Maud didn’t see any charm in him.
A few more rowdy boys burst in. There was Frank Robertson, Maud learned from Annie, a tall dark-haired boy of about sixteen, whose expression suggested that he was always looking for trouble, and two boys who were the reverend’s sons, Bertie and Arthur Jardine. According to Annie, the “younger and stupider brother, Bertie,” definitely meant to make mischief—but something about his older brother, Arthur, told Maud that she might have liked him if he hadn’t been chumming around with those other boys. Thank goodness Edie and Annie were there.
“That’s Joe MacDonald.” Annie pointed to another boy. “And over there is Douglas Maveety. Mr. Mustard is going to have to keep those boys under control.”
“Many of those boys are Métis,” Edie whispered to Maud. “If they keep behaving that way, Mr. Mustard won’t give them a chance.”
“Now, how am I going to study with such beautiful brown hair in front of me?”
Maud froze, then Annie giggled. Maud slowly turned around to see the red-haired boy from the Kennedy place—the one she had seen on her first day. He had, she admitted, the most charming green eyes and the most agreeable smile. Still, after the ridiculous behavior these boys were exhibiting, she wasn’t about to allow him to get away with teasing her. It was dangerous to let boys get away with things. She was probably blushing.
“I guess you’ll have to manage,” Maud said, turning around. Now she was definitely blushing.
“I didn’t think your father would let you come to school so early, Will,” Annie said.
“I’ll certainly let my father know, Annie,” he said.
Edie passed Maud a note on her slate: That’s Will Pritchard. His aunt lives next door.
I’ve seen him before, Maud wrote back.
As Edie dutifully erased the messages, a tall, thin man with short brown hair ran in, out of breath. Some of the boys laughed, but he rapped his ruler and they stopped.
That must be Mr. Mustard. Maud scribbled on her slate, then erased it and sat up straight. She wanted to make a good first impression.
Mr. Mustard stood as though he had been told to always stand at attention in case Queen Victoria herself came for tea. His welcoming address was certainly not as inspiring as Miss Gordon’s had been, and was as dull as he appeared to be. Worse, the textbook was new, from Ontario, and didn’t resemble Maud’s Royal Reader. She was used to finding the same poems she had read throughout her school life, and this textbook also contained mathematics—something she always despised. Bewildered, she had a hard time keeping up when Mr. Mustard put them to work right away, drilling them tediously through each math equation but never giving proper instructions.
When Maud raised her hand to ask for clarification, he sniffed, stuck one of his hands in his vest pocket and said, “Everything you require is in the textbook.”
At lunch hour there was really nothing to do. The boys played ball outside, and Will joined them. Although he wasn’t as rough as they were, he could hold his own. Maud, Annie, and Edie walked around the school and then stood on the balcony of the old hotel, watching people go by.
There were more men and women shuffling past, all of them very skinny. Maud wondered if she should help them in some way. Wasn’t she supposed to help? Isn’t that what they were always doing at church, sending money to the missions? Even last week at church, Reverend Jardine had asked everyone to put a little extra in the collection plate for the missionaries. She sighed. There was so much to understand in this New Eden.
—
As the week progressed, Maud completely lost faith in Mr. Mustard—and any hope of learning in such a forsaken place. One morning she even found a pink feather floating by her foot; Edie informed her that the upstairs was used as a ballroom, so the ladies used the classroom as a dressing room.
At the end of the second week, Douglas came in late from lunch break with dirt smudged across his cheeks, staring down at his scuffed shoes, and smelling like a rotting pig. Maud took her handkerchief, placed it over her mouth and coughed.
“Why is he even here?” Edie asked. “He smells as if he’s been hit in the face with a skunk.”
“I suspect he didn’t want to be marked truant and face the whip,” Annie said.
“Girls, quiet,” Mr. Mustard said.
The boys were shifting in their seats, and there was a lot of coughing and a few chuckles. Mr. Mustard put the textbook down and stuck his index fingers in his vest pocket. “Douglas, what is that foul odor?”
Douglas’s dirt-smudged cheeks went red. “I was helping the public school kids with a pesky skunk, sir.”
“That skunk got the best of you,” Bertie said, which brought the class into hysterics. Even Maud had trouble keeping a straight face.
Mr. Mustard cleared his throat and pointed at Douglas. “Go to the corner.”
“I’m not sure that’s going to help, sir,” Willie MacBeath said. “He smells like my outhouse.”
This sparked another round of laughter.
Douglas slowly went to the far corner of the room, while everyone else tried to focus on their lessons. Within the hour, the smell had sullied the whole room, and there was so much fidgeting and coughing that—finally—Mr. Mustard relented and sent Douglas home.
By the end of the week, it was clear to Maud that teaching was not Mr. Mustard’s calling. During lessons, Maud often caught him gazing out the window with the grimmest expression.
This was no place to get a quality education. She had to come up with a new plan. But she had no idea what that plan might be.
CHAPTER SIX
Homesickness clouded everything. Maud hadn’t heard from Pensie or Nate, two people whom she loved but who were clearly irritated with her now. And there was nothing she could do. Maybe she needed to write and show them both how much they meant to her. With Nate, though, it was too dangerous; he would get the wrong idea. But she could show Pensie with words.
One day at school, while Mr. Mustard was again gazing somberly out the window, Maud, instead of doing another dreaded math equation, wrote a long poem to Pensie, illustrating all of the beautiful things she loved about her house in Cavendish. She called it “My Friend’s Home,” trying to portray in verse what she was feeling, emulating what she had observed in Tennyson and Browning.
’Tis not my home though almost ’tis as dear
And next to home the fairest spot on earth
That little cottage in a far-off land
In that blue-circled isle that gave me birth.