Brightest and Best (8 page)

“Yours truly,

“Ulysses R. Brownley, Superintendent.”

The silence lasted only as long as it took for Gideon to fold the letter along its creases. Then the room exploded around him.

Ella walked past the laundry basket one more time. The letter looked too substantial to risk its welfare out in the yard while she hung wet shirts.

Inside, David’s eyes were wide with pleasure and gratitude. He rotated the birdhouse a quarter turn to admire a fresh angle. Lindy and Rachel seemed to have put aside their nascent quarrel.

“I’ll take it upstairs for now,” David said, “until I decide where to hang it.”

“Please take your boots off before walking through the house,” Rachel said. “I’ve just cleaned the floors.”

David sat down and began to unlace one boot.

“I brought in a letter for
Daed.
” Ella handed the envelope to Rachel.

“From the school board,” Rachel said. Though it was addressed to her husband, she tore off one end of the envelope and scanned the contents.

“What is it?” Lindy leaned forward, elbows on the table. “More information on the bus route?”

“This is ridiculous,” Rachel said. “They can’t do this to us.”

“What is it?” Lindy repeated.

Ella had never seen Rachel’s face so pale, her jaw so set.

Rachel returned the letter to the envelope. “They want children to stay in school until they are sixteen. They claim it is state law.”

Ella’s eyes went to David, who yanked off his boot and then froze his motion.

“I’ll be going to high school,” he said.

Wonder shimmered in his voice.

“You most certainly will not,” Rachel said. “You’re turning fifteen next week. You finished the eighth grade a year ago. Do they expect you to become a child again?”

“It’s state law,” Lindy said. “It’s happening everywhere. The schools in town are good, solid schools.”

“What possible reason would I have for sending my able-bodied son back to school?” Rachel glared at no one in particular. “Even when he was ten or eleven, the teacher said he was working well above other students his age. Besides, Jed has already come to depend on David’s help around the farm. He does the work of a man.”

David slowly unlaced his second boot, his eyes down. “I’d like to go to the high school.”

Ella stiffened and Rachel spun.

“You’re a child,” Rachel said. “You’ll do as you’re told.”

“You just said I was a man.” David lifted his eyes now.

Ella’s head suddenly felt as if it were clamped in a vise. Slowly the pressure squeezed, one notch at a time.

“I’m sure you can talk about this,” Lindy said, moving to put one hand on David’s shoulder.

“There’s nothing to talk about,” Rachel snapped.

“It would only be for a year.” Lindy’s voice was hardly above a murmur.

“Jed will have something to say about this,” Rachel said. “I cannot imagine he will see the need for a fifteen-year-old to go to school.”

Ella slipped out the back door for the second time that morning. Rachel and Lindy. Rachel and David. Lindy and David. Jed and Rachel. Jed and David. It was not Ella’s place to interfere in any of these relationships that had deluged the quiet Hilty house when her father and Rachel married. Even if it were up to her, she had no advice. Soon—she hoped—Gideon’s children would be her focus.

At the laundry basket, Ella lifted a damp shirt and snapped it through the air before pinning it to the line. In a few months she would be hanging Gideon’s shirts.

M
argaret carried her neatly typed report along Main Street toward the superintendent’s office. With Seabury Consolidated Grade School and Seabury High School on adjacent lots, Mr. Brownley might easily have his office in one of the two modern buildings rather than farther down Main Street. Without doubt, the handful of remaining one-room schools in the rural county around Seabury would soon be closed and students integrated into the schools in town, so he could administer from one of the main buildings.

She had done what she could with the Amish, answering more questions than they knew to ask, inviting them for a tour, and making sure they had the information needed for sending the children to school on the first day. She had written an account of her encounters with the Amish. Only time would tell whether she had persuasively alleviated their hesitations. The report did not contain her own hesitations or the self-chastisement over what she might have said differently.

A few minutes later, on an ordinary sunny August Wednesday morning, Margaret stood in front of the superintendent’s desk as he leafed through the pages of her report.

“This is a good beginning,” Mr. Brownley said. “I see several opportunities here for strengthening your alliance with the Amish as we move forward.”

Alliance?
Margaret would not have used that word in describing her only partially successful course of action.

“What is your next step?” Mr. Brownley removed his black-rimmed reading glasses and raised his gray eyes to Margaret.

“Is my report lacking?” Margaret said, confused.

“On the contrary.”

“Sir?”

“I am not unaware of the special nature of a relationship with the Amish,” Brownley said. “You’ve done well at communicating the stipulations of the law. Inviting their prominent parents to tour the school was a good strategy to help them prepare for the transition. But we do need to be sure they complete the transition. I suspect that even after the first day of school on September 9, we will discover we do not have uniform compliance.”

“Yes,” Margaret said, “I would agree that not all the parents will accept the new schools at the same rate.”

“And this is why we need you to continue as an intermediary. We must have compliance. It will not be acceptable for us to turn our heads when we are aware of children who become truants.”

“I hardly think it will be a case of children deciding to become truants.”

Brownley waved his hand. “The end result will be the same. Whether by their choice or their parents’, they’ll be truant, and I will not tolerate the rate of truancy in my district that might result if the Amish children are not in their assigned classrooms.”

“What about the children who are not Amish?”

“Some of their parents may resist, but they will come around. They will understand the law and adapt. The Amish may understand the law and defy.”

“Is that not a harsh judgment? They have done nothing wrong so far.”

“September 9, Miss Simpson. That is the day that matters. Then we will know where we stand with them. I want you to make sure we accomplish our goal.”

Margaret tilted her head. “Perhaps you can be more specific in your instructions to me.”

“You’ve shown yourself capable, Miss Simpson.” Brownley rose, paced to the door, and opened it. “I look forward to your reports. Shall we say twice a week for now?”

Margaret swallowed hard. She could not force the Amish parents to send their children to school. Keeping her jaw from slackening in shock required intentional manipulation of her facial muscles as Margaret exited the building and stepped again into the sunlight. She turned vaguely in the direction of her home, walking slowly with the wide brim of her hat angled toward the sidewalk and seeing people’s shoes rather than their faces.

When the sound of a pair of men’s work boots fell into step with her creeping pace, she looked up.

“Gray!”

“Good morning.” He smiled. “It’s my good fortune to be hauling for the mercantile today, or our paths might not have crossed.”

Margaret stopped walking and looked into Gray’s expectant expression. Her lips opened and closed several times without producing sound.

“Margaret, are you all right?”

She gripped her satchel with both hands. Still no words came.

Gray put a hand to the side of her face, transferring his comforting warmth and sureness. Something calmed within her.

“Mr. Brownley has asked—assigned—me to continue as an intermediary with the Amish families. He has some concern they may not send their children to school. I have no idea on God’s green earth what he thinks I could do about it if they don’t.”

Gray took her elbow and they resumed walking. “Surely he could send a man. It would be more authoritative.”

Margaret bristled against the collar of her dress.

“Be firm,” Gary said. “Utterly firm. It’s not a personal matter. There is no question of a choice, and they must come to understand that truth. You’ve given them the instruction they need, and they must comply with the law.”

Gray sounded as if he had been reading the same manual as Mr. Brownley. Yes, it was the law. But was there no room for humanity?

They made the turn that would take them off Main Street toward Margaret’s home. Gray had pulled her hand through his elbow and covered it with his palm. The sensation stirred her.

Someone to care for her. Someone to protect her. Just when she had—nearly—talked herself out of thinking she minded missing that experience.

Margaret let out a slow breath. The Amish controversy would not always hang between them. Perhaps it did not matter if their impulses diverged on this matter. One way or another, the issue would resolve and have nothing to do with Margaret in the future. She and Gray would be all right. There was no need to openly disagree on a passing concern that would not involve them for the long run.

The bishop arrived.

Although Gideon had not spoken directly with Bishop Leroy Garber since the collapse of the schoolhouse, he was not surprised that the head of the church’s district would turn up on his farm while he worked with Tobias and James to make sure disease or unmanaged pestilence did not endanger the fall harvest. It was only a matter of time before the bishop, who had no school-age children, would have heard from parents who did about the impending enforcement of state law.

“Gut mariye.”
Bishop Garber dismounted his horse in the middle of a row of wheat, careful to still the animal before its hooves wandered into Gideon’s crop.

Gideon brushed his hands against his trousers, loosing bits of soil in a black spray. “I’m sorry I have no refreshment to offer you out here.”

“No need. I won’t keep you from your work for long.”

“What can I do for you?”

The bishop glanced at Tobias, whose eyes had lifted to the exchange.

“Tobias,” James said, “let’s check the plants in the next row.”

Gideon tipped his hat forward a quarter of an inch in thanks as James led Tobias out of listening distance.

“I do not face the decision you face,” the bishop said. “My children are over sixteen. But those who are married with their own children will face the dilemma soon enough.”

“It’s difficult to know what the right thing is,” Gideon said. “I’m sure parents will seek your counsel as bishop.”

“They already have. That’s why I’ve come to you.”

“I have no clear answers, Bishop.”

“Perhaps not. But what is certain in my talks with other parents is that they are looking to you. Your name comes up in every conversation. They will follow your lead.”

“Bishop, I don’t ask for such a role. I am only a parent seeking to please God and do what is best for my children.”

“That is just what any of them would say. But they seem to think you will help them find that point of intersection.”

“How can I help them find what I do not see clearly for myself?” Gideon rubbed an eye with one palm.

“We see through a glass darkly,” the bishop said, “but we still see.”

“I will rejoice when light banishes this particular darkness,” Gideon said.

“Someday you will be nominated to be a minister.”

Gideon’s gaze snapped into focus on the bishop’s face. “We are only talking about school.”

“You are a leader, Gideon. People recognize that. Your leadership on this question will be your ministry.”

“I do not seek it.”

“None of us ask to be ministers or bishops. God chooses us. If he chooses you now, you must serve.”