Softly Falling (22 page)

“My goodness, now that you mention it . . .”

“The Little Men are sociable and they like to trade,” Jack said. “I got two pebbles for a nickel-plated timepiece once.”

“And there were little bits of grain or grass where the thumbtacks used to be,” she said. “I wish I had thought to mention that to you.”

“We’d have known right away and spared you some anxiety,” Jack said. Something must have caught his eye because he gently pulled aside more bedding to reveal a cuff link. The gold gleamed dull and real, and Pierre whistled.

“Looks like he thieved in one of the consortium member’s room,” Jack said. He chuckled and covered it up again. “No loss.”

Both men looked at her then, and she knew what they were going to ask. Lily shook her head. “No. Other than what we know is ours, we’ll leave the rest here. Don’t kill the Little Man.”

“That, my dear, is the right answer,” Jack said. “He’s just doing what pack rats do.”

Lily still held her watch. She pinned it to her shirtwaist and pocketed the eraser. Stretch’s bookmark went back to the business of marking
Ragged Dick
, but she put the book in her drawer this time.

“Pierre, could you come to my class tomorrow morning? I’ll return Luella’s dratted eraser and we’ll show them the hole. I’d like you to tell them about pack rats. Could you draw one on the board for me? We’ll turn it into a lesson.”

“Can I, boss?”

“Sure. We’ll just be pushing back the Quarter Circle cattle that we pushed back yesterday. You’ll have more fun here.” He looked around the room. “We’d all have more fun here, because I really think Miss Carteret is a teacher.” He gave her a look that she knew she would remember. “It just took a plan to tease that out.”

Maybe it’ll be a very good lesson
, Lily thought the next morning as she prepared for school. “I wonder, Luella, if you are up for an apology?” she murmured.

She had taken the time last night, after Jack and Pierre returned her home, to walk back to the Buxtons, knock quietly on the door, and speak to Fothering, who sighed with relief. At her request, he promised not to say anything to Luella.

As she walked her father to work and continued up the hill, Lily couldn’t help patting her little watch, grateful it wasn’t gone forever. She carried an alarm clock that Fothering had loaned her. It was far too large for even an ambitious pack rat like theirs to stuff down any hole.

School began in the usual way with Luella looking more glum than typical. Lily wanted to think that her accusation and the resulting disruption to the classroom was preying on the girl’s mind, but who knew the mind of a child, especially one used to being the center of attention? She sucked in her breath and looked down at her desk as a new idea pelted like a bit of hail. Or maybe a child wanting attention she didn’t get at home.

Lily was writing short words on the board for her students to copy when Pierre Fontaine knocked on the open door. She was pleased to notice that he had shaved and his braided hair flowed free this time. Maybe he had even washed it for the special occasion when
he
would be the teacher.

“Children, you might have noticed that I have my watch back.” Lily reached in her desk and took out the Pink Pearl, handing it to an open-mouthed Luella. “Mr. Fontaine solved our mystery and found the thief. Sir?”

The Indian was no showman. He walked to the corner of the room. He motioned to the students, who clustered around him. When he pulled back the two boards, everyone said, “Ahhh.”

The nest was unoccupied, which made Lily wonder if the Little Man had abandoned his cache. Just as interested as she had been last night, she watched as Pierre told her students about pack rats: their habits, their nests, and their little lives as tidy citizens of the mountains and plains, and occasional burglars.

“He means no harm, but he loves shiny things,” Pierre explained as he took out the rat’s treasures, from thumbtacks to the one gold cuff link, to bits of metal that might have gleamed and tempted him or an ancestor years ago. He replaced them and sitting on the floor with her students sitting around him, he answered their questions.

Nick had a question for Lily. “Are . . . are we just going to leave him there?”

“What do you children think?” she asked in return. “He’s only doing what Little Men do.”

Nick looked at his sisters and Luella and everyone nodded. “Maybe we could just leave him alone.” His eyes showed his concern. “Mr. Fontaine, will he come back?”

“I believe he will, if he feels you mean no harm,” the Indian replied.

“We could test that by leaving something for him, couldn’t we, Miss Carteret?” Nick asked.

They all looked at her and she couldn’t help her laughter. After all, she was no professional, and what good were stern looks and solemnity? “I won’t use my watch for bait.”

They laughed. “I can, um, acquire a thimble,” Luella offered. She smiled for the first time in a long time. Her braids were so tight that her eyes seemed to disappear. “
I’ll
be the one purloining.”

“I’ll leave that to your conscience,” Lily teased in turn. “We have more thumbtacks.”

The children nodded. Chantal leaned against Pierre’s arm and looked up at him. “Does the Little Man sleep through the winter?”

“No, he does not,” Pierre told her. “If you could find seeds and grasses, he would hide those away too.” He touched Chantal’s head and stood up. “And I should go to work.” He nodded to Lily. “After I draw the Little Man on your dark-painted wall.”

Without any urging, the children returned to their places and watched as Pierre drew on the blackboard a rodent with large ears that had as much body as fluffy tail. Lily gulped, not certain she wanted a rat roaming under the floor in her classroom. A glance at the interest on all the children’s faces told her that, yes, she did.

As the children drew their own pack rats on paper, she looked at the beautiful buffalo hide winter count that Pierre had loaned to her classroom of True Greatness. “D’ye think, sir, that I can convince your boss to permit you to tell my children about winter counts?”

“It’ll take no convincing,” the Indian said in his straightforward way. “I’ve noticed that he’s happy to help you.”

“He’s interested in education,” Lily said, even as her face felt warm.

“That too,” he replied with a smile.

Heavens, Lily, stop talking
, she scolded herself. She walked Pierre to the classroom door. She held out her hand and he shook it. His handshake was light and delicate, telling her that Indian men did not usually touch anyone’s hands like that.

“Thank you,” she said. “You’re a good teacher, Pierre Fontaine.”

“Not as good as you.”

“Oh, I . . .”

“Just look at them,” he said simply and released her hand. “See you later, Teacher.”

Lily watched him head back down the hill, noticing at the same time that Freak the scary cat was watching him too. When Pierre grew smaller and smaller, Freak came closer, his eyes still on the retreating figure. For the smallest moment—she quickly dismissed the notion—Lily wondered if Freak had decided to be her protector.

She threw up her hands and went back into the classroom, walking around to watch her children. Oh, they were hers. How did that happen? Nick wasn’t much of an artist, but Luella’s effort looked remarkably like the Little Man of the Prairie that Pierre had drawn. Lily couldn’t help a little shiver, hoping that the pack rat would confine
his
education to after hours, when the school was empty.

When the children finished, she asked, “Should we pin them up here or take them home?”

“Here, I think,” Nick said, reminding her that he had the makings of a leader already. He cocked his head a little to one side, looking like his mama. “If we tell you the words, could you write a little something to go along with the pictures?”

“I can,” she said. “Perhaps we could just pull our desks together closer to mine, and we’ll all decide what to say.” She looked at Luella. “Luella is a little farther along with writing. Should we let her write our final version for the wall?”

The Sansevers all nodded. Lily looked at Luella, surprised to see the tears in her eyes. “Is that satisfactory with you, Luella?” she asked, unsure of herself.

Luella nodded, then took a deep breath and stood beside her desk. She looked directly at the blackboard first, then at Chantal. “I owe you an apology, Chantal,” she said, her voice tight with emotion. “You didn’t steal my eraser. I am sorry.”

A child of impulse, Chantal reached out and touched Luella’s hand, and her eyes filled with tears too. “That’s all right.” She dabbed at her eyes. “Would you like to sit on the front row with us?”

Luella nodded. Nick stood up, bowed to her, and pulled her heavy desk closer to the rest of them, while Lily surveyed the effect. “I like this, but let’s go a little farther,” she said. “Let’s move our desks into a u-shape and I’ll move my desk closer.”

Without a word, her children did as she said. When they were all seated again, shy Amelie raised her hand.

“Yes, my dear?” Lily asked. Maybe she shouldn’t say “my dear,” but she was not really a teacher, so what did it matter? No one seemed to mind.

“I think we will learn better this way,” Amelie said.

“I believe you are right,” Lily said, swallowing the boulder in her throat. “Now, let us decide what we want to say about our Little Man.”

The afternoon’s lesson plan went out the window as a better one took over. By the time the school day ended, Luella’s neatly printed statement about the pack rat was tacked to the wall opposite Pierre’s winter count and surrounded by five pictures, Lily’s included.

There was only time to make one last assignment. “Mr. Fontaine said that pack rats don’t hibernate. Let’s think about what little bits of food he might like. We could bring him something every day or so for him to hide.”

The children decided that raisins and seeds might be best. Nick suggested coffee beans, but his classmates firmly vetoed this victual. “Mama has lentils and there are oats,” Amelie said. “Coffee beans would keep him awake, Nick.”

The others giggled, and Nick had to smile too.

“Maybe he’s English like Miss Carteret and likes loose tea,” Chantal teased, her eyes on Lily.

Nick threw back his head and laughed. Chantal and Amelie looked at each other. Lily wondered what had just happened, but she had no trouble teasing back. She put her hands on Luella’s shoulders. “What do you think, Luella? Loose tea or coffee beans?”

“Tea,” Luella said decisively. She leaned back ever so slightly against Lily and sighed, as though a great load had been lifted from her young shoulders. Or if not lifted, at least rearranged to become more manageable.

What other burdens do you carry, Luella?
Lily asked herself, wondering how solitary the child’s life really was, once the school day was over. She would have to ask Fothering. Whatever he said, Lily knew there were ways, good ways, to give the lonely child the attention she craved. Maybe teaching with True Greatness was going to require at least as much understanding of her children as the alphabet and numbers. Only a week ago, such a thought would have terrified Lily. Now she welcomed it.

C
HAPTER
21

W
hat a day,” Lily said softly as she said good afternoon to her students and watched them march away, Nick leading the little parade with Luella right behind. Satisfied as never before, she turned around and surveyed the classroom, making sure all objects that would snare the Little Man’s interest were safely tucked in her desk drawers. Knowing he must have had a difficult two days, she took two hairpins from her chignon and left them on her desk as a peace offering.

She closed the door quietly behind her and looked to the tree line. Freak stood there, his tail twitching. He took a step forward, thought better of it, and retreated.

“Never mind, I say,” she told him. “We have all year. Just leave the pack rat alone, do you hear?”

He narrowed his eyes as if to say, “You’re talking to a cat, imbecile.”

Lily took her time. The September sun felt good on her face, but there was no denying the chill underlying the sun’s warmth, like the suddenly colder current in a shallow stream. She sauntered past the cookshack, where the door stood open.