An Old-Fashioned Education (4 page)

“I got my mom’s scarf for the neck!” Peter continued, ignoring Walt Springer. “She got mad!”

“Peter.” Walt Springer’s voice was heavy with warning. “Do you want me to take you home to your papa and tell him that you’ve been disruptive already? You know it’ll mean a good tanning, right?”

Polly stood up and positioned herself between Walt Springer and the child.

“I can handle things from here,” she said with quiet insistence. He looked at her, and she could tell he was not pleased. She darted her eyes towards the door, indicating that he should go.

“Children, I’m going to have a word with your teacher,” he said. He took Polly by the arm and walked to the cloakroom in the back.

“I don’t like to have my authority tested,” he said.

“In the classroom, I’m the authority,” she hissed, too angry now to care what he thought. “If you don’t like that, then you can teach the class yourself.”

They stood staring at one another. It was all Polly could do to keep her challenging gaze on the tall, handsome man. But she did. And she was both surprised and relieved when he broke that gaze with a sigh.

“All right. You win this one,” he said quietly. “But you need to keep an eye on Peter. He’s hyperactive and is a challenge not just for his parents but the whole community.”

“Is he taking anything for it?” Polly asked.

“No,” Walt said. “We encourage structured activity. We don’t believe in over-medicating our children here. But Peter can get himself into trouble and really has no limits. In the last few weeks, he’s walked into people’s houses and helped himself to food or his friends’ toys. He climbed up on the loader one day and fell. He was lucky he didn’t get hurt.”

“Where were his parents?” Polly asked.

“That’s the problem. They were right there but he snuck outside.”

Polly peaked around the corner of the cloakroom. The other children were sitting in their chairs except for Peter, who sitting under his desk. It was going to be a long winter.

“He may need to be evaluated,” she said. “This is the problem I have with what you guys are doing up here.”

“Evaluated for what?” Walt Springer’s tone was defensive.

“Any number of things,” she said. “Peter’s hyperactivity and poor social skills may be symptoms of any number of disorders.”

“There’s nothing wrong with him that a little discipline can’t fix,” Walt said icily.

“Hitting isn’t the answer to everything,” she said in reply.

He was about to respond when the walkie-talkie on his belt went off. After he answered, Polly could hear a woman’s worried voice.

“It’s Ruth,” the voice said. “I’m here with Greta Hart. She’s in labor and things are progressing fast but…”

“But what?” asked Walt, worried.

“Something’s wrong,” she replied. “The baby’s not moving down the way it’s supposed to. I really need to talk to the midwife who trained me. You think you can bring the radio over here so I can hook it up and have her talk me through this? She said to contact her any time.”

“Will do,” he said.

“Look, I gotta go. This is important.”

Polly nodded. Yes. It was serious. Very serious. Her mishap with the radio may cost a woman and her unborn child their lives.

“Mr. Springer,” she began.

“Later, Ms. Perkins,” he said abruptly. And then he was gone, leaving her with a room full of student she could not even concentrate upon for her guilt and fear.

Polly tried to concentrate on her class, but after a few moments she realized it was impossible.

“Let’s start the day with a little free-reading,” she said distractedly. “Everyone choose a book, please.” She allowed the children up in groups of three. They were orderly as they selected books from the library shelf. Only the highly distracted Peter and Sunny needed help.

“Is Mama going to be okay?” Sunny asked, worry clouding her innocent six-year-old face.

Polly’s gut twisted in guilt, knowing the Greta Hart was facing complications in childbirth at that very moment, complications that could be fatal if the midwife could not call for outside help.

She turned away so Sunny could not see the tears welling in her eyes. What the hell had she been thinking, sneaking into the shed to find the radio? What the hell had she been thinking, crouched under a table in a dark room and jerking on the cord to pull it down to where she was? Any sensible person would have considered that the thing might break. Polly could hear yelling now from outside. She looked out the window. Through the driving snow she could see men running back and forth. Somewhere a door slammed.

Should she go now, and admit what she had done? No. The last thing they needed was her complicating the matter when two lives were at stake. Polly decided she had to be strong, for Sunny.

“Here. I’ll read to you, Sunny.” She looked up to see Peter furiously spinning a globe. She gently took him by the arm. “And to you, Peter. Would you like that?”

“I had cereal for breakfast,” he replied.

“That’s nice.”

She sat down with the pair on a multi-colored rug and began to read Shel Silverstein’s
The Giving Tree
.

“This is my mama’s favorite book,” Sunny said.

Polly began to read. She was relieved that Peter was finally sitting still for a change, nestled on one side as Sunny nestled on the other. The wind outside was howling. She found herself praying silently as she read, and hoping that something, somewhere was listening.
God, please let her be okay. God, please let her be okay. God, please let her be okay.

The morning dragged on. The wind was too loud for Polly to hear anything going on outside now, and the snowfall continued to obscure her view. By lunchtime, the snow had slacked off. She and the students turned at the noise of boots on the steps of the one-room schoolhouse.

Walt Springer walked in. He looked tired. Polly’s legs felt like lead as she rushed towards him.

“Is everything …” She couldn’t even finish the question, her heart was pounding so hard.

“Everyone’s okay,” he said quietly. “But it was close. Very close. The midwife was able to radio out, but we discovered something really disturbing when we went for the radio. The first one Harry grabbed was the new one. But it was broken. He had to trudge back through that snow for the other one. Those lost minutes came real close to costing the Hart’s baby boy his life.” His face grew hard as his eyes moved across the room. “I’m going to need Peter to come with me, Ms. Perkins.”

“Peter?” Polly glanced at the little boy, who was pushing a toy car back and forth on a nearby windowsill, and then back at Walt. “Why do you need Peter?”

“Someone was in the shed at some point yesterday. That radio didn’t break itself. It doesn’t take much guessing to figure out who it was. Peter’s done this kind of thing before. In the past, we’ve just talked to him about it. But this time, he’s gone too far. His papa’s already stripping a switch for his little tail.

Polly’s relief over the outcome of the delivery was overtaken by a new wave of guilt.

“Mr. Springer,” she said. “I can’t endorse this.”

“We don’t need your endorsement, Ms. Perkins. Sometimes the only way to get a kid to understand the impact of what he did is with a good lickin’, and if any kid ever deserved one it’s Peter. Now call him up.”

“No,” she said.

He took her by the arm. “Polly,” he said, angry enough now to drop the formalities. “You challenged my authority this morning and got away with it. It’s not going to happen again. What that little boy did was reckless, irresponsible and dangerous. Even at his age he should know better.”

“How do you know he did it?”

“Because, quite frankly, he’s the only one in Pepper’s Hollow undisciplined enough to try a stunt like that. And if you think someone who does something like that shouldn’t have to answer then you’re in for a very long winter.”

He looked past her. “Peter!”

The boy looked up, his eyes wide.

“Come with me,” Walt said, motioning the child towards him.

Peter got up and obediently walked towards Mr. Springer. “Where are we going?” he asked excitedly. “Am I lunch buddy today?” He looked at Polly. “Once a week, one of us gets to help with the lunch! I’m lunch buddy!” He grinned enthusiastically.

“Not today, I’m afraid,” Walt said, holding out the child’s coat while he slipped into it. “We need to go have a talk about something you did yesterday, young man, and I think we both know what it is.”

“What?” The genuine confusion on Peter’s face caused Polly’s hear to twist.

“Mr. Springer–” she began.

“Get back to your class,” he said. “This has nothing to do with you.”

But Polly knew that was wrong. It had everything to do with her, and now an innocent little boy whose only crime was a reputation for hyperactivity was about to take the whipping for her actions. Walt’s words came back to her. Reckless. Irresponsible. Dangerous. Deserving of punishment. Those were the words he’d used to describe Peter and if she just waited he would suffer the consequences. They’d wrest a confession from the child, even if he had not done it. She remembered how it felt when she was over Walt’s knee—and that was just a hand spanking. She was ready to say anything to get him to stop. The child would be spanked until he confessed and then spanked until for the crime itself.

She turned to the children, her eyes scanning the room until the fell on the oldest student, a fourteen-year-old girl who had helped settle the younger children earlier that morning.

“Emma, right?” she asked.

The girl nodded.

“Emma, I need you to do me a favor. I have to leave for a bit. Can you lead the children in story time? I’ll send another adult to help.”

“Sure, Ms. Perkins,” she replied.

Polly grabbed her coat and stepped outside. The air was bitterly cold. She pulled the coat on as she ran through the snow, tripping as she went. The first person she passed was Noni, who was hauling a basket of kindling on her back like some pioneer out of a woodcut.

“Noni, did Walt pass here with Peter?”

“Yeah,” she said. “He said–”

“I don’t care what he said. Where did they go?”

“To the Criner’s cabin,” she said. “It’s the one with the red metal roof. Why do you ask?”

But Polly was already on the way, running as fast as she could through the snow. When she reached the cabin, she didn’t even knock. She just burst in. Benjamin was holding his young son by the shoulders. The stripped switch lay beside him on the table. Willow Criner’s hand was over her mouth. She was obviously trying not to cry. Walt’s hand was on her shoulder, watching. Peter was saying over and over, “But I didn’t do it! I didn’t do it!” Tears were already running down his face.

“STOP!”

Everyone turned and looked at her. Walt’s face clouded in anger as he walked over.

“Ms. Perkins,” he said warningly. “I told you not to get involved. Peter has to learn–”

“He didn’t do it,” she interrupted.

“Oh really,” he replied, crossing his arms. “And you know this because…”

She took a ragged breath. “Because it was me, Walt. I broke the radio.”

He sighed. Behind him, the Criners stared, wide-eyed.

“Look,” he said impatiently. “I know how you feel about our disciplinary practices here. But lying about this is only going to send Peter the wrong message.”

“I’m not lying!” she said. “I went in there last night. I was so mad at you for–” She swallowed, not wanting to discuss the spanking she’d gotten from him in front of the Criners. “I crawled across the floor. I was afraid I’d be seen so I hid under the desk. I reached up and pulled the radio but it got stuck on a knot in the wood. I jerked it and it fell. I can describe it if you don’t believe me. The radio is black. The knob on the left hand side is loose but I don’t know if it was loose before or after it fell. The wires that came out the back were mostly yellow. There was one red one. The back of the case is cracked.”

The whole room was silent. Even Peter had stopped crying.

Benjamin Criner stood. His face was furious. “Willow, take our son back to the schoolhouse,” he said.

She stepped forward, glaring at Polly, who looked away, too ashamed to meet the other woman’s eyes. She could understand why the parents were angry. The head of their community had just brought their son forward and demanded he be punished for something the child did not even do.

Benjamin stood. “I’m going to leave you two alone,” he said. Then he turned to Walt. “I’m leaving the switch. I think you know what you have to do. She can’t leave, and this community is not going to accept her unless she follows the rules like everyone else.”

Walt nodded and Polly felt a knot of fear twist in her stomach as he walked out of the door, leaving her alone with Walt Springer.

“I figured after you came that I’d made a mistake in hiring you,” he said. “But I never realized you could be so stupid.”

The comment felt like a slap in the face. But Polly did not feel in any kind of position to defend herself. Walt was right. What she’d done was incredibly stupid.

“Why don’t you just take me back to the airstrip?” she said hopefully. “You don’t want me here. And now no one else will, either.”

“I’m not taking you back for two reasons,” he said. “The first is the most obvious, I can’t. In case you haven’t noticed, there’s about ten inches of snow on the ground and another front’s coming through tomorrow. The second reason is because you want me to, and the last thing I’m going to do is give you what you want. Not after what you’ve done to us. A baby almost died, Polly. We could be planning a funeral right now, do you understand that? The cord was around its neck. He was born blue. It took the midwife some real effort to get him to breathe. The extra minutes it took to call for help almost cost that kid his life.”

Polly began to cry. “Stop,” she said. “Just stop…”

“Why? Because you don’t want to feel guilty? Because you want to just pretend there are not consequences for your actions? I told you when you arrived, out here, working together and being straight with one another isn’t just about good manners, it’s about survival. This is about the worst thing anyone here’s ever done.”

Polly felt horrible. Now she was not only stuck in Pepper’s Hollow, but was a pariah as well.

“I can’t undo what you’ve done,” he said. “That’s going to take a while, Polly. You’re going to have to earn your way back into acceptance with this community. But the first step is going to be accountability. Everyone here is accountable. You break the rules, you suffer the consequences. For you, that’s going to start with the switching you almost caused little Peter to get.”

The switch. She’d forgotten about it. Walt took the seat Benjamin Criner had been sitting in when she’d first burst through the door. Beside him on the table, the switch lay there, pale where the bark had been stripped.

“I can’t,” she said, backing away.

“You will,” he said. “You’re going to pull those jeans down, pull those panties down and lay yourself across my lap. I’m not going to lie to you. I’m going to tear your ass up and everyone within 500 yards of this cabin is going to hear you screaming. But they need to. They need to know that I’m taking care of business. And they need to know that the rules apply to you as surely as they apply to any other member of the community.”

“Mr. Springer, please…”

He picked up the switch. “Take your pants down. Now. I’m in no mood to fuss with you. You have to the count of five. If you’re not across my lap, then I’m going to drag your butt to the main hall and whip your bare ass in front of the entire lunch crowd. You got that?”

She did not for one moment think he was bluffing as he began to count. Polly’s fingers were shaking so badly that she could barely undo her blue jeans. Tears were already coursing down her face as she lowered them to the top of her thighs. When she put her thumbs in the waistband of her panties, she looked at Walt imploringly, hoping for a last-minute reprieve.

“Down with them,” he said. “I’m already on three.”

She pulled them down, exhaling in a ragged breath as she complied.

“Take the coat off, too,” Walt said. “I’m not going to spank you through that.”

“Oh…” Polly looked almost absent-mindedly at the jacket she still wore. Slipping it off, she let it fall to the floor. She was glad her sweater was long enough to cover her from view.

“Come on now,” he said. “Let’s get this over with.”

Polly could feel her heart pounding in her chest. He reached for the switch as she positioned herself over his knee. When his hand touched her back, she instinctively tried to stand, but he was ready for this and pushed her forward and down. Polly felt Walt’s strong, muscular arm tighten around her waist. She knew he intended to hurt her enough to make her want to fight.