Brightest and Best (17 page)

When James took the wide turn onto the main road, something in the load softly slid and came to a stop against the side of the wagon. He scowled, trying to think what he had forgotten to tie down. He hoped it was not the crate of eggs. Few things were more aggravating to clean up than broken eggs. And if the eggs soiled the wall hanging—James refused to dwell on that possibility.

The mercantile came into view. Two women and a man stood on the sidewalk awaiting its opening. James pulled up as close as he could and tied the horse to the hitching post. Pacing along the side of the wagon, for the third time that morning he heard a sound he couldn’t place. The bottom of a brown work boot now protruded from under the tarp.

James swiftly untied the corner of the canvas and flipped it back.

“David, what in the world are you doing here?”

“I needed a ride,” David said. He retrieved a book that had escaped his grasp and scooted out of the wagon.

“Does Jed know where you are?”

David avoided James’s eyes.

James exhaled. “This is about school, isn’t it?”

David’s gaze went down the street in the direction of the schools.

“Answer my questions, please,” James said.

“Yes, I’m going to school,” David said. He looked James in the eye.

“Have you snuck into my wagon before?”

David twisted his mouth and nodded. “You usually go into town on Wednesdays.”

The boy was right. James nearly always went on Wednesdays, with other days determined by needs of the household or neighbors.

“I can’t imagine you only sneak off to school on Wednesdays,” James said.

“I’m also getting very fast at running,” David said. “And the
English
are curious enough that they’ll almost always stop to pick me up if I put my hand out.”

“I see,” James said. “You are defying your father.”

“He’s not my father!”

“He’s your mother’s husband, and you live in his house.”

“I’m not seven years old.”

“This is not our way, David.”

“I’m late.” David pivoted and sprinted down the sidewalk.

Margaret led her ragtag line of first graders down the rear stairs of the grade school with firm instructions that they hold the railing and watch the feet of the pupil ahead in the line. At the base of the stairs, she directed them to line up quietly outside the music room. As soon as the older students came out, the little ones would go in. And then she would have forty minutes to catch her breath while the music teacher had charge of her class.

When the last of the first graders straggled into the music room and the teacher clapped her hands for the students’ attention, Margaret raised the hem of her skirt to take the stairs more swiftly. Before the time came to fetch her class again, she wanted the arithmetic lesson to follow to be fully organized, including a set of problems on the board.

Voices in the upstairs hall startled her.

“So it turned out high school was too hard for you.” A boy’s voice cracked mid-taunt. “Maybe if you took your hat off, you’d be able to think better.”

Two other voices laughed. Margaret hustled her upward steps.

“Look at the big lug,” the first boy said. “He can’t even think what to say.”

More laughter.

Margaret entered the upstairs corridor. Why these eighth graders were out of the classroom was unclear, though one of two Amish boys had his hands on a rolling wooden cart stacked with books.

“I hear they don’t fight,” an
English
boy said.

“Let’s find out.” A second boy pulled back his fist and swung at Elijah Mast, hitting him squarely on the jaw. Thrown off balance, Elijah stepped back but made no move to retaliate. Only a few months short of sixteen, he was taller and broader than any of the
English
boys. Margaret had no doubt he could have put them on their rumps with one swift movement.

A boot slammed into Elijah’s shin, causing another step back.

“Stop!” Margaret shouted. She closed the yards between herself and the boys. “This will stop immediately.”

The
English
boys cowered at having been caught. Margaret turned to the only one she had not witnessed actively bullying.

“You go get Mr. Tarkington immediately,” she said. “And be sure you come back with him.”

Relief and shame mingling in his face, the boy darted down the hall toward the stairs.

“Are you all right?” Margaret said to Elijah, who had his hand on his jaw now.

He nodded. The boy with the cart, Luke Borntrager, shuffled his feet.

“I’m sure Mr. Tarkington will want to speak with both of you,” Margaret said, “but for now why don’t you go back to your class?”

The cart was in motion within seconds. Margaret was certain Elijah and Luke could ably defend themselves if they had chosen to. She glared at the bullies.

“Let’s see, you’re taller than your friend. Does that make you better?”

“No, ma’am,” they mumbled, eyes on their feet.

“Or does your black hair make you better than his blond hair?”

“No, ma’am.”

Margaret glared at the boys. “Different is just different. It’s not better or worse. The two of you are old enough to understand that.”

Mr. Tarkington’s feet thundered up the stairs, followed by the more reluctant steps of the third boy.

“Down to my office, all three of you,” the principal said. “This is inexcusable.”

Margaret exhaled relief for the moment.

“Miss Simpson,” the principal said, “I’ll speak to you later for a full accounting of the facts.”

He left with the boys. Margaret leaned against the wall. How could the Amish children learn anything if they felt a constant dread of mistreatment? Perhaps their parents were right. Perhaps it would be better for everyone if they had their own school where they could practice their peaceful ways without threat. On the other hand, why should they be removed from sight in order to be safe?

Margaret would tell Mr. Tarkington what she had seen, but she doubted the boys would face serious consequences. More likely, blame would be laid at the feet of the Amish parents who put their older children back in the eighth grade.

None of this was fair.

James took his rig down Lindy’s quiet street and drove to the back of her lot, where her workshop sat behind the small house. With another needless playful warning to the horse, he strode to the workshop door and knocked.

No answer came. She might be in the house or on an errand of her own, or she simply might not have heard him. James turned the knob. The wide door opened.

James stifled the impulse to call Lindy’s name. Something was off. Taking care where he stepped, he entered the workshop and softly closed the door behind him. Two drawers from a half-stained dresser lay splintered on the workshop floor. The contents of a tool shelf were clustered on one end. A bucket of blue paint lay on its side, the dense liquid settling into its own irregular shape on the sloping floor.

James stood still, his ears attuned to a slight noise across the workshop. He saw no one and crept toward it.

At the last minute his eyes flicked up to the board swinging down toward his head, and he raised an arm to block the stinging blow.

Someone gasped.

James turned toward his attacker.

“
Onkel
James!”

James grimaced. First Isaiah Borntrager fell off a ladder and landed on top of James. Now his own niece took a swing at him with a two-by-four. How would he ever explain to Miriam the bruise certain to form on his arm?

Lindy let the board clatter to the floor.

“What happened?” James asked.

Lindy blinked several times. “I went out for a few minutes. When I came back, the door was ajar. I’m sure I closed it when I left.”

“Did you lock it?”

She shook her head. “I have too much Amish in me to lock a door, I guess. When I heard someone outside again, I got scared.”

“Well, it’s just me. I didn’t see anyone else outside.” James picked up the pieces of one of the dresser drawers.

Lindy groaned. “I’ll have to make all new drawers.”

“I can help you with that.” James looked around. “Other than the obvious damage, is anything missing?”

Lindy’s eyes took slow inventory of her workshop, and she let out a cry. “My best carving tools were on that shelf.”

James put an arm around her shoulder.

“I had three carved birds ready to sell in the Amish crafts store.” She broke away from him and went to her workbench. “My birdhouse templates! They’re gone!”

“All of them?”

“Every single one. I had them out because I was going to cut some pieces today.”

James righted the paint bucket. “I’m sorry this happened to you.”

“The quilt rack!” Lindy said. “I was painting birds on the side pieces for Mrs. Tarkington.”

“She’ll just have to understand,” James said.

“I don’t even understand,” Lindy said. “I do just enough work to support myself. My prices are fair. I mind my own business. I’m a quiet neighbor. Why would anybody do this to me?”

“We should get Deputy Fremont over here,” James said.

“I have never liked him,” Lindy said.

James understood. He did not much like Fremont, either, especially after his strong-handed approach to the Amish in recent weeks.

“I know,” he said, “but he is the law.”

G
ideon’s here,” Rachel said the next day, her gaze out the front window.

Ella sprang to her feet. Gideon’s buggy swayed down the lane toward the house.

“Tell him the celery is coming along nicely,” Rachel said. “We should have plenty for the wedding.”

Ella smiled and picked up her shawl. She doubted Gideon cared about the details of the traditional wedding celery, but it was sweet that Rachel was monitoring its progress. Ella stepped out onto the front porch in time to watch Gideon wrap the reins around a fence post and amble in her direction. She would spend her life with this man, loving him, loving his children, loving the
boppli
they would have together. If God ever smiled, surely He smiled now. The day was golden.

“Do you have time for a walk?” Gideon asked.

“Of course.” Ella descended the steps. “Let’s go out to
Daed’s
fallow field.”

Once they were away from the house, Gideon took Ella’s hand.

“I want to ask you about an idea,” he said.

Gideon might not care about celery, but they had other wedding details to work out. They still had to choose their attendants and finalize the date.

“Shall we try to see the bishop?” Ella said.

“I know you want to marry soon,” Gideon said.

The pressure in Ella’s chest was immediate. “Don’t you?”

“Maybe we should let others go first. After all, we’ll have our whole lives.”

Ella said nothing but kept walking. Obviously she did not know Gideon’s mind as well as she thought.

He squeezed her fingers. “We will find the right date. I am not having doubts.”

“Then what?”

“I would like to see the school question settled first—or at least take myself out of the crux of it.”

“How will you do that?”

“First I have to do what I think is best for my own children. I want you to teach my daughters at home.”

“I heard about what happened to Elijah Mast,” Ella said. “But nothing like that is going to happen to Gertie and Savilla.”

“I pray not,” Gideon said.

“They like school and have made friends.”

He nodded. “I am not going to give up with the school board. If other children hear their parents talking at home about the Amish ‘problem,’ as they like to call us, how can we know what might happen? It’s my duty as their father to keep them safe.”

“I understand.” Questions flooded Ella’s mind. Would Gideon keep the girls home temporarily? Would he get their lessons from the teachers at the school? Did the girls want to study at home? Why did he think she knew the first thing about making lesson plans or what a first grader and a fourth grader ought to be learning?

“Besides,” Gideon said, “I am not comfortable having them in the
English
school. They will be attracted to
English
ways.”