Annie Pike Greenwood

by We Sagebrush Folks

  I think he should have given Mrs. Mead credit for that last statement. That he intended it as a climax is doubtful, but as such it was received. The crowd broke into loud cheering, stamping, clapping, and whistling that might have warmed a disgraced woman’s heart. As Larson resumed, I could tell at once by the quality of his voice that he had accepted the applause as a tribute to his oratorical ability. His voice had attained the confidence of one who is at last certain of his popularity.

  “But I am sorry to say that there is some things that can be said against the lady. The lady is too nervous in a school-room. Little things that she could overlook, she takes as big things. I am sorry to say that she has a bad temper. The lady, I think, would like to be principal. And her language has been far from discreet, and not all what a teacher’s should be. For these reasons I do not think she belongs in a school-room.”

  He made a few more futile remarks which I hardly heard. He took his seat. I stood up, half facing the people and half facing Larson’s back, the bald head directly under my eyes. I purposely paused until the eyes of every other person in that room were fairly riveted upon me. The room became so quiet you could almost hear the breathing. I looked down upon Larson’s averted face, drooping lids, and that bald head. Then, with a wide sweep of my arm and a smile of contempt which the whole room could see, I let my voice boom out in its deepest tones.

  “Professor Larson, at last the veil has been torn aside. You are not the man I thought you were. I feel no sorrow, for if I should grieve, it would be for a true-hearted friend who did not exist. We mourn the dead, but we do not mourn those who have never known existence. You say you pity me. Keep your pity for yourself. You are going to need it. With such principles as you have exposed here tonight, the day will come when you will surely need all the pity of which you are capable for yourself. Only this afternoon you said to me, ‘Don’t let them put anything over you, Mrs. Greenwood, for you have done no wrong!’

  “And so I have taken your advice. Do not deceive yourself—my heart has not felt the slightest pang tonight, nor at any other time. I am perfectly calm in the consciousness that I have done no wrong. That does not mean that no wrong has been done. I realize now what has been the cause of my trouble the whole year, and the reason for the spirit of insubordination in this school. I did not have your support, your backing. How far you have betrayed me, these boys know better than I, and in seeking to blast my reputation here tonight, you have succeeded only in revealing yourself to them. Let what follows be upon your own head.

  “As to your charges: First, I am too nervous for the school-room.” I held out my arm, lifting my hand that all might see. “I ask this crowd to regard closely my hand. Do you detect even the slightest tremor?” I paused. Every eye was fixed upon my hand as it rested as calmly upon the air as the breast of a dove upon its nest. “Does that hand appear to you to be the hand of a nervous person? Yet wouldn’t you consider it pardonable, after all that has passed this night, if that hand should tremble ever so little?

  “As for temper: As God hears me, I have never once, not even to the slightest degree, known what it is to be angry in the schoolroom. I never in my life had a real fit of temper. How many of you here tonight can truthfully say the same? If I had pushed a boy downstairs, this charge might have been brought against me, and justly. If I had slapped a boy in the face, his mother and father would have been justified in considering me unfit for the schoolroom. But the worst that can be said of me is that I have spoken with severity. I admit this. In fact, I consider this a very necessary thing to do in a school-room.

  “The third charge is that there were little things I should have overlooked. I suppose by that is meant the eating of apples during class recitations, the juggling of rulers for the benefit of admiring schoolmates who should have been giving attention to the lesson. Ladies and gentlemen, parents, there are no little things that can be overlooked in a school-room! Good discipline is made up of innumerable little things, not one of which can be overlooked. You should thank me, parents, that I am not the kind of teacher who is willing to overlook the wrong acts in a school-room, for the little ones invariably lead to the big ones. There is no half-way in discipline.

  “Now, as to the last, that I have used indiscreet language: Once committed, I had actually been so indiscreet as to forget the criminally improper words that I must now admit I have been guilty of saying. I am going to make a full and frank confession right now. If there is any one present who feels that he is not able to endure the revelation, I beg that he will either plug his ears or withdraw from the room. I will not belittle my offense. I will state it in all its baldness. On one occasion, ladies and gentlemen, I said...” I paused, bent forward confidentially, and sank my voice to its lowest but perfectly audible note, “I said...‘devil!’” I gave horrified inflection to the word. “And on another occasion I said...” I again gave the word shuddering emphasis, “I said...‘hell!’”

  The room broke into roars of laughter, the men’s hearty voices swelling, with the crisp crackling of the women’s laughter sputtering in the midst. There was not a farmer present who had not spoken worse words that very day. I became suddenly very serious. My audience, observing the change, sobered to perfect stillness. “I said that I would not remain here a single day if the parents of my pupils wished me to go. But I should consider it an injustice, not only to me, but to my pupils, if I departed at the request of only a few parents. Mr. Jensen, I believe that nearly every parent is here tonight. I desire that you take a vote of this meeting. If it proves to be the wish of the parents here tonight that I resign, I will do so, and I will appeal to no court in any way whatever.”

  I sat down, and Jensen announced, “You have heard Mrs. Greenwood’s request. Nothing has been brought against her that will hold water. Do you want to vote whether she will stay or go?”

  Mr. Bagnel was on his feet. “In my opinion the whole trouble is with this high-school principal. I move Mrs. Greenwood stays.”

  “Second the motion!” from Victor’s father.

  “All those in favor of Mrs. Greenwood staying as teacher in this here high school make it known by saying ‘Aye!’”

  A mighty shout went up that fairly lifted the ceiling.

  “All those opposed say, ‘No!’”

  Of course, there was not a single no. I am sure Mrs. Brady would have liked to dissent, but the other three women afterward expressed to me their abhorrence of Larson for having used them as cat’s paws. Mrs. Brady’s only comment, later in the evening, was, “I wish I could talk as Mrs. Greenwood can,” which would lead me to infer that in her opinion I had escaped the just fate of the guilty only through the glibness of my tongue.

  Jensen pronounced my sentence in the following words: “Mrs. Greenwood will continue to teach in the Acequia High School. A motion to adjourn is in order.”

  The motion was made and carried, but nobody adjourned. Everybody simply congregated in different groups about the room, and everybody avoided Larson, who would have welcomed any sort of affiliation. He did not seem to comprehend what this night meant in his career as a teacher in the Acequia High School. Most of the men gathered at once around me, congratulating me. In the center of the room the women formed a nucleus from which suddenly emanated the shrill voices of two angry females. “You did, too!” “I did not!” “You did!” “I didn’t!”

  “Mr. Bagnel,” I smiled at him, “you’d better separate your wife and Mrs. Brady while there is still time.”

  A man gripped my hand. “I wouldn’t of missed this meeting tonight for the best moving picture in the world. By Jimminy, you was great! Why, I never seen a lawyer could beat you. I sure would hate to have you get after me. I sure would hate to be in that skunk of a Prof’s shoes.”

  I had gone alone to that meeting across the long stretch of snow that lay between my house and the school-house. I had looked up trustingly at the blue stars, knowing that God would conduct his case without my planning. I returned over the sa
me route, which wound in and out among the snow-covered greasewood. The stars looked down with the same happy reassurance. And I was not alone. I was attended by a bodyguard of men who seemed reluctant to leave me. At parting, Herman Gillespie said, “I heard some of the men talking tonight of riding Larson out of the district on a rail. For that fellow to accuse her of temper and nerves when she gave such an exhibition of self-control tonight!”

  That night I knelt beside my bed and prayed this prayer, “Thank you, Father!” That was all. Need I have said more? I had turned my case over to God. Could mortal man have done as well with the material at hand? Was there any material not at hand that was needed? Chance? Don’t say that to me! Every chance was against me. If I had failed in faith and had tried to make the battle alone, fear would have been my undoing. Fear is always undoing. Trust is always triumph. But you must have something in which you can trust so implicitly that there is no room for doubt. It is enough for me that the planets do not crash together. It is enough for me to have turned over one case to God and to have seen its unfoldment as at Acequia.

  But this was not the end, though it might well have been considered enough. I slept that night as sweetly as did my two little children. While I was preparing breakfast, I heard the whirr of an automobile coming to a stop beside the gate used jointly by the Meads and me. Glancing up, I noticed Larson seated in his car, waiting, while Jensen, who owned no car, was leaving the auto-mobile. He crossed the yard, hailing Gillespie, who was pumping water. “Did you get much sleep last night?”

  “I should say not!” answered Gillespie, “I don’t believe I slept a wink all night long.”

  “Neither did I. I don’t believe any one in the district slept last night.”

  That seemed amusing to me, considering my dreamless rest, but I did not think it polite to contradict them, under the circumstances. Jensen was a long time in the Mead house. The children and I had finished breakfast before Larson’s car left the gate with Jensen in it. Shortly afterward came a knock on my door. It was Mrs. Mead.

  “Mrs. Greenwood, you can’t guess what that Larson put Jensen up to doing! Actually, Jensen came this morning to ask me to ask you to resign. He said that he and MacMillan had discussed the matter and had decided that you and Professor Larson could never get along together now, after last night. I said, ‘Then why don’t you ask Larson to resign, instead of Mrs. Greenwood?’ Jensen said, ‘Well, Larson is in debt and needs the money.’ I said, ‘I suppose you think Mrs. Greenwood is teaching for her health. I suppose she doesn’t have to support herself and her children.’ I said to him, ‘If you ask me to request Larson to resign, I will do so, but after the fight that woman put up last night, I’ll never ask her to resign. You and MacMillan can do it yourselves. But don’t be surprised if she refuses.’”

  “Thank you, Mrs. Mead,” I said. “I am certainly grateful to you. You are perfectly right. Since I know that nearly every parent wishes me to remain, the trustees could have no power whatever to compel my resignation. I would refuse to resign.”

  That set me thinking. Jensen had held the scales of justice so equitably the night before, yet at the instigation of a man whose character had been proved reprehensible, he was willing to bring pressure on me to resign. You cannot tell when the influence of an unworthy man will cease. If God had not inspired me to send those invitations, how might I have fared “in the presence of mine enemies”? Surely He had set a table before me as unmistakably as any David could boast. But had He not whispered that the invitations be sent—a list of bona-fide taxpayers; four complaining parents; the Principal supporting them; two trustees against me, the third wavering; the big, cold, drafty room with no ears or eyes to compel justice—can you believe for a minute I would have been spared defeat?

  I CONDUCTED the singing as usual the next morning. The pupils watched narrowly both Larson and me. Those who had not been present the night before had listened with the intensest interest to a recital of the petition trial while they ate their breakfasts. Larson had delegated unto himself the office of reading Ten Nights in a Bar Room each morning—I think you may be able to judge the man’s mentality in his choice of Ten Nights in a Bar-Room to read to a high school in modern United States. The quiver of his voice at the touching parts, touching parts which no longer had any touch with actual life, brought only the answering quiver of a smile to those young faces before him.

  I thought they showed admirable self-control. Had I been a student under the same circumstances, I fear I should have ventured one tiny protesting groan. It is not a matter of drinking. I have never felt the need of getting exhilaration from a bottle. I was born intoxicated. The liveliness of my spirit needs no increase. And I scorn the cowardice that must seek false reinforcement to meet the buffets of fate. But the lack of intelligence that imagined anything could be gained for prohibition by reading an obsolete, poorly written, maudlin piece of fiction was a challenge to my sense of humor. I could feel the eyes of the high school resting on my face, ready to reflect my slightest reaction. As Larson had regarded the cracks in the flooring the night before, so now I studied one of the window-blinds with expressionless countenance.

  I cannot imagine why newspapers were instituted—unless it be to provide jobs for cub reporters, such as once was I. And perhaps to kill the monster that all Americans fear—the Monster Time. And to cultivate the American sense of cruel and stupid humor by means of the Sunday supplement, undoubtedly a valuable contribution to the character-building of an American child. Yet, like other citizens of Columbia, I am fascinated by the press. Particularly the little town papers, which have no reason whatever for existing except to thrill the inhabitants with the sight of their own names in public type, for only news that concerns any community travels on wings that are more swift than radio. Who would have expected a report of the trial to reach the ears of the County Superintendent of Schools before the following morning?

  As I began teaching my first class, through the open door I marked the arrival of the little woman with the gray eyes, indomitable features, and beautifully mild manners. When the period was nearly over, a knock on my door summoned me into the hall, where Mrs. Sullivan said, “I have taken from your shoulders the discipline of the high school, where it has so unjustly rested during this whole year. I have told Professor Larson that henceforth he must have the burden of the high school himself, during the day and during the study period. You will have the room he formerly occupied, and he will have yours. You need have nothing whatever to do with him except in so far as your work is concerned.”

  That was how I came to have the smaller, sunnier, warmer, and more comfortable room. Larson was forced to take the big, drafty room that he had imposed upon me, with big-bellied, pompous stove which heated only itself. And whereas, before, I had had no leisure whatever during the day on account of the exigencies of disciplining the entire high school, I now had several hours of my own, free from any strain incident to watching rebelliously disposed students.

  The changed attitude of the pupils was not the least remarkable metamorphosis. Clarissa, Alberta, Rosa, each of them fairly groveled at my feet in the utmost prostrate respect, and where there had been secret sneering for Larson, now there was open insolence. I who have never run with the herd could not help observing these manifestations with a certain sadness. Had I not been inspired to send those invitations, this insolence might have been mine. But no! I am unjust. For had I been expelled from the school, I know that a certain amount of pity, combined with my own impregnable spirit, would have carried me through with some form of dignity. I am unjust, for how could they have heard of the events of that night and retained any respect for Larson? Still, there creeps across my reverie that the justice of the crowd hangs by a hair, and sometimes it visits its revenge upon those who are innocent but weak in defense resourcefulness. Was it because I had been proved right that I was receiving this abject homage, or was it because I had outwitted four farmers’ wives and an illiterate, unprincipled man? />
  That same morning Larson had met cold and cutting insult from the men in Mead’s store, where he went to get his mail, and also at the Acequia Cheese Factory, where he took the milk from his rented cow and where Wendell’s brother was an assistant. Filled with indignation at what he considered inexplicable injustice—he was even as stupid and callous as that—he had come to school only to meet the same contemptuous attitude. Curiously enough, his first encounter during the study period was with Alberta Duggan. Upon her continued whispering, he threatened to throw her out of the window, actually pushing up the sash, his eyes bulging with anger. Of course, this only made him appear ridiculous to the students, but it could not lower their respect, for that was already destroyed.

  During the morning, when the other pupils were occupied elsewhere, Victor Harper came to my desk. “Mrs. Greenwood, I think you ought to know what Professor Larson used to do with us boys when you sent us to him. You remember that day I ate an apple in class? When you sent me to Professor Larson, I was glad to go. We boys used to try to do things that would make you send us to Larson. When I went to him that day, he said, ‘Now, what has that woman been doing? Can’t she get along with you?’ I told him I had been eating an apple in class, and showed him the apple. He said, ‘Never mind. It’s just her bad temper. Just sit down here and wait till it blows over.’ And that is the way he always talked to us whenever you sent us to him. He didn’t want us to hear him praise you in his paper last night.” Victor laughed, showing his beautiful teeth and looking as handsome as possible.

  The next day Rosa appeared before me like an April morning. “Mrs. Greenwood,” she sobbed, “Professor Larson is sore at me since the petition night, and he says that I am going to fail in your subjects—that you will fail me because Mama was on that petition. He says my card is so low now that I cannot get through. Mama told me she knew you now, since that meeting, and that she knew you would be fair, and to come and ask you, because if I can’t get through, she says she will have me stop right now and learn dressmaking.”