Romancing the Schoolteacher
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Mary Davis
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19.6K
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20
Chapter 1
San Juan Island, Washington Territory, Spring 1887
Bridget Greene stood at the back of her classroom and looked out over her students, ranging from the first to the eighth grade. The younger ones worked quietly on their reading while the older children took examinations.
Troy Morrison caught her attention. At fourteen, he was her oldest and most promising student. Most boys his age had to quit school and go to work to help support their families, often in the lime mines. Today, Troy promised to be mischievous.
He gently lifted Olivia Bradshaw’s blond ponytail, which hung over his desk. He moved it slowly toward his inkwell, trying not to disturb the girl.
Bridget strode up next to his desk.
Troy’s hand froze, and he slowly swiveled his head toward her.
She gave him her sternest look.
He dropped the ponytail.
Olivia reached for her hair and pulled it over her shoulder. Then she turned toward Bridget and smiled.
Bridget whispered to her, “Go back to work.”
The girl did.
Bridget grabbed Troy’s examination paper and motioned for him to follow her.
He struggled to untangle his gangly body from his seat and tripped over his feet. He hadn’t gotten used to his growing body. He’d gone from short and chubby to lanky and awkward, shooting up at least five inches in the past two months alone. And he was suddenly interested in girls.
She set Troy’s examination on her desk and pointed to her chair. She didn’t dare make him sit with the youngest children as she would normally do to shame a disobedient student into behaving. He would never be able to extricate himself from one of the smaller desks, even if he managed to wedge himself into one.
As it was, he bumped her desk and the chair before managing to get himself in the seat.
She whispered, “Dipping her hair in ink is not the way to get Olivia’s attention.”
He scowled. “I don’t want her attention.”
But Bridget knew he did. He just didn’t realize it yet. Even at eleven, Olivia was a pretty girl and promised to turn many a gentleman’s head in the future.
“Finish your exam.”
He hadn’t even started and had only fifteen minutes to go.
She wandered the room.
Periodically, she looked at the watch pinned to her lapel as the final two minutes ticked off. “Time. Please put down your pencils.”
She collected the exams and dismissed her pupils. They hustled out in a clatter of boots on wood and excited voices. Troy brought up the rear.
She quickly flipped through the exams and found the one she was looking for. “Troy, would you come here?”
The boy lumbered up the aisle and stood in front of her desk. His legs were longer than his trousers, and his wrists hung four inches below his shirt cuffs.
She studied him for a moment. He didn’t seem to mind. She held up his mathematics exam. “You didn’t answer one question. What happened?”
One bony shoulder rose and fell.
“You didn’t even try. You know this material.”
He kept his face neutral. “It’s just school. It don’t matter.”
That didn’t sound like her prize pupil. A student who had borrowed every book of hers he could. Mathematics was easy for him.
“School does matter. You are a very bright young man. You could go to college.”
He stared at her, working his jaw back and forth as though he had something tough to chew on.
“You don’t have to stay in Roche Harbor. You don’t have to work in the lime mines. You can do anything you want.”
He continued to stare. “May I leave now?”
She couldn’t understand his change in behavior. “Do you want to work in the mines the rest of your life?”
He shook his head. “Pa says I’d be a better bet for working the kilns.” His eyes brimmed with tears.
She could see him struggling to contain his emotions. “Your father wants you to quit school and work the lime kilns?”
“Family needs the money.”
That was such a tough place for a young man to be. Caught between what he wanted and what his family needed. “Do you want to work the kilns or in the mines the rest of your life?”
“Don’t matter what I want.”
“Yes, it does. What do you want?”
“As soon as Pa can get it worked out with Mr. Keen, I’ll be hired on.” He blinked. A tear raced down his cheek. He slapped it away. “I like learning.”
But she knew if his family needed the money, this boy would be set in a job he would likely never be able to rise out of. “What if you completed your education after work?”
“After?”
“We can figure a place to meet. I’ll give you books, and you can ask me for whatever assistance you need.” He was bright enough to learn on his own.
His forced, neutral expression slipped away and his eyes brightened. “Really? You’d help me?”
“Of course. I’ll even talk to your father to see if he’ll let you stay in school.”
“He won’t.”
“It can’t hurt to try.” She looked past the boy to a man and two children standing at the back of her classroom. New students. She handed Troy his test. “See how many of these problems you can complete before you have to leave.” She walked down the aisle to the man.
His mouth broke into a congenial smile that did something funny to her insides. She took a deep breath and pushed the odd sensation aside. “I’m Miss Greene.”
He tipped his head. “I’m Lindley Thompson. These are my children, Gabe and Dora.”
Gabe looked to be about seven, but Dora didn’t look old enough for school yet. Maybe four. “Pleased to meet you.”
Gabe said, “Hullo.”
Dora smiled around her thumb and leaned into her father’s leg.
Mr. Thompson wore miner’s clothes, but there was something amiss about the family. “I’ve come to work in the lime mines. Gabe will be starting class tomorrow.”
“And what about Dora?”
“She’s only four.”
“Four and a half,” Dora said, not removing her thumb.
Bridget gazed at the girl. “So, you get to stay home with your mother.”
Dora shook her head.
Bridget looked up at Mr. Thompson, and there was the strange feeling again.
“Their mother passed a few years ago.”
“I’m so sorry. I have another four-year-old who comes to school. They could sit together.”
“Thank you for the offer, but I’ve hired someone to look after her.”
How could a single miner afford to pay someone to care for his daughter? Maybe he didn’t realize how little the miners made and how much living cost. “If you change your mind, she is welcome.”
She walked the man and his children out. The air filled with the screeches of dozens of seagulls circling near and far.
As they strode away, she realized what was out of place with them. Though they wore the clothes of a miner’s family and were adequately dirtied, they weren’t naturally dirty.
The smudges on the children’s faces looked as though they were put there, not as if they got there from playing. And their clothes, as well. She had seen enough dirty children to know the difference.
Why was this man trying to make himself and his children look worn? A real miner would flaunt new clothes and make his children keep them clean, not purposely dirty them.
So if he wasn’t a real miner, who was he?
Or maybe his circumstances had recently been reduced, and he didn’t want the other miners to think him full of himself. Or that he thought he was better than them. Those who worked the mines and the kilns banded together in a tight community.
As she walked back inside, Troy stood from her desk. She met him halfway down the aisle. “Do you need to leave?”
“Naw. I’m done.”
He couldn’t be.
He kicked a desk leg getting around her and then hit his shoulder on the doorway on his way out. Bridget cringed, but Troy kept going except for a sidestep adjustment.
The poor boy needed to learn where his new body stopped and started before he injured himself. Or something worse while working for the lime company.
She went to her desk and picked up his examination. Sure enough, every problem was answered. And at the bottom of the page, he had written, I got them all right.
She would see about that. How could he when he’d done the equations so quickly? She sat and pulled a sheaf of papers from her desk drawer, fingering through them for the right answer key. She checked his answers against hers and then sat back with a sigh. Indeed, he had answered them all correctly. She had to find some way to keep this boy in school.
* * *
Later that evening, Lindley finished cooking the simple meal of scrambled eggs and slightly burned pancakes for supper. His children didn’t seem to mind. Or at least, neither of them said anything about his cooking ability. He couldn’t prepare much, but his children never went hungry. They sat, bowed their heads, and he thanked the good Lord for the food.
“I want to go to school,” Dora announced after the blessing.
“You can’t,” Gabe shot back.
“But I want to go. Please, Papa.”
Lindley smiled at her, liking her enthusiasm. “I’m sorry. You’re too young yet. School is for older children.”
“But I am older.”
He ruffled Dora’s blond hair. “Yes, you are. But not quite old enough.”
Dora tilted her head. “Teacher said.”
Images of chestnut hair and eyes the color of the forest flitted through his mind. And the smile she had bestowed upon him and his children. Something had happened to him in that moment, but he couldn’t determine what. The last thing he needed right now was to be thinking about the schoolteacher. He had a job to do and needed to devote his attention to that.
“Papa. Teacher said.”
He focused back on his daughter. “I know, but Miss Greene has a lot of pupils to teach. Besides, Mrs. Weston is going to look after you. Now, eat your supper before it gets cold.”
His daughter made a pouty face before digging into her pancakes.
Dora appeared to forget all about school for the rest of the evening. For that, he was grateful, and it allowed him to think of things other than the pretty schoolteacher.
Being on their own was going to be good for all three of them. Just him, Gabe and Dora without one sister or another trying to abscond with his children to make life easier for him. Their help only served to make him feel empty and abandoned. His family needed to realize he had the ability to keep Gabe and Dora fed and well cared for without interference. Though his family meant well, they made him feel incompetent as a parent. He needed to prove to them, as well as himself, he was capable.
He glanced around the pocket-size dwelling. It couldn’t be more than fifteen feet square. His bed on one side of the room and a second on the opposite wall, with a small cooking stove and a square eating table down the middle. If his sisters or even his parents saw this hovel, they would be here in a snap to rescue Gabe and Dora. But they were his children, and he would see to their well-being.
He dressed them for bed, and they climbed under the quilts of their shared bed, a straw mattress on the floor. Gabe’s head at one end and Dora’s poking out from the other.
Dora snuggled down and flopped her arms on top of the covers. “Tell us a story, Papa.”
Gabe nodded.
“Once upon a time, there were two curious bunnies, a brother bunny and a sister bunny.”
“A princess, Papa, a princess.”
“And a dragon,” Gabe said.
Lindley looked from his son to his daughter. “Once upon a time, there was a princess.”
“Was she beautiful, Papa?”
“Of course. She had chestnut hair and eyes the color of the forest.” He pictured the schoolteacher. Oops. Oh, well. He was sure his children wouldn’t make the connection. “She was walking along when she came to an enchanted garden. Low hedgerows separated the different varieties of flowers—pinks, yellows, blues, purples, reds, oranges, whites and clear. But these were not like any flowers she’d seen before. The flowers were made of glass. She didn’t know this garden was guarded by an army of dragonflies. So when she picked a pink-and-purple bloom, a swarm of dragonflies swooped in and carried her off to a cave where a big dragon lived.”
By the time Lindley finished his tale, Dora’s eyes were closed, and Gabe’s eyelids were drooping. He kissed them each on the forehead and headed for his own bed.
So much for not thinking of the schoolteacher. But what was the harm?
