Years (15 page)

With a half hour to go before the dismissal bell, she sat at her table up front, going over the day’s papers. Allen, who was part of the oldest group assigned to write the essays, had instead printed the list of words. Further angered by his willfulness, she read the list anyway, without taking him to task for deliberately disobeying instructions. The list itself revealed the boy’s defiance:

boring
stoopid
prayers
pest (sister)
black
disterb

To Linnea’s surprise he’d added two words totally incongruous with the rest:

choclat cookys

She looked up from the paper to find Allen slouched over his desk with his chin resting on one curled fist, staring at her. He was supposed to be reading, but his hands covered the open book.

Choclat cookys.
His mother’s chocolate cookies? Was there a glimmer of appreciation inside the boy after all? But what about the word
disterb?
Too disturbed herself to try to figure it out, she turned the paper face down and went on to the next. She felt Allen’s eyes drilling the top of her head until she could stand it no more and checked her watch again.

The watch was retractable, its spring-wound cable concealed behind the gold bow. As she pulled it out and snapped the cover open she again felt a discomfiting scrutinization. She looked up to find Allen’s eyes fixed on her breast where the fabric of her shirtwaist formed a point at the tug of the chain. A shiver rippled up her spine and she felt herself senselessly coloring, but then he turned his disinterested gaze out the window.

Don’t be silly. He’s only a fifteen-year-old boy, for heaven’s sake.

She studied him covertly for a minute longer. He was gangly
and thin, but tall and disproportionately wide at the shoulder, like a high building whose rafters are up and sturdy, but waiting for the walls to be fleshed out. He had none of Kristian’s developing brawn, but then he didn’t do strenuous work like the sons of farmers did. Still, approaching manhood could be seen in the bones of Allen’s angular face and in his sardonic upper lip, which was already trimmed by a wispy shadow of soft whiskers matching those just below the hollows of his cheeks. His eyebrows appeared to be thickening, too, as if one day they would almost span the bridge of his nose. But when she considered what Allen would be like as a man, she shivered again, and quickly dropped her gaze as his head began turning her way again.

“Children, it’s time to put your desks in order for the night. Please return your books to the front and wash your ink pens out in the pail in the cloak room. We’ll go by grades — Jeannette, Bent, and Skipp, you may go first.”

When the room was in order, she wished them all good afternoon and walked toward the cloakroom to ring the bell. But when her arms were lifted high above her head and the children were dashing past, Allen Severt alone took his slow, sweet time. He ambled toward her, heels dragging, and this time there was no question about it — he was openly eyeing her breasts. Immediately she released the bell rope, facing him with as much confidence as she could muster.

“Good-bye, Allen. Let’s you and I try for a better day tomorrow.”

He gave a single, mirthless huff and sauntered past without saying a word.

All of which did little to ameliorate her temper for her meeting with Theodore.

Theodore was troubled by the amount of time he spent thinking of Miss Brandonberg. It was a hazard of his occupation, thinking too much. How many hours of his life had been spent behind the plodding horses, thinking? And what else was there to do while riding along, watching their shiny rumps sweating in the sun and their large heads nodding? As a boy, working for his father, he’d done his share of dozing to the horses’ steady strut. As an adolescent, maturing, he’d done his dreaming to the scrape of earth against an iron plowshare.
As a disillusioned husband, he’d done his worrying to the constant
ch-r-r-r
of seeds falling from the grain drill. And as a greenhorn father, abandoned with a year-old son, he’d done his angering in this same place.

Over the years the vista hadn’t changed at all: horses, harvest, and horizon.

He had communicated chiefly with the land and animals for so long that he’d grown introspective and dour and had quite forgotten how to communicate with human beings. Oh, there were Nissa and John, and even Kristian. But they, like him, were private, at home with their own company for the most part.

But this little missy, she was something else again. Forever babbling, bubbling. She sure didn’t know how to put a button on her lip. The fellow who married her had better be ready to put up with plenty of sass. How was it she could rile him so? Loosen his tongue? Make him think of such foolishness as Russian thistle blossoms and the meaning of fancy words?

He smiled, imagining how surprised she must have been when Kristian didn’t show up at school today. Yeah, she was going to be slinging words, first chance she got. Well, let her sling. Kristian was already acting fidgety, gazing off toward the schoolhouse every time he came to the crest of a hill. Theodore wasn’t blind: a fool could see the boy was smitten with the schoolmarm and would have dropped the reins and run off to practice his three
RS
at a moment’s notice. Puppy love. The corner of Theodore’s mouth lifted in a grin, but a moment later it faded as he recalled that he himself hadn’t been much older than Kristian when he’d made that fateful trip to the city and met Melinda.

Melinda.

Dressed in butter yellow, with her black hair bound in a love knot, her green eyes flashing approval. From the moment he’d seen her on that railroad car, he’d been unable to look away.

He shifted restlessly, transferring the reins to his other hand. What in tarnation had come over him that he was thinking of Melinda lately? Melinda was a thing of the past, and the less he thought of her, the better. He’d learned that years ago.

Theodore squared himself in the iron seat and squinted at the sun, riding down the western sky. Milking time. He flexed
and twisted, massaged the back of his neck, and thought of how good it would feel to climb down from this rig and stretch his legs. From the bib of his overalls he pulled a huge old silver stem-winder, checked the time, and slipped it away. Ann, Ma would have sandwiches and a hot cup of coffee waiting. He signaled the others, pulled up at the edge of the field, and released the horses from the sickle. And as he guided the team toward the familiar windmill for a well-deserved drink, he wondered if the little missy would be home from school by this time.

She was waiting to pounce, standing by the derrick with her fists on her hips when Theodore and Kristian entered the yard on foot behind the horses.

Theodore eyed her from beneath the brim of his straw hat, but made no indication he noticed her. Instead, he called, “Slow down, you two,” as the horses spied the water tank and lengthened their strides. Deliberately, he guided Cub and Toots within sniffing distance of her head, all the while ignoring the fact that she stood almost directly in his path.

“Mister Westgaard!” she accosted, turning to glare at his broad shoulders as he passed her without a word.

He’d come close enough to see sparks snapping in her blue eyes.

“Miss Brandonberg?” he replied, with deliberate coolness while she followed him, leaning forward, fists clenched and pumping with each step.

“I want to talk to you!”

“So talk.”

“Your son was
not
in school today!”

Theodore nonchalantly dropped the reins and bent to loosen the cruppers.

“Course not. He was out in the fields with me.”

“Well, what — pray tell! — was he doing there!”

“Doin’ what every able-bodied boy around these parts was doing. Helpin’ with the harvest.”

“On your orders?”

Theodore straightened just as Kristian pulled up with his team, but the boy sensibly kept his mouth shut.

“It don’t take no orders. Boy knows he’s needed and that’s all there is to that.”

“Doesn’t
take
any
orders!” she exploded. “Just listen to yourself!” She gestured at Theodore’s chest. “Your grammar is appalling, yet you want him to grow up talking that way? Well, that’s exactly what he’ll do if you don’t let him come to school!” She shook a finger under his nose for good measure.

Theodore colored and his mouth became a thin slash. Just who did she think she was talking to? “What does it matter how he talks, long as he knows how to run a farm? That’s what he’s gonna do all his life.”

“Oh, is it? And what does he have to say about that?” Her angry eyes snapped to Kristian, then back to his father. “Or does he have
anything
to say about it?” Suddenly she turned and confronted Kristian directly. “What do you say, Kristian? Is this what you plan to do all your life?”

The boy was so startled, he made no reply.

“See there!” she continued. “You’ve got him so brainwashed he can’t even think for himself!”

“Missy, you’d better—”

“My name, when you are addressing me as your son’s teacher, is Miss Brandonberg!”

Theodore glared at her, squared his shoulders, and began again.
“Miss
Brandonberg... ” He let the pause ring mockingly before continuing, “There’s a couple things you’d better get straight. Around here we live by the seasons, not by no calendar set by no lord-high-mukky-muk school superintendent. We got wheat to get in, and when it’s threshed and in the granaries is time enough for boys to go to school.” He raised a finger and pointed to the horizon. “We ain’t tinkerin’ in no old maid’s garden here, you know. What you’re lookin’ at is fields measured in sections, not acres. Just when in the hell do you think he’s gonna use all that fancy language when this land is his? His horses ain’t gonna care one way or another if he talks proper or not.” He thumbed over his shoulder at the horses whose noses were touching the water. “All they care about is gettin’ fed and watered and harnessed proper when we expect ‘em to work for us. Cows, horses, pigs, and wheat!
That’s
what matters around here, and you’d best remember it before you start preachin’ education.”

She straightened and flung her palms up haughtily. “So what was I hired for? If that’s all that matters, you can teach him! I thought my job was to make literates out of children, to
prepare them for the world beyond
Alamo, North Dakota,”
she ended on a disparaging note.

If literate meant what he thought it did, the little snip had put him down again and he’d had about all of it a man could be expected to take from a wet-nosed brat sixteen years younger than himself!

“Alamo, North Dakota,
is
his world, and it always will be, so just be happy you get him for six months of the year instead of none.”

He turned away, but she hounded him. “So you intend to jerk him out of school again in the spring, too, huh?”

Instead of answering, Theodore headed toward the barn. Incensed, she ran after him and caught him by an arm. “Don’t you dare turn your back on me, you... you ornery... ” She searched for an adequately scathing term, and finally spit, “Cynic
!
”

Theodore had no idea what the word meant, and the fact riled him all the more. “Watch who you’re calling names, little missy.” He yanked his elbow from her grasp.

“Answer me!” she shouted. “Do you intend to take him out of school to help you plant, too?”

Theodore’s jaw grew stubborn. “Six months for me, six for you. That’s fair, ain’t it?”

“For your limited information, there’s no such word as
ain’t,
and we’re not talking about what’s fair for me and you. We’re talking about what’s fair for your son. Do you want him to grow up without knowing how to read and write properly?”

“He knows enough to get by.”

“Get by!” Frustrated beyond tolerance, she clutched her temples and spun away. “Lord, how did you get so dense!”

Theodore’s anger rose swiftly, and he blushed a bright scarlet. “If I ain’t smart enough to suit you, you can go find somebody else to give you a roof over your head. It’s for sure the school district don’t pay me enough to make up for the food you eat, much less heatin’ the upstairs.”

Again he turned away. This time she let him go. When he’d disappeared inside the barn, she became aware of Kristian, standing beside the horses with the reins forgotten in his hands, looking very uncomfortable.

Suddenly it struck her what she’d done.

“Kristian, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for you to witness that.
I... I was totally out of line to call your father names. Please forgive me.”

Kristian didn’t know where to look. He glanced at the reins, back at Linnea, then at the tugs running along Nelly’s rump. “Don’t matter,” he mumbled, absently laying a hand on the horse’s shoulder.

“Doesn’t
matter,” Miss Brandonberg corrected unconsciously, then added, “Yes, it does. I had no right to lose my temper that way, or to call him dense.” She glared at the barn, made two fists, and hit her thighs. “But I just don’t know how to make him realize the importance of education when all he sees is that he’s done very well without it.”

“He’s right, you know.” Kristian looked up and met her eyes. “I ain’t going no place. This’s where I’ll probably live all my life. And anyway, I love this farm.”

This time she didn’t even bother to correct his grammar. Steeped in futility, she watched him walk toward the barn while from its far side came the sound of Theodore calling “Come, boss... ” as he gathered the cows in for milking.

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