Years (25 page)

In making the rounds of the Westgaards, Linnea’s respect for their mother grew. Nissa had raised sensible, loving children, with the possible exception of Theodore, who seemed the least pleasant, the least loving of the lot. Especially since
that night in the barn. They’d said very little to each other since then, had managed to stay out of each other’s way, but the fact that the older boys were still being withheld from school was like a rowel under Linnea’s hide. Every time she sat down across the table from Theodore, she wanted to lash out at him and demand that he release his son into her daytime custody.

But October came and settled in with cooler weather, and still the older boys were missing.

At school, Allen Severt continued to persecute Rosie and Frances more than any of the others, but always sneakily enough to keep from getting caught. He hid Rosie’s lunch pail, sometimes ate the choicest contents from it, then blamed it on someone else. When she ran to the teacher in tears, Allen taunted, mimicking her lisp in a singsong voice.

Systematically he worked on shortening Frances’s left pigtail. Only her left. He did it in a way that could never be proven, somehow managing to trim off no more than a quarter inch at a time, leaving no fallen hair as evidence, no abrupt change in length to bring attention to what he was doing. It was only when Frances’s pigtails began to look lopsided that it came to light.

Linnea found the ten-year-old crying in the cloakroom one day during noon recess. She was sitting in a dejected heap on one of the long benches, looking heartbreakingly forlorn with her pigtails drooping and her skinny shoulderblades protruding as she sobbed into her hands.

“Why, Frances, what is it, dear?”

Frances swiveled toward the wall and hid her face on a jacket hanging from a peg. But her shoulders shook. Linnea couldn’t resist sitting down and turning Frances into her arms. Unadvisable as it was to have favorites, Linnea couldn’t resist Frances. She was a sweet child, quiet, untroublesome, one who strove to please in every way, no matter how difficult it was for her academically. As if realizing her shortcomings in that department, she tried to make up for it with little kindnesses: a favorite cookie left on Linnea’s grade book; a crisp, red apple placed on the corner of the teacher’s table; an offer to collect the composition books or pass out crayons or tie the boot strings of the younger ones who didn’t know how yet.

“Tell me what’s made you so unhappy.”

“I c... can’t,” the child sobbed.

“Why can’t your’

“B... because... you’ll th... think I’m d... dumb.”

Linnea gently pressed Frances back and looked into her puffy, downcast face. “Nobody here thinks you’re dumb.”

“Allen d... does.”

“No, he doesn’t.”

“He d... does, too. He c... calls me d... dimwit all the t... time.”

Linnea’s anger flared, and with it protectiveness. “You are
not
dumb, Frances, so just put that out of your head. Is that what made you cry? What Allen said?”

Woefully, Frances shook her head.

“What then?”

It all tumbled out at last, the secret that “teacher” wasn’t supposed to know, but part of which she already did. Frances’s greatest wish was to be an angel in the Christmas play, because the angels always wore long white gowns and let their hair flow loose with a sparkly tinsel halo adorning it. But instead of growing, her hair was getting shorter, and not only did she fear missing the chance to be an angel, she was afraid she was going bald.

It took great self-control for Linnea not to laugh at this astounding revelation. She hugged Frances hard, then drew back to wipe the girl’s cheek. Forcing a sober expression, Linnea cajoled, “Here now, have you ever heard of little girls going bald? Only grandfathers go bald.”

“Th... then why is my h... hair getting sh... shorter?”

Linnea perkily turned the child around to investigate. “Doesn’t look any shorter to me.”

“Well, it is. But only one of my pigtails.”

“Only one?”

“This one.” She pulled the left braid over her shoulder.

Upon closer scrutiny, it was obvious the hair had been trimmed — and none too neatly. Linnea took the end of it and teasingly brushed Frances’s nose. “Maybe you ate it off yourself. Isn’t that the one you suck on when you’re trying to figure out your arithmetic problems?”

Frances dipped her chin to her chest with a coy smile she couldn’t quite hold back, though her cheeks were still tear-stained.

“I have an idea,” Linnea said, adopting a thoughtful air.

“Until you find out if you’re really going bald or not, and until you find out why it’s happening to only one side of your head, why not have your mother tuck your pigtails up in a coil — like mine, see?”

Linnea twisted around, showing the child the back of her head, then faced her again, lifting the brown pigtails experimentally. “All it takes is a couple of hairpins, and they’re tucked safely away so nobody can see how long or short they are.”

Frances showed up the following day proudly displaying her new corona of braids, which Allen Severt could no longer crop. The change settled the symptom but not the problem, for only two days after that
somebody
drilled a peek hole through the back wall of the girls’ privy.

Linnea felt certain the villain was Allen, but had no proof. And not only were his pranks growing more serious, she had the uneasy feeling he enjoyed seeing others suffer.

She decided to talk to Theodore about it.

11

S
HE SOUGHT HIM
out that night and found him in the tool shed fashioning a new vane for the windmill. One of his knees held a wooden slat across a barrel top, and he faced the rear of the building as she approached.

She stopped outside the high-silled door and watched his shoulders flexing, then glanced around the interior of the shed.

Here, as in the tack room, neatness reigned. She studied the almost fanatic tidiness, smiling to herself. Hilda Knutson could take a lesson from Theodore. The shed was cozy. The lantern created enough heat to warm the tiny, windowless building, which smelled of fresh-cut pine and linseed oil. A stack of paint cans took up one corner. On the wall hung snowshoes, traps, and a variety of pelt stretchers. There were two small nail kegs and a neat coil of barbed wire. In a near corner leaned a worn broom. Linnea’s eyes fell to the sawdust drifting onto Theodore’s boot, and she imagined him sweeping it up the moment the chore was finished. His penchant for neatness no longer irritated her as it had when she’d first arrived. Now she found it admirable.

“Theodore, could I talk to you a minute?”

He swung around so suddenly the board clattered to the floor. His cheeks turned crimson.

“Seems you and I are always startling each other,” she ventured.

“What’re you doing out here?” He hadn’t meant to sound so displeased. It was just that he’d been doing his best to avoid her lately. The sight of her made his palm feel slippery on the saw handle.

“May I come in?”

“Not much room in here,” he replied, retrieving the fallen board and setting back to work.

“Oh, that’s all right. I’ll stay out of your way.” She entered and perched herself on an upturned keg.

“Theodore, I have a problem at school and I wondered if I could talk to you about it. I need some advice.”

The saw stilled and he looked up. Nobody ever asked Theodore for advice, least of all women. His ma was a dictator and Melinda hadn’t bothered letting him know that she was going to show up at his doorstep expecting to get married. Neither had she informed him she was running away two years later. But there sat Linnea, rattling Theodore with her mere presence, posed like a nymph on the nail keg, with her hands clasping her knees. Her big blue eyes were wide and serious, and
she
wanted
his
advice.

Theodore set aside his work and gave her his full attention.

“About what?”

“Allen Severt.”

“Allen Severt.” He frowned. “He giving you trouble?”

“Yes.”

“Why come to me?”

“Because you’re my friend.”

“I am?” he asked, surprised.

She couldn’t hold back a chuckle. “Well, I
thought
you were. And Clara said if Allen kept it up, I should talk to you.”

Theodore had never had a friend before. His only friends were his brothers and sister and those they’d married. It sounded good, having a friend, though he wasn’t sure how well being Miss Brandonberg’s would work. But if Clara thought he should know, he’d listen. He set aside his saw, straddled the barrel, and crossed his arms.

“So what has Allen been up to?”

“Not much I can prove, but plenty I can’t. He’s been a troublemaker right from the first day of school — teasing the
younger children, openly defying me, creating disturbances. Just little irritating things. Hiding lunch pails, taking bites of cookies. But now he’s started in on Frances and I—”

“Frances? You mean
our
little Frances?” His shoulders squared and his arms came partially uncrossed. As he bristled defensively everything about him became more masculinely imposing.

So Frances was one of the things he cared about. Linnea found it touching that he’d referred to the child as
ours.

“He calls her dimwit all the time. He’s very good at picking out the children’s weaknesses and teasing them. But that isn’t the worst of it. I suspect he’s the one who’s been cutting off Frances’s braid, and one day he locked her in the outhouse and stuck a snake through the hole in the door. Now the girls have found a peek hole drilled in the back of the outhouse wall. I can’t prove any of it, but there’s something about Allen that... ” She shrugged, then rubbed her arms and shivered.

Theodore’s air of displeasure doubled. Forcing himself to remain seated, he pressed the heels of both hands to the barrel edge between his thighs.

“Has he done anything to you?”

She glanced up quickly, not having intended to say that much. Her personal misgivings about Allen were too nebulous to put to voice. And besides, she’d feel utterly foolish telling Theodore that Allen stared at her breasts. All boys reached an age where they became interested in the development of girls. With Allen it wasn’t the fact that he stared, but
how
he did so; trying to put this into words would be difficult.

“Oh, no, he hasn’t
done
anything. And it’s not even so much what he does to the others. So far it’s been little things. But they’re getting more serious all the time. And what I’m most concerned about is that I think he enjoys being... well, malicious... making people squirm.”

Theodore rose in one swift movement. He gave the impression that he wanted to pace but was unable to in the confined space. His brow beetled, he swung on Linnea. “You talk to his folks about this when you were at their place for dinner?”

“I tried. But I saw immediately that Allen’s mother wasn’t going to believe a word I said about her golden boy. She has him so spoiled and herself so deluded that there’s no reaching her. I thought for awhile I might get some cooperation from
Reverend Severt, but... ” She shrugged. “He seems to think that if Allen reads the Bible all his life it’ll keep him a saint.” Linnea chuckled ruefully, looking at the floor.

“Martin’s not a bad sort. It’s just that that wife of his has led him around by the nose for so long he don’t know how to stand up to her.”

“Doesn’t,” she corrected absently.

“Doesn’t,” he repeated without a second thought.

Linnea looked up appealingly. “I’m not sure I can handle Allen without their help.”

A warning stirred in Theodore. He pressed his hands more tightly against his armpits.

“You afraid of Allen?”

“Afraid?” Her gaze held his for a moment, then flickered aside. “No.”

He didn’t believe her. Not entirely. There was something she wasn’t telling him, something she didn’t want him to know. And even if she was telling him everything, there was still little Frances to consider. She had always been one of Theodore’s favorites, the one who never forgot her Uncle Teddy at Christmas. One year she had given him a pomander ball for his bureau — a pomander ball, of all things. He’d taken one sniff of the feminine thing and wondered what his brothers would think when he showed up smelling like orange and cloves in his clean overalls. But he’d slipped it into his bottom drawer until Frances smelled the fruit and spice on him one time and grinned wide in toothless approval. Then and only then had he removed it from his drawer.