Mary Connealy (42 page)

Glancing between her chair seat and her open desk drawer, Grace was worried she might develop a nervous tic. She sat down but left the drawer open. An almost insane calm took over her body. “School is dismissed except for Abraham, Isaac, Mark, Luke, and John Reeves.”

Forehead furrowed over her blond brows, Beth shook her head and gave a little “don’t do it” wave.

Grace could tell by the way the sun shone in the west window that it was only a few minutes early for dismissal. Good. That gave her time to settle with these boys, and then she’d have it out with their father. Things were going to change around here!

The rest of the students, stealing frequent glances between her and the blond holy terrors in her midst, gathered up their coats and lunch pails and left the schoolhouse in almost total silence.

And that left Grace.

Alone.

With the Five Horsemen of the Apocalypse.

G
race felt as if she were watching the second coming and hadn’t repented.

Matching mutinous expressions settled on the Reeves’ faces.

She said a prayer.

How do I reach them, Lord? Give me wisdom and patience
.

Patience. She hunted through her mind for scripture about patience and remembered the long, cold years with Parrish.
“But in all things approving ourselves as the ministers of God, in much patience, in afflictions, in necessities, in distresses.”

That last part surely described her now. The Reeveses were an affliction. Getting through to them was a necessity. And her torn skirt alone qualified as sufficient distress, before she counted hunger and worry and a bruised backside. She needed to face all of that with patience.

She was fiercely determined to approve herself as a minister of God and bear whatever needed to be borne in order to reach these boys.

Exhausted, short of food, cold every night, and now wearing a ruined dress when she had none to replace it, Grace folded her hands in front of her.

With a sigh she felt all the way to her toes, she faced Mark. The ringleader. If she couldn’t control him, she couldn’t control any of them.

Her jaw clenched so her anger would not erupt in a tirade. “What do you think is the appropriate punishment for your actions today?”

Mark didn’t even bother to feign an innocent expression. His look was far more reminiscent of “Try and punish me, teacher lady.”

“We didn’t do nothin’, Miss Calhoun,” he said. “I wonder who put that snake in your desk. That was a right mean thing to do.”

A red-hot flash of temper nearly shocked Grace. She was surprised she was capable of this much rage. They always denied it. They didn’t try to fake honesty. Instead, with smug disregard for any punishment she might mete out, they lied straight to her face.

“So on top of hurting me and disrupting class, you’re also a liar—is that right, Mark? You can look me right in the eye and break a commandment?” Her voice rose with every word.

God, please give me patience. Please, I need a miracle to handle these boys
.

Narrowing his eyes as if he didn’t like being called a sinner, Mark didn’t answer. He didn’t mind
being
a sinner.
Just don’t dare call him one
.

“You always blame us for everything, Miss Calhoun.” Ike hitched up his brown, coarsely woven pants with two thumbs. The pants were short, dirty, and ragged as if he’d put them on new three years ago and never taken them off since. Red flannel underdrawers showed between his ankles and his scuffed brown boots.

“That’s not very nice.” John crossed his arms as if he were the injured party.

Grace clenched her hands together on the desk in front of her, picturing them wrapped around somebody’s neck. She didn’t care to imagine attacking children, so she settled for strangling their father. Clasping her hands as if she could physically hold her temper inside, she knew Beth was right. She should get these boys out of here and deal with them when she calmed down.

She pictured that snake striking at her from the desk and almost jumped. In that bitter cold room above the diner where the school had located her, she knew nightmares would plague her sleep tonight. No, she’d let this go on for too long. She wasn’t going to back down this time. She couldn’t and retain any self-respect.

She studied the little wolf pack. Mark, the oldest of the five-year-old triplets, had an inexhaustible supply of ideas. Abe, the oldest of the ten-year-old twins, picked the ideas he liked, and his approval brought the rest of the boys along. Ike always dug in and saw things through to the end. Ike had a way with animals, and he’d probably found the snake.

John did the hard work. Grace would bet John had done the actual sneaking around to put the snake in her desk and the tack on her chair. Luke was the cleanup man. Being youngest had made him tough. If they ever got in trouble as a result of their antics, Luke was the one who got revenge.

The other students left Luke alone. Grace gave him a nervous glance now, and that flared her temper more. She was actually afraid of a five-year-old.

“I go back to my original question. What would you do if you were the teacher and a student did this to you?”

“Miss Calhoun, whatever punishment you’re gonna give us, you’d better hurry up.” Luke’s cool, level eyes sent a chill up Grace’s spine. “Pa doesn’t like us to keep him waiting.”

“So you think you deserve punishment, Luke?” Grace thought about the ruler in her drawer. She shuddered remembering the snake that had popped out. She glanced at the drawer, still wide open. Nothing was stopping her from getting that ruler now.

She prayed silently, hating that she might need to resort to swatting their little hands. Surely there was a better way to handle them. The worst of it was she’d always known it wouldn’t work. Besides her natural loathing for anyone who would hurt a child, she knew from watching these boys that they weren’t overly worried about pain. The way they shoved each other around, a whack or two with the ruler wouldn’t even get their attention.

But swatting them wasn’t supposed to
hurt
them—she’d never wield a ruler with that much force. It was supposed to shame them into being better.

“I think you’re gonna hit us whether we did anything to you or not.” Luke stood, all four feet of him. “I think you’re mean and you’re plannin’ to do whatever you want, so why waste time talkin’ about it? You might as well get it over with.”

The boys, all slim and wiry, stood. Luke walked to the front of the classroom, and the others followed.

Grace fought down the impulse to back away from him. She saw Luke’s calculating eyes and knew the boy was up to something. Did he have a plan? Were they all in on it? Grace couldn’t believe how paranoid she’d become. The boy was five for heaven’s sake.

Luke stepped up on the platform that raised Grace’s desk about six inches above the students’. He stood in front of her, his eyes insolent, daring her to punish him. “What’s the matter, Miss Calhoun?” He sounded too polite. That wasn’t like him.

Could they have more in store for her? Was there a rat in her coat pocket?

Luke gave her a wide-eyed, innocent look. “You know me and my brothers never done this to you. You just hate us and pick on us every chance you get.”

“It’s just the opposite, Luke. You boys hate
me
and pick on
me
every chance you get.” Grace sounded like a five-year-old herself. She’d given them countless chances to change their ways, but patience hadn’t worked. Firmness hadn’t worked. She’d let this go on too long.

Shoving herself out of her chair, she grabbed the ruler out of the snake drawer. Facing Luke, she raised the ruler and hesitated. She’d never hit a child before—not as a teacher and not as a young girl who bore all the weight of raising her little sisters.

“I’ll take the punishment for all my brothers, ma’am.” Luke squared his shoulders. “We didn’t do it, but I can see you’re bent on blaming us. So have at it. Give me five times the whacking and be done with it.”

“You did, too, do it, and not just you.” She looked out at the boys, lined up behind tough little Luke.

Mark looked at her with self-satisfied amusement. All the other boys’ expressions mirrored Mark’s.

“I’m going to punish all of you.” She raised the ruler again, staring at Luke, so fearless. It infuriated her that not even the threat of a lash on the hand with her ruler could make him back down. “Hold out your hand, Luke.”

He extended his hand.

She looked into his eyes and knew she’d never be able to swing this stupid ruler.

Luke hissed at her, “Do it.”

Whispering so his brothers didn’t hear her, she said, “I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because I don’t want to hit you.”

Luke leaned closer, as eager to keep what they said between the two of them as she was for some reason. “We really did it, ma’am. I’m confessing clear as day. Have at it.” He reached his hand a little closer as if worried she’d miss. He actually seemed to
want
her to hit him.

What was the little urchin up to? She almost smiled at him.

Her hand raised the ruler, planning to wave it at all of them and throw them out.

“Get away from my son, Miss Calhoun.”

Grace jumped back. She bumped into her chair, and for a second she thought she’d end up on the floor again.

Daniel Reeves stood in the window to her right. The one Beth had lowered the snake through. How long had he been standing there?

She looked at Luke and saw the satisfied expression under his feigned innocence. He’d known his father was standing there. Every word he’d spoken had been planned to put her in the worst light for his father’s benefit. All the boys had known their father watched.

“You boys get your things. Clay McClellen’s here for the girls. Catch a ride with him to the gap then walk on home. Miss Calhoun and I are going to settle this once and for all, and it could take awhile.”

Daniel left the window. The boys ran, vanishing out the front door with as much noise and shoving as they could manage. The last of them disappeared just as Daniel came in.

Grace felt her cheeks heating up. But why was she embarrassed?

These boys deserved a few sound whacks with the ruler. She’d done nothing wrong. The fact that she’d been planning to back down was almost worse than doing it.

And all of it—
all of it
—was this man’s fault. This was the one she should be using the ruler on.

She stepped off her platform and practically charged. He came forward just as fast. They met in the middle of the room.

Grace barely came to his chin, and the second they faced each other, Grace wished she’d waited up front for him so he wouldn’t tower over her.

But she was here, under his nose, and she was furious. Furious beat tall any day of the week. She was glad he’d shown up. This man was the problem. She’d asked him several times to speak to his sons about their behavior. His boys could do no wrong in his sight.

Grace realized she still clutched the ruler. She slapped it against the desk beside her, wishing she could use it to slap some sense into Daniel Reeves.

“You planning on using that on me, Miss Calhoun? Or aren’t you so brave when you’re facing an adult?”

“We have discussed your boys’ behavior until I’m sick of hearing myself talk, Mr. Reeves.”

“Well, I’m with you on that, ma’am. I’m sick of hearing you talk, too.”

“You have to do something about them or I will. I can have them expelled from school.”

“You think the school board will take your side over mine?” Daniel’s blue eyes burned into her skin. They sparked with anger as he leaned over her. “I’d think a little woman who can’t control a few bright, active boys wouldn’t want the school board looking too close at her.”

“Your boys
are
bright and active.” He was trying to use his size to intimidate her, but Grace refused to back up when Daniel leaned close. In fact, she took a step forward. “Unfortunately, they use all their
intelligence
to think up pranks to disrupt the school, and they are most
active
when they’re thinking of ways to harass me. Have you even
tried
talking with them?”

“Save your speeches for the school board.” Daniel’s nose almost touched hers. He wasn’t yelling, but he spoke in his usual too-loud voice right into her face. “I saw Parson Roscoe and Zeb Morris just a few minutes ago. If we can hunt up Phillip at the general store, we’ll have the whole board to hand. Then we’ll see what they have to say about you picking on my boys.”

“Lead the way.” Grace extended her hand toward the front door. “This is long overdue.”

“Oh no,
Miss Calhoun.”

Grace heard her name said with such mockery she almost regretted insisting every parent—every person—in Mosqueros call her by it. But weren’t teachers supposed to demand propriety?

“You’re the one who’s always such a stickler for manners. I insist, ladies first.” Daniel crossed his arms, practically blocking the aisle, stubborn as a mule.

Grace fumed, looking at the narrow space he expected her to squeeze through. The man was a bully. She shoved at him as she squeezed past.

She got clear of the confounded man and stormed toward the back of the schoolroom. She’d just made it to the door when her skirt fell off.

G
race had been sitting in her chair sobbing ever since the school board fired her. The straight-backed chair pressed mercilessly into her back. Tears that just would not stop had been flowing for an hour.

Opting for peace over justice, the school board had seen to it that Daniel didn’t fare well either. His boys had been expelled.

They’d listened to both sides and made their pronouncement—hurried along by the freezing weather and a cow Zeb Morris had back home calving out of season. The ruling came with almost no discussion.

Grace had been too stunned to continue fighting. Penniless, hungry, and, come morning, homeless, losing her job seemed tantamount to a death sentence. Turning from that crowd of men, she’d run to her room like a coward.