The book drops from my fingers. I have been so, so stupid. What makes me think I can teach children? They don’t need philosophy in a schoolhouse made of planks. They don’t need pretty ideals for a life they will never have. They don’t need me.
As Mr. Jeffers informed me, I have ten students from the various branches of the Cooke family. They are easily identifiable: they are the ones with clean faces and slates. The head of the family — Old Man Cooke, who owns the largest ranch in the area — sends them all to the school on a wagon.
I have seven other students. Four are from the McHenry family, who own the general store in town; two are twin daughters of the preacher of the Episcopalian church with which we share a wall; and one is a little slip of a girl named Phoebe Ann. She’s the only one without her own slate, the only one without a lunch pail and no intention of returning home for a midday meal, and she squints so badly I’m not sure she can see the front of the room.
“She won’t last,” one of the Cooke children informs me in a loud whisper.
But Phoebe Ann — Annie, as she quickly tells me she likes to be called — pays me for a month of schooling with a small jar of berry preserves. She warns me she can only come now that there is no harvest and her momma hasn’t just had another baby for her to take care of and the next youngest has died of a fever, and if things change, she’ll have to go. She asks if she can pay with rabbit skins next month, since that’s the last jar of berries they have. I say she can.
That’s how the subscription school works, I learn. The Cooke family bought the schoolhouse, and the McHenrys donated some money to get it all started, but that was only for the beginning. Now that the school is established, everything comes from the subscription fees the students give me. They all pay by the month. And I’m to use these fees to pay the church rent, to pay for the supplies I need to run the school, and to pay for my own needs with whatever’s left. Which won’t be much, as the teacher they hired originally scampered at the first sign of winter and took some of the supplies for the school with him.
Despite living the farthest away, the Cooke children are the first to arrive. The boys load the stove with wood, and the girls help with the washbasin. They each have their own seat, arranged from youngest to oldest on the benches, two children to a little table. They have to shuffle around to accommodate Annie, who hadn’t bothered to come to school while the previous teacher was here, as she’d been helping her family on the farm — but none of the children really seem to mind. They make a point to remind me that all the Cooke boys will miss months at a time in the spring when new calves are born.
We recite the Lord’s Prayer.
Then the children look at me.
Waiting.
My stomach twists. I had planned what to do in this moment, but now that it’s here, now that all their eyes are on me . . .
“Mr. Brooks started with numbers,” the oldest Cooke girl informs me.
I cannot let them think of me as just a replacement, a poor imitation of their former teacher. I snatch up my McGuffey’s Reader from the table I use as a desk. There are no books, not aside from the ones I brought with me and a spare Bible.
“We shall start with reading. Bridget McHenry,” I say, pointing to the eldest girl in the class, “you shall go first.”
She swings her legs into the aisle, stands, and strides to the center of the room. She is only five years my junior, and she carries herself with more confidence than I have ever had.
No . . . that’s not quite true. I used to have more confidence. I used to think the world would bend to my will too.
Bridget takes the book from my hand.
“Page one hundred and seventeen,” I say in a loud, carrying voice that betrays none of my nerves. “Read the story of the gouty merchant, please.”
Bridget clears her throat and reads the tale, her voice loud and clear. It’s a very short piece, about a rich man doing his accounting when a stranger enters his building. The stranger at first acts kind, telling the man that he found the door ajar and that there seemed to be no one home, so he wanted to inform the rich man of the danger of leaving his door open. The rich man thanks him, telling him he’ll have his footman thrown in jail, that he is home alone and quite vulnerable.
At which point the stranger smiles, thanks him for confirming he’s alone, blows out the candles, and robs the rich man blind.
Bridget hands the book back to me and returns to her seat when she’s done reading. Before she can sit down, the eldest Cooke boy stands.
“Yes, Joseph?” I ask him, hesitating only a moment for his name.
“I read after Bridget. That’s how Mr. Brooks had us do it.”
“We are going to discuss the story of the merchant and the stranger before we move on,” I say coolly.