Years (23 page)

Suddenly she was smitten by a strong wave of jealousy for his advanced age. Stubborn man that he was, he would probably never follow his instincts. Distraught, she rolled up on one elbow and gazed down at the white blot of her pillow in the dark.

“Teddy?” she queried in a soft yearning voice. Then she embraced the pillow tenderly and lowered her lips to his.

10

L
INNEA’S LETTERS TURNED UP
immediate invitations to her students’ homes, and within the week she began her visits. She chose Ulmer and Helen Westgaard’s first because they had more children in school than any other family; also, because Ulmer was Theodore’s brother. She’d developed a growing curiosity about anything relating to Theodore.

From the moment she stepped into their kitchen she sensed love present. The house was much the same as Theodore’s, but far gayer and a lot noisier, with six children. The three oldest boys were out in the fields helping their father when Linnea arrived, the younger children helping their mother in the kitchen. But to Linnea’s surprise, the field crew all came in for supper with their guest.

Eating, she observed, was as serious a business here as it was at Theodore’s. They talked and laughed before the meal, and after. But while they ate — they
ate!

However, several times during the course of the meal she looked up to find the oldest boy, Bill, studying her closely. Boy? He was no boy. He was a full-grown, strapping man of perhaps twenty-one or so, and he gave her a most disconcerting amount of overt scrutinization. His eighteen-year-old sister, Doris, also lived at home, though she was engaged and planning
a January wedding. It seemed weddings, like education, had to be put off until after harvest season. Raymond and Tony, Linnea’s missing students, treated her with diffidence, as though forewarned that she was displeased about their not coming to school. The two youngest, Frances and Sonny, smiled and giggled whenever she caught their eye, and she suspected they felt highly honored to have the teacher choose their home first.

She delayed bringing up the subject of the school calendar until after dessert. When she did, she introduced it calmly, stated her case, and left the subject open for discussion.

There was no discussion. She was told politely, but in no uncertain terms, that the boys would come to school when the wheat was in.

The family all came out into the yard to bid her good-bye, but Bill left the others and appeared at Clippa’s head to detain Linnea.

“Miss Brandonberg?”

“Oh... did I forget something?”

“No. I just didn’t want you to think it’s anything personal against you, them keeping the boys out to help with harvesting. It’s always been that way, you know?”

“Yes, I know. But that doesn’t make it right. The boys need the full school year, just like the girls do.”

Linnea was so tired of going over the same argument. But just when she expected it to continue, Bill seemed to forget all about it. He stood looking up at her with one hand on Clippa’s bridle, his attractive green eyes issuing a message of undisguised interest.

“Do you dance?” he asked.

For a moment she was too startled to answer. “D... do I dance?”

“Yeah — you know, one foot, two foot.”

She smiled. “I... well, yes, a little.”

“Good, then I’ll see you at one barn or another when the threshers come. There’s always lots of dances then.”

In her experience there had never before been anyone who so blatantly showed his interest. She grew flustered by his open regard and the fact that his family looked on, waiting for her to ride away. Frances and Sonny were giggling again, heads close together. Linnea stammered, “Y... yes, I... guess you will. Well, good night then.”

Riding home, with the night air cooling her cheeks, she considered Bill Westgaard. Sun-streaked blond hair, eyes as green as spring clover, a rather upturned nose, and a smile revealing slightly crooked teeth. He was a curious combination of boyish features and manly brawn.

So what did you think of him? Handsome?

A little.

Appealing?

Somewhat.

Bold?

Bolder than any other fellow I’ve met before.

So will you dance with him?

Perhaps.

But when she imagined it, it was Theodore with whom she danced.

Her intentions had been to leave the Severt home until last, hoping to give Allen time to become more cooperative at school so that her own feelings wouldn’t be negative when she paid the visit. But Allen continued instigating more classroom disruptions than anyone else. During school prayers he invariably created a disturbance by tapping his pencil or his boot against the desk. He pestered the younger children by boldly snatching their cookies and taking bites, then calling them cry babies before giving them back — if he gave them back at all. As if sensing that Frances and Roseanne were two of Linnea’s favorites, Allen singled them out to persecute more than any of the others. He taunted Frances, calling her a dummy, and sometimes pulled her skirt up to peek at her underpants. He turned the wood block on the girl’s privy door while Frances was inside, and stuck a garter snake through the moon-shaped cutout. The resulting fit of hysteria had Allen beaming with joy for the remainder of the afternoon. He looked satisfied each time he managed to rile one of his classmates, or the teacher. And he was very good at making people angry.

Linnea was dreading the visit to Allen’s house, but decided to get it over with immediately. She left school early on the day of home visits, so it was well before suppertime when she arrived at the Severt home. To her surprise, Allen came out and asked to see to Clippa. Reverend Severt was busy in his study, but Linnea enjoyed a pleasant visit with his wife while
she made the final preparations for the meal.

Lillian Severt was a meticulously groomed woman with a neat finger-waved upsweep of pure black hair, held in place by unadorned tortoise-shell combs. She had flawless ivory skin and a face that was marred only by her upturned nose with its rather overlarge nostrils. But one tended to forget her nose in view of her clear, hazel eyes and square-set mouth and chin. Instead of the customary starched cotton housedress, she wore a stylish garment of ribbed amber faille with a white collar of pierced, embroidered organdy. And earrings — nobody else around Alamo wore earrings. Hers were small gold apple blossoms, with tiny citrine gems centered in each. Unlike most farm wives who often smelled of homemade lye soap and whatever they were having for supper, Lillian Severt smelted of her bureau, of spearmint and tansy and saxifrage and whatever other fragrant herbs she had mixed into her potpourri.

Her house was different, too. The front parlor had a bound carpet covering most of the floor. The kitchen had a cabinet with a self-contained flour sifter. And there was a formal dining room with built-in glass-fronted china closets and a colonnaded archway dividing it from the front parlor.

The cherry-wood table was covered with ecru lace, the food served in covered tureens, the napkins bound with Belgian lace, and when Lillian Severt took her chair, she left her cobbler apron in the kitchen.

Though Allen was a hellion at school, at home it was another story. Around his parents he was so polite as to appear almost ingratiating, even pulling out his mother’s chair as the meal began. He bowed his head reverently when grace was being said, displayed impeccable table manners, and his voice lost all its schooltime flippancy.

To Linnea’s surprise, when supper was finished Martin Severt ordered, “Allen, now you help Libby clear the table, then the two of you are excused.”

In a pleasantly modulated voice, Mrs. Severt countered, “Now, dear, you know doing dishes isn’t a man’s work. Libby will do them.”

Reverend Severt’s fingers tightened on his cup handle, his eyes confronted his wife’s, and for a moment tension was palpable in the room.

Then Allen squeezed his mother’s shoulder, kissed her cheek,
and offered, “Supper was de-lish. Nobody makes pumpkin pie like you do, Mother.”

She laughed, patted his hand, and ordered, “Off with you, you flatterer.”

Before he could escape, his father interjected, “Did you fill the woodbox when you came home from school?”

Allen was already heading out of the room. “Didn’t have to. It was already full.” His footsteps sounded on the stairs leading up from the front parlor, presumably to his room. When he was gone Libby cleared the table, then disappeared, too.

“Would you like more coffee?” Mrs. Severt inquired, refilling all three cups. A quiet fell upon the room. Linnea tried to screw up her courage to broach the subject foremost in her mind. She took a swallow of coffee and it seemed to drop twenty feet before it reached her nervous stomach.

“Mr. and Mrs. Severt... ” The minute the words were out Linnea wondered if she should have addressed him as Reverend. She pushed the doubt aside and did her job, unpleasant though it was at the moment. “I wonder if we might talk for a while about Allen.”

Mrs. Severt beamed.

Reverend Severt frowned.

“What about Allen?” he inquired.

Linnea planned her words carefully. “Allen seems very different here at home than he does at school. He... well, he doesn’t seem to get along with the other children very well, and I was wondering if you might offer some insight as to why not, and what we might do to help him.”

“We?” Mrs. Severt repeated, raising one eyebrow. “Allen has no trouble getting along anywhere else. If he’s having difficulties, perhaps it’s the school’s fault.”

The implication was clear:
school
meant
Miss Brandonberg
. While the teacher was still adjusting to the rebuff, Allen’s mother went on. “I’m interested in what you see as... getting along.” Her very inflection made the phrase sound suspect.

“Socially, it means he doesn’t attempt to fraternize with the others, to join in the games, make friends. Academically, he doesn’t always conform to the rules. He tends to... to ignore instructions and do things his own way.”

“Fraternize with whom, Miss Brandonberg? Until the older boys come to school there’s nobody for him to fraternize
with.
Surely you don’t expect a fifteen-year-old boy to be overjoyed about playing hopscotch with the second and third graders?” Mrs. Severt’s voice was a velvet ice pick chipping away at Linnea’s self-esteem. Nerves prickled in places she hadn’t realized she had them. She wished she were home at Nissa’s where nobody talked at the table. Quivering inside, she nonetheless kept her voice placid.

“Perhaps fraternize isn’t exactly the right term.” Linnea searched for another, but none came, so she blurted out, “Allen teases the other children a lot.”

“All children tease. I did when I was a child. I’m sure Martin did, too, didn’t you, dear?”

But not all children take such perverse pleasure in it, Linnea thought, though she could hardly say so to the minister and his wife.

Reverend Severt ignored Lillian’s question and posed one of his own. “Specifically, what has he done?”

Linnea hadn’t intended to name specifics, but it appeared Mrs. Severt had a blind eye where her son was concerned. If Allen was to be helped, Linnea must be frank. She related the incident about Frances and the garter snake.

Lillian Severt demanded, “Did anyone
see
Allen put the snake through the moon?”

“No, but—”

“Well then.” She settled back with a satisfied air.

Growing angrier by the minute, Linnea rushed on. “I was about to say that he was the only one not taking part in the kickball game that was going on in the playground at the time. And it happened right after he had stolen one of the cookies from Frances’s lunch bucket and she’d complained to me about it”

Mr. Severt began, “Our Allen stole—”

“Frances?” his wife interrupted yet again. “You mean Frances Westgaard, that rather dim-witted child of Ulmer and Helen’s?”

Under the table, Linnea’s fists clenched in her lap. “Frances is not dim-witted. She’s a little slow, that’s all.”

Lillian Severt took a ladylike sip of coffee. “Ah, slow... yes,” she said knowingly, replacing her cup in its delicate saucer. “And you’d take the word of a child like that over the word of the minister’s son?” One eyebrow raised in reproof, she let the question settle for several seconds, then brightened
visibly. “And anyway,” she flashed a smile at her husband, then at Linnea, “there would be absolutely no reason for Allen to steal someone else’s cookies. I pack him an ample lunch myself every day, and as you just heard, he’s more than appreciative of the sweets I make around here. Granted, he does love cookies, but I always see to it that he’s well supplied.”