Under the Same Blue Sky (6 page)

“Ah.”

“It’s good, rich land. Here, feel it.” Stopping the car with a jolt, he jumped down, coughing, scooped up a handful of dirt and pressed it in my hand. “Finest soil this side of the Mississippi.” I held the clod until we swerved around a wagonload of chicken crates and I could toss it out a window. Henry coughed into a bandanna pulled from his pocket. “Arthritis and this blasted cough. Young folks like you don’t know what I’m talking about. You can’t appreciate good health.” Unsure how to respond, I said nothing.

“Well, Hazel, you know the rules, don’t you? You’ll need to come an hour early to start the stove if it’s cold out, bring in a pail of water and one of coal, sweep twice a day, wash down the blackboard, and keep the schoolyard clean. There’s Christmas and spring pageants to put on; folks appreciate a good show. County tests twice a year. We need better scores than Mildred got. You should have twenty-six students, but not all of them come. Or they come and don’t stay.”

“I’ll try to convince them all to stay.”

“Hum. Well—lots of schoolmarms try. Here’s your house.” He rattled to a stop by a small frame house of unpainted boards in a weedy patch of green. A jolt ran through me at the sight of the porch. It was exactly as I’d imagined: a perfect place to sit and draw. The steps were swept and the windows freshly washed, yet the house had an air of loneliness, as if it had stood empty for years. In fact, it had. “Might as well tell you the truth about this place, Hazel, so you can leave now if you want to.”

I met Henry’s challenging eye. “Tell me.”

“All right then. The young couple that built this place five years ago, Oliver and Ethel Harding, disappeared on their wedding night. Everyone suspected John Foster, who was sweet on Ethel, especially when he left town the next day. We found their bodies over there.” He pointed to a thicket. “After that, people said the house was spooked and maybe John was coming back. Nobody wanted to live here. So we figured we’d offer it along with the salary because somebody from outside wouldn’t be as scary as Galway folks.”

“Scary?”

“Get scared for no reason,” he translated. I wasn’t “scary” at that moment. John’s quarrel was with Oliver and Ethel, not with me, and certainly not with the house.

“Can we go inside?”

“Sure.” He stopped on the porch to cough. “You know, John was a good boy before, preacher’s kid. Never a lick of trouble. His family moved away after what happened, and of course John never came back. A shame, the whole thing. He always wanted to be a doctor. He had the touch.” Henry opened the door. “My wife and some of the ladies cleaned up for you. They thought if they didn’t, you’d be on the next train to Pittsburgh, scary or not.”

Sunlight poured through sparkling windows. I had an inside bathroom, two electric lights, iron bed, oak table, four straight chairs and a rocking chair, storage trunk, reading lamp, clock, fresh linens, two towels, a neat row of clothes hooks, and a simple kitchen with a woodstove, water pump and sink, dishes, pots, pans, an old-fashioned pie safe, and a washbasin.

“No icebox, but the root cellar keeps things pretty cool. Jim Burnett, the grocer, sent over some provisions.” The kitchen table held a basket
of onions, beans and early potatoes, a bag of flour, slab of bacon, loaf of bread, and small block of cheese.

“Please tell everyone that I’m very grateful.”

“Well, just trying to be hospitable. Let’s get your things.”

Outside, Henry’s eyes followed mine to the bare sideboards of the house. “Never did get it painted after what happened, with nobody living here and all.”

“It could be painted now,” I said. “Something bright, like blue.”

“
Blue?
Folks here have white houses. They’re blue in Pittsburgh?”

“No, I just like blue.”

“Hum, well. We’ll see.” The women’s few hours of work had cost him nothing. Painting houses was different. We stood uncomfortably by his car. I asked to see the school,
the white school,
I nearly added.

“Sure.” At a movement in the woods, he barked: “You leave the schoolteacher alone, Ben!” I turned to catch a pale, lined face peering at us from a thicket. Then the whole of the man appeared: thin, of indeterminate age with rheumy eyes, scratching himself mercilessly.

“Stop scratching!” The man stopped, clenching his fists. “That’s Ben Robinson. He’s harmless,” Henry explained, as if the man were deaf. “He claims he was with Roosevelt’s Rough Riders in ’98 for the Spanish-American War. He showed up in town a few years ago, half crazy and scratching, like you see. Folks give him odd jobs, but sometimes he just disappears for days. Don’t you, Ben?”

Ben was edging closer, as if fascinated by his own story. “Yes, ma’am, I saw things in Cuba. I hear voices and then I go to the woods. I don’t hurt nobody.”

“Uh-huh. Well, you don’t bother her. Maybe she’ll have some work for you, maybe she won’t, but one word of trouble and you’ll be out of town with this boot in your backside. Understand?”

“Yes,” he said softly.

“Yes what?”

“Yes, Mr. McFee.”

“Good. So get along now.” Ben limped back into the woods, scratching.

“Where does he live?”

“He’s got a little shack behind Burnett’s Grocery, and there’s talk that he built a camp over Red Gorge,” Henry said with distaste. “Nobody’s seen it. But never mind Ben. Come on. I’ll show you the schoolhouse. It’s down the road.” It was indeed white, with a well, outhouse, and bare patch of playground. Half the windows were broken. Inside, rows of battered desks faced a torn world map and cracked blackboard. “Slate,” said Henry proudly, “not just wood painted black like in some schools.”

“The windows will be fixed?”

“Soon as we get the glass.” He pointed to a stack of aging McGuffey Readers. “You asked for those new readers, but we’ve got these. Might as well keep them.” Useless to lecture that modern pedagogy rejected the rote memorization of the McGuffey series. Henry might counter that pedagogy was a city concern. “Well, you’ll want to be settling in. Judge Ashton expects you tomorrow morning for tutoring Susanna. You’ll like her, everybody does,” he said with sudden warmth. “She was sick all spring. Weak heart, folks say. You can’t miss the house. It’s the big white one about a mile down the road. Two big oak trees and a circle drive. You can walk home from here?” I nodded and he climbed into his Model T. “Then good afternoon, Hazel, and welcome to Galway.”

Was
I welcome, a city slicker with an unaccountable preference for blue? I’d have to earn my welcome and prove that I’d fit in. “Confidence and pride,” my teachers had advised. “Demand them of yourself as well as your students.” I would. I’d start now. By calling up confidence and
pride, perhaps I could beat back a nagging fear that, like Margit, I’d merely found another place I’d soon want to leave.

I reached the house that would be mine, small and gray as it was. But I looked at its charms: good light, a porch, space to hang my drawings, all the furnishings I’d need, even a vase to hold wildflowers blooming outside my door. My house. My kitchen. I made toasted cheese and bread: my first meal in Galway. Delicious. I unpacked clothes and hung up my father’s new tins. One showed the Old Bridge of Heidelberg over the River Neckar. In the other, fairy spires of a distant castle peeked over pine trees. Hung by my bed, they caught the silver sheen of afternoon light. I wrote a quick and happy account of the day and walked into town to post my first letter home.

All along Main Street, people already knew who I was; many greeted me by name. Yet at every step I was studied, as if my dress, the twists of my hair, and my very way of walking were notable and strange. Where was the welcome?
It will come. I’ll be their finest teacher, and they’ll appreciate me for their children’s sake.
Meanwhile, there was no factory stench in the bright, clear air. Those whose families came here before the American Revolution would have no cousins, brothers, or nephews dead, shell-shocked, or sent home with limbs hacked off, and thus no reason to hate their neighbors. They might not even know that I was a hyphenate.

In the grocery store, I thanked Mr. Burnett for his provisions and bought green beans, carrots, coffee, soap, butter, and eggs. “Call me Jim, and my wife’s Ellen. We hope you’re happy here.” I nearly leaned across the counter to hug him. A black-haired girl about nine years old watched me from a doorway, clutching a book. When I waved, she ducked away.

“That’s our Alice. She’ll be in your school,” he said loudly.

“Wonderful. I see she’s a reader.”

“She is.” He glanced over his shoulder and motioned me closer.
“Alice has epilepsy. When she has fits at school, boys torment her. Miss Clay, the last schoolmarm, switched them.”

“I don’t believe in switching children, but I won’t allow tormenting.”

“Well, I hope you can stop them some other way.” Could I? The wave of confidence I’d ridden an hour ago collapsed in doubt. Could I even promise
one
child that she’d be safe? The store filled and I slipped out. Everything in Galway looked different now. The falling sun sent shadow bars across the road. Back at my house, knotholes in the bare siding looked out like baleful eyes. I’d never slept alone before. There was always my parents’ good-night kiss and their murmured voices before sleep. Tonight even the pound of distant factories would be comforting.

I contrived to be busy. With the last light, I fashioned bookshelves from planks and bricks piled outside my house. I made soup, heated water for a bath, and planned the next day’s lessons for Susanna, starting at each hooting owl and breaking branch. Could a scuffle near my house be John Foster coming back or Ben, the scratching, twitching man? Finally I curled in bed. Moonlight glazed my father’s tins. I’d never imagined what courage the night could need. Was Margit afraid her first night in Dogwood? She’d been my age, exactly. Did she watch through a window as stars caught and freed themselves in leafy branches? Did she wait for daylight, wondering if she’d made a mistake in coming to this new place?

T
HE NEXT MORNING
was crisp and bright. “Confidence and pride,” I repeated aloud until my spirits lifted. Tutoring one child would be simple and build my confidence for the schoolroom. Buoyed by the pleasure of learning, the sickly Susanna might gain strength like the invalid Clara in
Heidi
. Why not, on warm days in such beautiful country? Lilies and daisies lined the mile to Judge Ashton’s stately, columned white home.
Mrs. Ashton hurried down the broad porch steps and earnestly pressed my hand between her thin ones as if I’d brought a magical healing salve. “Hazel, we’re so glad you’re here. But poor Susanna was excited about your coming and slept badly last night. So we’ll have a short day. She’s only nine, remember.”

“Well, let’s see how she does.”

“We can’t have her overtired. On nicer days, when she’s stronger, you can meet in the gazebo.” What day could be “nicer” than this one? “She’s in the parlor. Come.” I was shown to a room heavy with giant ferns in waist-high vases, tasseled velvet curtains, Tiffany lamps, antimacassars on padded wing chairs, and a globe in an ornate frame. In the exact center, a slender child bundled in a cashmere shawl on a velvet divan regarded me with avid eyes. Here was someone new and different in her world. When a breeze ruffled her damp curls, she opened her mouth, tasting the air. A white hand emerged from the cashmere. “Thank you for coming, Miss Renner. I got behind in school.”

“We’ll catch up, Susanna. Don’t worry.”

Mrs. Ashton hurried to close the window. As I set books, paper, pen, a small slate, and chalk on the lacquered table, she brought in tea, crackers, cups, sugar, cream, and water glasses in separate bustling trips until I interrupted: “Thank you, ma’am, we’ll be fine now.” She retreated but left the parlor door open, passing often to listen.

Instructions from Judge Ashton had specified beginning each session with the poetry of Tennyson. “It’s boring,” Susanna complained. “Even arithmetic is better.” So I had her find percentages of vowels, articles, and adjectives in each stanza and mentally figure the life spans of Victorian poets from their birth and death dates. As we moved into Bible study, and then history, Mrs. Ashton revealed a preternatural ability to appear whenever Susanna yawned, sweeping in to fluff pillows, adjust the shawl, or anxiously suggest “a little rest.”

“We’re doing well, ma’am,” I assured her each time. The warm, stuffy room would make anyone yawn. I had to get the child moving. The polished brass armature of the globe suggested a geography game. The parlor would represent Europe. The divan was France. Moving around the room, Susanna would “visit” the British Isles, Prussia, Sicily, Hungary or Greece and tell me what she knew of each country, which was an astonishing amount. “I like to read about other places,” she confessed.

“Careful!” Mrs. Ashton warned as Susanna traveled down “the Danube,” a strip of oak flooring, reciting the cities she’d pass. Weakened by hours of forced idleness, she did bump a glass-topped end table. Afraid our lesson would be ended, I bundled her back on the divan for penmanship practice before Judge Ashton returned. He paid me the agreed $1.20 for three hours of tutoring.

“Susanna looks flushed,” he said. “She mustn’t be overtired. Come at ten tomorrow, Miss Renner. We’ll just do two hours a day for a while.” I had to agree, even if Susanna needed more time for review, and I needed the full three hours’ pay until my regular school salary began.

As I walked home in the warm pour of sunshine, a soft crackle of dry leaves trailed me in the woods. A raccoon, a badger, or a deer? I’d seen none of them outside of zoos or picture books. A wolf? A bear? Should I freeze or run? A human shape appeared in the shadows. “Ben?” I hazarded nervously. It was Ben Robinson, bare arms scratched to bleeding, with a package wrapped in leaves. Coming closer as I stepped back, he smelled of moss, ferns, and sweat. “It’s for you, ma’am.” Folding back the green, I found wild strawberries: tiny, tart, and delicious. He wouldn’t take any but asked as I ate: “You were teaching Miss Susanna?”

“Yes. How do you know?”