The Lesson (30 page)

Eugene’s father squinted his eyes at the drawing. He grunted, gave Eugene the once-over, then, to M.K.’s horror,
he wadded it up into a ball and tossed it on the ground. “That’s how you’ll give the boy a big head.” He turned to go back into the house, stopping at the threshold to point at Eugene. “Get back out to the field with your brothers. Farms don’t run themselves.” He shut the door behind him, muttering something about “Just useless.”

M.K. bent down to pick up the drawing and smooth it out.

Eugene clenched his jaw.

“I’m so sorry,” she said. She saw a glassy sheen in his eyes.

He spat out an unrepeatable word before running out to the field.

Chris woke up one morning to a silent world. No birdsong, no wind rattling the windows. Groggily he lay there, wondering why he felt as if his ears were stuffed with cotton. The strange grayish light that filtered through the window slowly registered on him. The world outside was covered with a blanket of snow.

During breakfast, Jenny complained bitterly about the snow. “That schoolhouse is going to be freezing.”

“There’s a heater in there,” Chris said. “A big thing. It should warm that room up quick.”

“Teacher M.K. doesn’t use it,” Jenny said sourly. “She says it’s good for our brains to be slightly chilled.” She shivered. “My fingers are so cold in that room that I can’t even hold a pencil.”

Chris thought about that for a while as he ate his watery oatmeal. Jenny had been complaining about the chill in the schoolroom for a few weeks now, ever since the weather had turned brisk. Why wouldn’t Mary Kate use the heater? Then it dawned on him. Of course! He bolted from his chair and
grabbed his coat and hat from the wall peg. “I’ve got to go. I’ve already fed Samson. Turn him into the paddock before you leave for school.”

As he hurried down the street to the schoolhouse, he found himself grinning. He loved the first real snowfall of the year, damp and clinging, like winter was trying to decide if it was ready to come yet. He picked up his pace when he saw a small black-bonneted figure down the road. He broke into a jog.

“You know, Jenny has been complaining about the temperature in the schoolhouse lately,” he said when he caught up with Mary Kate. “But I told her just to wear an extra sweater or two. That her teacher must be feeling the need to save coal.”

M.K.’s cheeks were red from the cold air and her brown eyes were snapping. “Absolutely. It’s important for the children to learn to be frugal.”

“Then she started wearing mittens all day, and scarves and ear muffs. Then she asked to borrow my coat. I told her that her teacher must have a pretty good reason to keep the schoolhouse well chilled.”

“Well, the theory is that cold helps to keep them awake. Especially the big boys.”

“Or maybe . . . the teacher doesn’t know how to get the heater started.”

Mary Kate stopped short, opened her mouth to say something. Snapped it shut. She looked up at him with those dark-fringed eyes. “Maybe I forgot to pay attention when Orin Stoltzfus was giving me his lengthy tutorial on the fussy heater.” She cringed. “Oh Chris, I have tried to get it started every morning for two weeks now! I just can’t make it work.” She frowned. “The truth is, I think this heater has it in for me.”

He laughed, and then she laughed. “Why didn’t you just say something to someone?”

“I did ask Jimmy Fisher for help and he promised to stop by, but that hasn’t happened yet.”

“Why didn’t you just ask your dad? Or your uncle Hank?”

She frowned. “Fern is forever telling me to solve my problems by myself. I nearly asked Uncle Hank, but he has a tendency to make problems worse. Yesterday I thought I had it figured out at last. Then it blew up and sputtered coal dust at me. Ruined my apron. And today, I wake up to find snow!”

They were at the schoolhouse now. Mary Kate unlocked the door and Chris went right to work. It was a temperamental old coal heater, he had to admit. But it wasn’t too different a model from Old Deborah’s old heater. Soon, he had a small fire started in the base of the heater, added coal, and it wasn’t long before the chill in the air tapered off. Just in time too. He heard the sounds of children arriving.

Mary Kate was staring out the window, stunned. Chris came up behind her to gaze at the schoolhouse scene. Whoops and squeals, snowballs firing through the air, exploding on the back of one child or another, laughter as bright as sleigh bells. Excellent snowball fighting weather. He grinned, wondering how Mary Kate would adjust to the classroom climate today. The first snow substantially altered the environment. Boys would be chomping at the bit to stampede their way outside for recess. Remembering his own school years, it wasn’t long before there was as much snow being flung through the air as was resting on the ground. An all-out free-for-all.

“Well,” he said, “I could help you with the heater, but that, out there, is all yours.” He grinned and turned to go.

He was practically to the door when she called out, “How
did you know that I didn’t have any idea how to work the heater?”

He shrugged. “Wasn’t hard to figure out.” He rolled that over in his mind as he walked down the lane to turn onto Windmill Farm’s drive. It occurred to him that he was starting to understand the illogical logic of Mary Kate Lapp. The first few times he met her, he tried to follow her line of thinking and was often left pawing the air. Why was she starting to make sense to him?

Lately, thoughts of Mary Kate Lapp rose up time and again. He tried to kick her image aside the way he might scoot a cat out from underfoot, but back it came, silently slinking in. All he could think of were those eyes. Those deep, brown, lovely eyes.

Whenever his thoughts drifted toward Mary Kate, a sense of well-being sneaked up on Chris, which he normally only experienced after a hard day’s work, when he was too tired to think straight.

Such a feeling worried him. And pleased him too. Both.

16

T
hat first snowfall was just a tease of winter’s coming, but Chris stopped by the schoolhouse every single morning to help M.K. start the heater. She thought she had a pretty good handle on it after watching him work that first morning, but she decided not to share that particular revelation with him. She liked having him there. Each morning, they would talk a little. He loved hearing stories about the scholars. A few times, he even laughed out loud.

Little by little, M.K. was discovering more about Chris Yoder. He fascinated her. Ever since that first predawn conference when he helped her start the coal heater, several days ago now, it seemed natural to be together. They met early on the way to the schoolhouse, talking as they walked, their breath puffs of fog. It intrigued her that as Chris went about the business of firing up the heater, his experiences seeped from him, episode by episode, as if they wanted out. But if she asked anything, he clammed up. Door shut. Conversation over.

So she
was
learning to be patient. Wouldn’t Rome be proud of her? Wouldn’t he be amazed? Mary Kate Lapp, starting to be patient. Learning to wait for a person to choose to share
his past, in his time, rather than going after that information with reckless abandon, like she usually did. She was very pleased with herself. And those early morning moments with Chris were becoming her favorite of the day.

Late on Friday afternoon, she was wiping down the chalkboard. She heard her name. She turned and there he was. Chris, alone, standing by the door in front of the cloakroom. He had a smile that hitched up on one side. That smile of his, especially when it reached his eyes and made them crinkle in that way, it made her stomach do a flip-flop.

“Jenny left her lunch Igloo.” He lifted it up. “Didn’t want to leave it here over the weekend.”

M.K. tossed the chalk rag on her desk and walked to him. “I was just finishing for the day.” She grabbed her coat and bonnet off the wall peg in case he was in a hurry to leave, as he often was. But he wasn’t. He held the door for her and stayed on the school porch, waiting for her to lock up. Something was on his mind. By now, she knew not to press him.

“I wondered if . . . maybe . . . next time there’s a decent snowfall, maybe you’d like to go on a sled ride with Samson. I’d need to borrow your dad’s sled, though.” His cheeks flamed and he looked down at his feet, kicking a loose board with his boot top.

“Yes!” It burst out of her.

Chris’s head snapped up. “Really? I mean, uh, good.” His eyes crinkled into a smile.

Oh, there was that smile again. She thought for sure her knees were going to go right out from under her. A quiet spun out between them.

The most wonderful surprise happened next.
Don’t breathe,
she thought.
Don’t move.
Chris bent down to lightly graze her lips with his. Just a featherlight kiss. Her first.

Amos Lapp had gone to the schoolhouse phone shanty to see if there were any messages, and to place a call to his eldest daughter, Julia, who lived in Berlin, Ohio. Communication required patience—he would leave a message for her, and when she had time to check messages, she would return the call by leaving a message back for him. They were planning to head out to Ohio for Christmas to visit Julia and Rome and their four boys.

While they were there, they would take some time to visit little Joe-Jo, the child of his now-in-heaven son, Menno. Joe-Jo lived with his mother, Annie, in a Swartzentruber colony not too far from Berlin. Imagine that, Amos thought, pleased. Counting Sadie’s two little ones, he had six grandsons and one granddaughter. Could a man ask for any greater gift? And he had a sneaking suspicion that it wouldn’t be long before M.K. and Jimmy Fisher married. Seemed like that boy was at Windmill Farm on a daily basis. Perhaps Amos would have a dozen grandchildren before long. An even dozen!

Fern had a long list of things she had started for the trip and more than a few questions for Julia. He grinned—he never knew anyone who liked to make plans like his list-making wife. Except for Julia. She was like Fern in that way, wanting everything to be orderly.

He left Fern’s questions for Julia on the message machine and closed the shanty door. It was getting dark—that gloaming hour of the day. As he turned the corner and came around the front of the schoolhouse, he stopped abruptly. There, on the school porch, was an Amish couple, kissing. He turned like a top and hurried back to the shanty to think things over.

He was uncertain of what he was supposed to do—he
needed to pass in front of the schoolhouse to get home. He wished Fern were with him. What would she do? She would probably think it was appalling—to think of a young couple kissing out in public like that, though he had to admit he had done plenty of public kissing when he was a teenager.

But that was different. That was long before he had daughters. He had a different perspective on affection after he became a father of teenaged daughters. He knew what was on the mind of a boy. It occurred to him that he would be doing that girl’s father a favor if he interrupted the couple right now. Better if he was the one to interrupt them than the bishop or ministers. Or imagine if Edith Fisher happened along! He was going to have to tap the boy on his shoulder and send him on his way.

Wait a moment. He suddenly realized something. The girl on that porch wasn’t just any girl. He recognized that turquoise blue dress. Mary Kate had one just like it. She had worn it this very day. That girl
was
Mary Kate! A sick feeling came over Amos. That wasn’t Jimmy Fisher she was kissing. This boy was too tall to be Jimmy Fisher. If he wasn’t mistaken, that boy’s thatch of blond hair belonged to . . . Chris Yoder.

Shocked and distressed, Amos had to sit down on the little stool. When had this romance begun? How could this have happened? This was terrible, terrible news. Of all the boys in Stoney Ridge, how could his little girl be involved with Chris Yoder? Should he fire Chris on the spot? Definitely. He definitely was going to fire him.

He took a deep breath, opened the shanty door, gathered every indignant bone in his body, and marched to the front of the schoolhouse to confront them.