“I have something I should like to share with the class.”
“All right, Jenny,” she answered after a moment, “let me finish writing the arithmetic on the board, then I’ll be with you.” As she turned back with the chalk, she gave a little sigh. She wasn’t sure what this might portend, but judging from previous experience it would probably only further complicate things in her classroom.
Jenny was as open and fresh a person as Jessica had ever met. There was not the slightest bit of guile about her. Unlike so many women with her natural, striking beauty, there was no posturing, no demure pretending, no petty flirtatiousness. She spoke what was on her mind, and she did so boldly and without hesitation. But such frankness, along with the tendency to flit from one topic to another like a swallow darting after insects, could be both disarming and admirable all at the same moment. She was direct but ingenuous, innocent but straightforward, frank without being critical. Will Steed and Peter Ingalls were both deeply affected by her presence, and this is what complicated things in class.
Jessica laid the chalk down and turned around to face her students. She had not married Joshua until a month after her twenty-fifth birthday, so in her mind all of this between Will and Peter and Kathryn and Jenny was like children playing house. And yet she knew her life was not the norm. Marriage at an early age was common enough that just in the past week there was talk of passing an ordinance setting minimum ages for marriage without the consent of the parents. It would be seventeen for boys, fourteen for girls.
She frowned a little. Will would be seventeen in March, as would Peter less than two months later. Jenny was fifteen now and would turn sixteen in August. Kathryn would be fifteen in April. She wanted to throw up her hands and shout out her concerns. Even Olivia would turn fourteen in November. That meant that by the end of the year all of these “children” would no longer need their parents’ permission to pursue their romantic interests.
She brushed the chalk dust off her hands and looked at Jenny. “Thank you for waiting, Jenny. What is it you’d like to share?”
Jenny stood slowly. Jessica saw that there was a folded piece of paper on her desk, but she did not pick it up. “Day before yesterday, you taught us about poetry, Sister Griffith. About how to recognize a good poem.”
Will was watching Jenny closely, but that was nothing new, he always did that. What caught Jessica’s eye was Peter. His head came up slowly and he was staring at Jenny, a touch of panic in his eyes. “Yes, Jenny,” Jessica said, feeling a little uneasy but not sure exactly why.
Jenny picked up the paper and unfolded it. “You asked us if we could find a poem and bring it to class so we could talk about it. Well, I have one.”
Peter came half out of his chair, his face flaming red. “Jenny, no.”
Jenny turned and gave him an encouraging smile. “It’s all right, Peter. You don’t have to be embarrassed.” She turned back to Jessica. “Peter wrote me a poem and gave it to me for Christmas.”
With a groan, Peter slid back down in his seat, his eyes fixed on the floor in front of him. Kathryn was staring at him, looking like a child that had just been slapped. Jennifer Jo, watching her sister closely, sat back, her lips tightening into a hard line. Will, near the back of the class, sat rigid in his chair. Then, when he saw Jessica look at him, he instantly found something outside the window that captured his attention.
Jenny seemed unaware of any of this except for Peter’s embarrassment. Again Jessica was struck with this girl’s unusual nature. This was not malicious. She wasn’t trying to pit Peter against Will, or force Kathryn out of the game somehow. That was the effect she was having, but Jessica really believed it was not what Jenny either wanted or intended. Peter had written her a poem, and she simply wanted to share with the others her joy and pleasure over the gift.
Jessica saw no way out of it. She had asked the students to find poems and bring them back for discussion. Again she sighed. “All right, Jenny, you may read it if you’d like.”
Jenny looked around, smiled, then lifted the paper. “It’s called ‘Friends.’ ” She looked at Peter, but there was nothing that could have pried his gaze away from the floor at that moment. She turned to Jessica and suddenly her voice went very soft. “I’m not a good reader, Sister Griffith. Will you read it for us?”
After a moment, Jessica nodded and stepped forward to take the sheet from her. She too looked at Peter. “Peter, would you rather I didn’t read this out loud?”
He looked up, stricken, but then finally shook his head slowly.
“Does that mean no, you don’t want me to read it, or no, it doesn’t matter?”
“Please, Peter, let her read it,” Jenny pleaded with him. “It’s so beautiful.”
Finally his head came up a fraction. Kathryn was directly in his line of sight, but he forced himself to look past her. “All right,” he said in a low voice.
Jessica raised the paper, read through it quickly to herself, and then, touched again with wonder at the gift given to this boy who sat before her, she began to read out loud.
Friends
Friendship’s treasured touch
Is sometimes lost,
When wind and tide and circumstance
Demand their cost.
Sails that billow wide,
Saltwater spray,
A thousand miles of ocean now
Divide friends’ play.
Lonely, aching heart—
But resolute;
No turning back to ease the pain—
Life’s bitter fruit.
Years spin on and on,
And mem’ries fade,
But somewhere deep inside remains
The loss, unpaid.
But seas that draw apart
Can reunite,
And wind and tide and circumstance
Undo the slight.
Floating treasure chest
Upon the tide;
I open up and to my joy,
The jewel’s inside.
Friend returned again—
Who cares the cost?
More beautiful and dear to me
Than what was lost.
Jessica finished, and folded the paper again. The room was very still. Then, with a stifled sob, Kathryn rose and stumbled blindly toward the door. Instantly, Jennifer Jo was up and hurrying after her. As the door slammed shut again, Will, stiff-lipped and grim, stood and followed them out. A little dazed by this unexpected result, Jenny Pottsworth stared at the closed door.
Jessica was sitting up in bed with the lamp out but the door open. Jennifer Jo tiptoed by in her nightdress, carrying a candle in its holder. Kathryn was directly behind her. “I’m awake,” Jessica called out. “Come in for a minute.”
As they came in, Jessica moved over and patted the coverlet. “Come on, it’s time for some girl talk.”
Kathryn crawled up on one side of her; Jennifer Jo set the candle down on the dressing table and sprawled out across the foot of the bed where she could look at both of them at the same time.
“How are you doing?” Jessica asked.
Kathryn blushed a little. “I’m sorry, Jessie. I didn’t mean to walk out of class today.”
Jessica shushed her. “That’s not what I want to talk about.”
“What?”
“I want to talk about houses.”
“Houses?” Kathryn echoed.
“Yes.”
“What kind of houses?”
Jessica smiled faintly. “The houses that we live in.”
Both girls looked a little perplexed. This was what she felt was so important? But Kathryn pulled the covers up around her shoulders and snuggled in on one side of Jessica. Jennifer Jo liked that idea and moved up to do the same on the other side. Finally settled, they looked up at her.
“All right,” Jessica began, “now tell me about houses. Do they all look alike? Are they all the same?”
“Of course not,” Kathryn replied. “There are all different kinds.”
“There are about as many different houses as there are people,” Jennifer Jo added.
“That’s exactly right.” That was the answer Jessica was hoping for. “Now, let me ask you another question. How do you think Heavenly Father would feel if we chose to like a person based only on the house in which the person lived?”
“That would be terrible,” Kathryn blurted out instantly.
“Terrible,” Jennifer Jo agreed.
“Yes, it would be. I think we all see that who lives in the house is much more important than the house itself, right?”
“Right!”
She reached across Jennifer Jo and took the Bible from the small night table beside her bed. “Let me read you something the Apostle Paul wrote to the Corinthians.” She flipped the pages quickly to where she had a small paper as a bookmark. “It’s in the sixth chapter of First Corinthians. Here is what he says: ‘Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you?’ ”
She shut the book and set it on the table again. “Now,” she said, looking down at Kathryn. “Tell me what that means.”
“Well,” Kathryn began, her face twisting as she thought, “I think it means that our bodies are like a temple, a place where the Holy Ghost dwells.”
“Yes, that’s good. Jennifer Jo?”
“Well, a temple is a holy and sacred place.”
“Excellent. And what do we call the temple? Don’t we also say it is a house?”
Jennifer Jo saw it immediately. “Yes. We call it the house of God.”
“So if your body is a temple, and the temple is a house, then we could also say your body is . . .” She stopped, leaving it for them to finish.
“A house,” Kathryn exclaimed.
“That’s right. Our bodies are simply the houses in which our spirits live. Agreed?”
Jennifer Jo guessed where all this was leading now. “And all of our houses are different, aren’t they?”
“They certainly are,” Jessica answered. Now, very softly, she asked the crucial question. “But which is more important? The house we live in, or the person that lives in that house?”
“The person.” It came out as one answer from the both of them.
Kathryn was looking at Jessica strangely, and it was to her that Jessica now addressed her next question. “Jenny Pottsworth’s spirit was sent to a very lovely house, wasn’t it?”
“It certainly was,” Kathryn said woefully.
“And you feel more like you’re living in a log cabin, right?” Jessica asked, gently smiling now.
Kathryn’s nose wrinkled. “More like a sod shanty, I think.”
“Kathryn!” Jennifer Jo exclaimed.
“Well, it’s true! Jenny makes me feel like a dingy little hut.”
Jessica broke in with another question. “Do you think the person who lives in Jenny’s house is a nice person?”
There was a long silence. Finally, Kathryn began to nod slowly. “Yes. Jenny is nice. In fact, she’s so nice, I hate her.”
Jessica laughed aloud.
“Well, I do,” Kathryn said mournfully. “I wish I could say she was awful and selfish and . . . but she’s not. She’s a good person. A lovely person.”
“For many, many years,” Jessica said quietly, “I believed I lived in one of the plainest houses God had ever created. I would barely look people in the eye because I was sure I was so homely and plain.”
“But you don’t feel that way anymore?” Kathryn said, her eyes wide and searching.
“No,” Jessica replied with simple frankness, “I don’t. And here’s a lesson for you. The house I live in is still the same, just getting a little fatter and picking up more wrinkles, but it’s still the same old house I’ve always lived in. But how I feel about that house is very different now.”
“Why?” Jennifer Jo asked, surprised that Jessica had ever had such feelings about herself.
“Because I was fortunate enough to marry a man named John Griffith.” Her voice faltered for a moment; then she went on more slowly. “You see, Kathryn, John was a man who cared more about what kind of woman lived in this house of mine than he did about the house itself. Thank goodness.” She straightened and there was a sudden intensity in her eyes. “And because of his feelings toward me—not my house, but me!—I came to feel beautiful.”
“You are beautiful,” Kathryn said loyally.
Jennifer Jo smiled, then slipped her arm through Jessica’s and laid her head against her shoulder. “That’s how Matthew makes me feel too, Jessie.”
Jessica nodded, then turned fully now to Kathryn. “I want you to think about that, about your house. You are a lovely person outside and inside, Kathryn McIntire. I know you don’t think you are as pretty as Jenny, but you have a special beauty all of your own. But that doesn’t really matter. You just worry about the woman you’ve got living in your house. If you do that, sooner or later some man—maybe Peter, maybe someone you’ve not even met yet—will see that woman and fall in love with her. And when that happens, nothing else will matter.”
A movement out the window caught Will’s eye and he looked up. He came out of his chair with a jerk, winning himself a startled look from Jeb Parkinson, Joshua’s office foreman. But Will didn’t see that at all. All he saw was that Jenny Pottsworth was crossing the street, heading directly for the freight office.
Moving quickly, almost in a panic, he brushed his hair back out of his eyes and looked down at his clothes. He had spent most of the morning out in the stable helping two of the hands fix a broken wagon wheel. There was a streak of grease across one pant leg, and his shirt front was smudged in several places. He rubbed at it hard, cursing his luck. There was nothing he could do now.
His eye fell on the desk. It was a jumble of papers. He began pushing them together, trying to get them into some kind of order. He grabbed the pen and inkwell and moved them to the front. He shoved an empty coffee cup and the stained paper beneath it into a drawer.
Parkinson was staring at him. “You all right, Will?”