, but I think even he could feel the warmth inside the house just from having Mrs. Parrish there. When she asked him if he’d like to help by setting out the plates and silverware on the table, he almost looked relieved to have a reason to stay inside with Mrs. Parrish and the rest of us.
Alkali Jones was the next to show up and not long after him Miss Stansberry and her brother Hermon rode up in their buggy. Miss Stansberry came inside to help us while all the men took a walk up the creek to the mine. It was an hour later before everything was ready. It took the meat a good while to cook—Mr. Jones had brought a salted ham and Pa’d killed four fat chickens for the meal—and we had to cut up a lot of potatoes for that many mouths.
At last we were ready, and how small that house seemed with twelve people sitting around the table, even with the extra planks Pa brought in! Everybody had such fresh and happy looks on their faces—Mrs. Parrish and Miss Stansberry had rosy glowing cheeks from being inside and working over boiling kettles and the hot stove. And all the men had that crisp look of walking into a warm room from the cold outside. But it was the smiles most of all that said to me this was what Christmas was supposed to be like.
When Pa pulled out Ma’s Bible, I thought I was going to start crying for joy. I thought he’d forgotten all about it earlier in the morning when we’d given each other our gifts. But he hadn’t at all! He’d just been saving it for now, like he really was trying to let all these other folks be part of our family.
“Before we get this eatin’ shindig underway,” Pa said, “I think I oughta read the Christmas passage. It’s somethin’ me and Aggie started after Corrie was born. I don’t mean to be intrudin’ on your territory, Reverend, but I reckon if me and these kids’re gonna have to get along without her—”
Pa stopped, but only for a second. I could tell this wasn’t easy for him to do, but was something he felt he had to do.
“If we’re gonna get along without her, then I reckon there’s some things in the way of religious instruction maybe I’m gonna have to start attendin’ to.”
He stopped again, opened the Bible, and started reading the familiar words from Luke: “And it came to pass in those days that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus, that all the world should be taxed. . . .”
As he read, there was not just a silence in the room but a deep sense of something else too, something like contentment or peace. Even Uncle Nick and Mr. Jones had looks of respect on their faces. A year earlier they might have kidded Pa for being too “religious.” But now I think they realized he was becoming even a stronger man than before, that the family side of him was taking a firmer hold on things. Pa didn’t seem embarrassed about doing what he was doing in front of the minister. I was so proud of him!
Mrs. Parrish saw it too, because when Pa finished and sat down and closed the Bible, she was looking deeply into his face with a glistening around her eyes.
There was just a moment’s hesitation, then she said, “Thank you so much, Mr. Hollister, for sharing that part of your family’s tradition with the rest of us! It makes us feel very much included in your family on this holy day.”
Rev. Rutledge added an “Amen,” and there were a few other comments and thank-yous. Then Mrs. Parrish said—and in thinking it over afterward, I’m sure she did it to save Pa being put on the spot—“It looks to me like the food’s about ready to eat. Rev. Rutledge, would you be so kind as to offer thanks to the Lord for us?”
I could see that Pa was relieved, for reading from the Bible is a different matter from praying out loud in front of a lot of people. By the time Rev. Rutledge finally got around to his “Amen,” Pa probably wished he had done the praying,
because it was time to start thinking about how to warm the food up again!
Chapter 18
Pa’s Announcement
It was sure a different Christmas dinner than last year!
Everything had been so tense then, with angry words exchanged between Pa and Rev. Rutledge, ending with Pa’s leaving the house. Who’d have ever thought that a year later we’d be sitting around a table together again, laughing and talking like everyone’d been friends for years? And by the end of the meal even Mr. and Miss Stansberry seemed like part of our Miracle Springs family.
“So tell me, Mr. Jones,” Miss Stansberry was saying, since she happened to be sitting next to the old prospector, “you say you were the first to discover gold in this area?”
“That’s right, ma’am. It was all on account—”
“Come on, Alkali,” interrupted Pa with a laugh, “we’ve all heard that story a dozen times, and you don’t want to bore the schoolteacher with somethin’ she’ll see right through!”
“On the contrary, I would like to hear it.”
“It ain’t nothin’ but a parcel of make-believe, Miss Stansberry,” put in Uncle Nick.
“Nevertheless,” she replied, turning to Uncle Nick, “I think I ought to be allowed to judge that for myself. But before Mr. Jones continues, I must ask you to please call me Harriet.”
“My pleasure, ma’am,” said Uncle Nick, giving her a nod of the head. “Now please, Mr. Jones, in spite of what your friends say, I want to hear your account.”
Pa and Uncle Nick leaned back in their chairs as if expecting a good laugh, and Alkali Jones lit into his story of finding gold in the Miracle Springs Creek. All the others listened in rapt attention, while Pa and Uncle Nick, with Zack joining in their fun, chuckled and winked through it all.
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