Brightest and Best (27 page)

“I understand,” Gideon said. “I respect the decision of your conscience.”

“I don’t see how the
English
are suddenly going to leave us be,” Joshua Glick said. “They’ll only see this as more reason to object to our ways.”

“Maybe so,” Gideon said. “But we have to prove we can manage a school on our own.”

“My
kinner
will be there,” John Hershberger said.

Gideon nodded. Mrs. Hershberger was sure to be relieved of the expectation that she should manage lessons along with eight children, including a colicky baby. His eyes went from one man to the next, and he was fairly sure what each one would say. Opinions had not changed much over the last two months.

“We’re not here to argue today.” Gideon said. “Every man has to decide for himself, though I’m sure if any of you wants to talk, the bishop would be happy to help.”

The bishop nodded.

“And of course you can talk to me privately,” Gideon continued. “Today I only want some idea of how many children Ella should expect tomorrow. It’s only fair that she know. Now raise your hand if you intend to send your children to an Amish-run school beginning tomorrow.”

John Hershberger’s hand shot up. Gideon smothered his chuckle and waited for others, mentally tallying the number of school-age children each man had.

T
he morning, the first Monday in November, still carried the overnight chill, and Ella poked at the wood in the potbelly stove once again to coax new flames to cast their heat into the schoolhouse. She smoothed her apron and adjusted her
kapp,
but she wasn’t ready to throw off her shawl. As long as she was cold, she presumed the children would be cold, so the fire was warranted.

Unless it was her nerves that drained the heat from her body.

Ella had wound the clock on her desk as soon as she arrived, but she checked it again now. At the center of the desk, where only she would see it, was the day’s schedule—or at least Ella’s best guess about how the day might go. The wide, high windows welcomed abundant morning light, but lamps stationed around the room were at the ready, their bases filled with oil.

Moistening her lips for the umpteenth time that morning, Ella paced down the center aisle to look out the window on the front of the building. She was determined to welcome her pupils individually as they arrived. Gideon estimated she might have sixteen or seventeen, but it was hard to be certain. Fathers might change their minds in either direction—put their children on the buses as usual, or send them to Ella even though they had not raised their hands when Gideon asked. Sixteen students would not include everyone up through eighth grade, but it was a solid beginning.

John Hershberger was first. Four children scrambled out of his buggy. Ella mentally rehearsed the girls’ names: Lizzy, Katya, and Esther. Or was Katya the youngest one? Panic surged up her throat, and Ella took a deep breath. Miriam had told her three times that Esther was the youngest of the four school-age Hershbergers. Ella didn’t know why she had such trouble remembering. The lone Hershberger boy was simple, named for his father but called Johnny.

James arrived with Gertie and Savilla, and Ella was grateful for the familiar faces. Isaiah Borntrager came, and then the Bylers. Seth loped over the hill, and the two Mast boys were the last to appear, though their house was within view.

They all looked startled to Ella, and with good reason. At best, some of them learned the previous afternoon that the school would open, but others learned only that morning at the breakfast table or intercepted on their way out the door to meet the bus. Several arrived with books in their arms—books someone would have to return to the school in Seabury.

The older ones knew what to do in the one-room school. The Mast boy walked straight to the stove and satisfied himself it was performing, and Ella supposed this had been his task in the old building. Lizzy Hershberger settled her stair-step siblings according to where children of the same ages would likely sit.

By three minutes after eight, Ella stood behind her desk, returning the stares of fifteen pairs of eyes.

“Gut mariye,”
she said.

“
Gut mariye
,” came the unison response.

“This is an important day for all of us,” Ella said, “and you might have been expecting a very different day when you woke up this morning. I want each one of you to know how glad I am to see you here, where we can help each other learn. I hope you’ll be patient with me, and I promise to do my best to be patient with you. If we’re kind and respectful, we can enjoy a wonderful school together.”

Ella had meant to reassure the children, but as she listened to the words she had rehearsed a dozen times, her own pulse slowed. She believed what she said.

“I need time to get to know you,” she said. “If you are fourth grade or older, please take out two sheets of paper and a pencil. While I listen to the younger ones read, you may work on an essay that will help me discover your abilities. On the board, you’ll see three questions. You may choose the one that interests you the most and construct an essay with at least three supporting points. If you are in grades one, two, or three, please gather around my desk, and we’ll take turns with the primer. Are there any questions?”

No hands went up. Instead, older students shuffled papers as they began their work, and younger ones shuffled their feet as they took places around her desk. Today would be language skills. Tomorrow she would find out what arithmetic skills the pupils had mastered.

A little hand tapped Ella’s shoulder, and she smiled at an earnest face. “Yes, Gertie?”

“May I read first?”

“Thank you for volunteering,” Ella said, pressing open a primer along the binding.

“And then Hans,” Gertie said.

Ella’s two youngest students seemed equally satisfied to be together once again.

After dropping the girls off at school, James took a team of two horses and his wagon into Seabury. Rather than the mercantile or Lindy’s workshop, though, his first destination was the Seabury branch of the county sheriff’s office.

“I wondered what news you had about the man who attacked Lindy Lehman.” James looked Deputy Fremont in the eye and braced his feet shoulder-width apart. “It’s been ten days.”

Fremont poised a fountain pen over an official-looking sheet of paper. “Unfortunately, ten days is plenty of time for the trail to go cold.”

“May I ask whom you have interviewed?” James asked. It seemed to him Deputy Fremont had done nothing but throw ice on the trail to ensure it went cold.

“Your niece and a couple of neighbors. No one saw anything helpful.”

“What about Ella and Rachel Hilty?”

“The Amish women?” Fremont used his pen to sign his name on a form.

“The witnesses,” James said.

“I beg to differ,” Fremont said. “On the afternoon of the incident, they both confirmed that they did not see the attack as it happened.”

James set his jaw. “They might have seen something they did not realize was significant.”

Fremont looked up again. “Shall we make an agreement? You do your job, and I’ll do mine.”

If James felt even minimal assurance that Deputy Fremont would in fact perform his duties, this conversation would be unnecessary.

“The matter has nothing to do with you,” Fremont said.

“Lindy Lehman is a family member.”

“You’re not her husband or her father,” Fremont said. “Neither are you a witness to the events in question. I’m afraid if you want information, you’ll have to read it in the newspaper like everyone else.”

Or I can uncover the information myself.
Never in his life had he read an
English
newspaper, nor was he in the habit of gambling his money on long odds.

James left the sheriff’s office determined not to return but equally determined to discover who would hold a grudge against someone as mild-mannered as Lindy.

He pulled up to her workshop a few minutes later, prepared to load and deliver items she had ready. Seeing her through the glass of the locked door, he knocked. Lindy hobbled on one crutch to let him in.

“David made me promise to lock myself in,” Lindy said. “And my neighbor Margaret was on his side. I couldn’t defy them both at one time.”

“Don’t apologize,” James said. “Under the circumstances, he’s right.”

“What circumstances?” Lindy said. “We don’t know what happened or why.”

“Your shop was vandalized twice. You were attacked.”

“I choose to think it was a vagrant who won’t be back.” Lindy settled herself on a stool and picked up a paintbrush. “Not when he knows somebody other than me might have gotten a look at him.”

“Just how good a look did you get?” James asked.

“I didn’t see his face,
Onkel
James. I told you that already.”

“But you might have had a sense of how tall he was. Maybe you saw his boots, or noticed a limp.”

“I wish I could tell you any of that,” Lindy said, dipping her brush in blue paint and touching a birdhouse with the delicate point. “I guess I’d say he was taller than average. But I didn’t notice his hat or his boots or anything else. I’ll take Ella’s word for it that he was wearing a blue shirt.”

“Think carefully, Lindy,” James said. “Any detail could be important. Maybe he was left-handed. Maybe his knee creaked.”

Lindy laughed. “You sound like an
English
police officer—and a better one than Deputy Fremont.”

Gertie would ask more questions than Deputy Fremont.
James kept this thought to himself.

“Feel free to look around,” Lindy said, “but I just want to get back to normal, and I’m not going to live in fear. That’s not the way of our people, is it?”

“No, it’s not.” Her use of “our people” softened him.

“Are you still going to make my deliveries today?”

“Of course.”

“I left my list in the kitchen.” Lindy set down her paintbrush and reached for her crutch.

“I can get it,” James said.

Lindy shook her head. “I can do it. While I’m gone, you can start with the two quilt racks for the furniture store.”

James clasped his hands behind his back to squelch the impulse to offer support to Lindy’s elbow—she would only swat him away—but he watched to be sure she safely crossed the patch of grass between the workshop and the house. Then he turned to her workbench before pacing to the wall used to shatter birdhouses ten days ago. James had seen the damage for himself. Now he wished David had not followed instructions to clean up the mess. Almost certainly Deputy Fremont would have overlooked a meaningful remnant, if there was one.

James carried a quilt rack out to the wagon and secured it. Before returning to the second one, he glanced across the street, unsure which house belonged to Margaret Simpson.

Ella had not known exhaustion and exhilaration to be twins before, birthed from the same labor.

At two thirty in the afternoon she stood at the school door saying good-bye to her students, making sure they had collected shawls and lunch buckets and primers. Lizzy corralled her sisters and brother for a long walk home, the Mast boys shot off toward their house, and the Byler children’s mother showed up with a buggy to collect them. Ella admitted relief to herself when she saw Gideon’s buggy clattering down the lane.

Ella bent over and tied the strings to Gertie’s prayer
kapp
. It was a preventive action. Gertie had a tendency to run out from under an untied
kapp
when she was set free outdoors. Savilla chased her sister, and both girls were in their father’s arms a minute later. Gideon looked over their heads, his face a question. Ella watched as he helped his daughters into the buggy and then ambled toward the school. Ella slipped back inside the building.

“I’m sure you had an extraordinary first day.” Gideon caught her hand and closed the door behind him.

Ella blew out her breath. “I think it went well, but I’m sure the girls will give you their opinions.”

Gideon put his hand against her cheek. “You are so brave. I could not admire you more.”

She breathed in his scent, holding it until her lungs begged for a fresh exchange of air.