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For a long, dreadful moment he stood laughing at her, and she looked straight at him.
Then she said, “Yes, the board is small, Clarence. I am sorry, but you should erase what you have written and write the words again more carefully. Make them smaller, and there will be room enough.”
He had to obey her, for she did not know what she could do if he did not.
Still grinning, good-naturedly he turned to the blackboard and wiped out the scrawls. He wrote the three words three times each, and below them he signed his name with a flourish.
With relief, Laura saw that it was four o’clock.
“You may put away your books,” she said. When every book was neat on the shelves beneath the desk tops, she said, “School is dismissed.”
Clarence grabbed his coat and cap and muffler from their nail and with a shout he was first through the door’ way. Tommy was at his heels, but they waited outside while Laura helped Ruby into her coat and tied her hood. More so
berly, Charles and Martha wrapped themselves well against the cold before they set out. They had a mile to walk.
Laura stood by the window and watched them go. She could see Mr. Brewster’s brother’s claim shanty, only half a mile away. Smoke blew from its stovepipe and its west window glinted back the light from the sinking sun. Clarence and Tommy scuffled in the snow, and Ruby’s red hood bobbed along behind them. So far as Laura could see from the eastern window, the sky was clear.
The school shanty had no window from which she could see the northwest. If a blizzard came up, she could not know that it was coming until it struck.
She cleaned the blackboard, and with the broom she swept the floor. A dustpan was not needed, the cracks between the floorboards were so wide. She shut the stove’s drafts, put on her wraps, took her books and dinner pail, and shutting the door carefully behind her, she set out on her morning path toward Mrs. Brewster’s house.
Her first day as a teacher was over. She was thankful for that.
Chapter 3
One Week
As she went trudging through the snow, Laura made herself feel cheerful. Mrs. Brewster was hard to get acquainted with, Laura thought, but she could not always be cross. Perhaps this evening would not be unpleasant.
So Laura went in, snowy and glowing from the cold, and spoke cheerfully to Mrs. Brewster. But to all her efforts, Mrs. Brewster answered shortly or not at all. At supper, no one said a word. The stillness was so sullen and hateful that Laura could not speak.
After supper she helped with the work again, and sat again in the darkening room while Mrs. Brewster silently rocked. She felt sick from wanting to be at home.
As soon as Mrs. Brewster lighted the lamp, Laura brought her schoolbooks to the table. She set herself lessons and determined to learn them before bedtime. She wanted to keep up with her class in town, and she hoped she could study hard enough to forget where she was.
She sat small in her chair, for the silence seemed to press against her from all sides. Mrs. Brewster sat idle. Mr. Brewster held Johnny asleep on his lap, and stared into the fire through the stove’s open draft. The clock struck seven. It struck eight. It struck nine. Then Laura made an effort, and spoke.
“It is getting late, and I’ll say good night.”
Mrs. Brewster paid no attention. Mr. Brewster started, and said, “Good night.”
Before Laura could hurry into bed in the cold dark, Mrs. Brewster began to quarrel at him. Laura tried not to hear. She pulled the quilts over her head and pressed her ear tight against the pillow, but she could not help hearing. She knew then that Mrs. Brewster wanted her to hear.
For Mrs. Brewster said she’d not slave for a hoity-toity snip that had nothing to do but dress up and sit in a schoolhouse all day; she said that if Mr. Brewster did not put Laura out of the house, she’d go back east without him. She went on and on, and the sound of her voice made Laura feel sick; it was a sound that enjoyed hurting people.
Laura did not know what to do. She wanted to go home, but she must not even think of home or she might cry. She must think what to do. There was nowhere else to stay; the other two houses in the settlement were only claim shanties. At the Harrisons’, there were four in the one room, and at Mr. Brewster’s brother’s house there were five. They could not possibly make room for Laura.
She did not really make Mrs. Brewster any work, she thought. She made her bed and helped with the kitchen work. Mrs. Brewster was quarreling now about the flat country and the wind and the cold; she wanted to go back east. Suddenly Laura understood; “She isn’t mad at me, she’s only quarreling about me because she wants to quarrel. She’s a selfish, mean woman.”
Mr. Brewster did not say a word. Laura thought: “I’ve just got to bear it, too. There isn’t anywhere else I can stay.”
When she woke in the morning she thought: “I have only to get through one day at a time.”
It was hard to stay where she was not wanted. She took care to make no work for Mrs. Brewster, and to help her all she could. Politely she said, “Good morning,” and smiled, but she could not keep on smiling. She had not known before that it takes two to make a smile.
She dreaded the second school day, but it passed smoothly. Clarence idled instead of studying, and Laura dreaded that she must punish him again, but he knew his lessons. Perhaps she would have no trouble with him.
It was strange that she was so tired at four o’clock. The second day was over, and the first week would be half gone at noon tomorrow.
