noticed that the girl’s hands were rough and sore. Small burns marked the wrists. Canning; probably milking and cooking for hired men. No fieldwork, though: Elvira’s face was fashionably pale. At the Saturday dances, she’d give the other girls a run for their money.
When the girl picked Hilly up from his nap the next afternoon, she told Nell, “He’s the best baby. Not like the ones in my family. Such fussers. Colicky, most of ’em. That’ll tire you out.” She rolled her eyes and held Hilly close, kissing his warm cheek. “This one’s like a doll.” She changed his dirty diaper, sponged his bottom, and powdered him with baking soda.
They’d taken to each other, Elvira and Hilly. Both were children, really, Nell thought. For all Elvira’s talk of a “town beau,” the girl was artless and vulnerable. And Nell soon saw that Elvira liked pretending that Hilly was her own. She playacted the little mother, dreaming of a town husband, Nell supposed.
A few days later, Elvira took Hilly for the first of many walks to the Milwaukee depot, three blocks away. Having lived on a farm, far from a railway, Elvira now gravitated to the depot. She timed the walks to coincide with the arrival of the 2:30 p.m. passenger train. After the first excursion, she reported that she and Hilly had seen a commercial traveler alighting with his satchel and sample case. “Least, that’s what Mr. Loftus”—the depot agent—“called him. Commercial traveler.”
One afternoon, while Elvira and Hilly were out, Nell sat at the kitchen table drumming her fingers. A week until she must prove herself. She had a teaching certificate, yes, but almost no practical experience. Just a few days substituting in a country school.
What if town children were cannier than country children? What if they set out to bring her down? Such things happened. Hadn’t she heard of a young woman in Minneapolis who’d hanged herself when the school board wouldn’t renew her contract? She’d been unable to control her pupils, they’d said. And no other school wanted a teacher whose contract hadn’t been renewed.
What if, after all their kindness, Nell failed the Lundeens?
THE DAY BEFORE IT OPENED, Nell walked down Main Street to the Harvester school, an impressive three stories and built of dark-red stone. Unusual for so small a town. In a lofty belfry hung the bell she had heard on many mornings, calling children in. Clearly Harvester placed great value on education and expected only the best from its teachers. Nell’s step faltered and she held a clammy palm to her middle.
Earlier, she had carried home textbooks, poring over them, mapping out lessons and quizzes. Now, alone in her classroom, she printed her name on the blackboard. Moving on, she wrote, “‘A day of the learned is longer than the life of the ignorant.’ Seneca. Do we know what this means?”
Mercifully, the first day of school was a half day. Desks were assigned. Attendance was taken. Texts were distributed. Monitors were chosen: one to keep order should Mrs. Stillman be called away from the classroom; one to check the cloakroom at the end of each day; one to assist at recess; one to clap erasers and clean the blackboard.
“I will reassign these jobs at the end of the first six weeks,” she told them, “and I may find that I need more monitors as we go along.”
Everyone wanted to be a monitor. Everyone wanted to be important.
Before dismissing the children at noon, Nell told them, “Tomorrow, we’ll talk about what Mr. Seneca meant in his quote.” The following day, Cletus Osterhus was so excited and desperate to explain the Seneca quote that, after he’d raised his hand and been called upon, he found that he must first run to the outhouse.
Returning, breathless, he gasped, “I asked Grandpa Hapgood. He was in the Civil War, and he knows a lot. That wasn’t cheating, was it, asking him?”
“No. That was research. Going in search of information.”
“He said life’s more interesting and full of good stuff to . . . to fill the day if you know a lot of things. And life isn’t so interesting and not so full of good stuff if you don’t.”
Though these first days of teaching passed without event, Nell felt no relief. She would be on trial for a long time. With a child to provide for, she could not afford a misstep.
On the sixth of September, days after school had opened, President McKinley was shot, succumbing on the fourteenth of the month. News of his death arrived with the westbound train. On Friday, school was canceled.
“What’ll happen now?” Elvira asked at breakfast, her eyes huge with alarm.
“Theodore Roosevelt will be president,” Nell said, ladling out oatmeal.
“You think he knows how to be president?” Elvira pressed, ignoring the pitcher of milk Nell set in front of her.
“I believe he’s intelligent and well-educated. No one can know if he’ll be a good president.”
“My gran remembers when President Lincoln was shot. Those were terrible times, she says. Everybody thought the country was gonna come to an end. The country won’t come to an end now, will it?”
“No, no. I have a good feeling about Mr. Roosevelt.” Did she? “Anyway, President Garfield was assassinated, too, and the country kept on going.” She spooned a little brown sugar onto Elvira’s oatmeal. “Now, eat and stop worrying. I’ll look after you.”
Late in September, Elvira told Nell, “Hilly and I saw Father Gerrold outside the post office. He reminded us that the St. Boniface bazaar is next month. Will we go?”
“It wouldn’t be proper for me, so soon after Herbert’s passing,” Nell said, “but you must go and take a pie. I’ll give you a bit of change to put in your pocket for the wheel of fortune.”
Clapping her hands, Elvira cried, “You’re so good to me,” and ran to embrace Nell. “Nobody’s ever been so good to me.”
The night of the bazaar, Nell brushed Elvira’s hair, tying it back with red ribbon. “You’ll need a heavy sweater,” she told the girl. “Take mine.” Before Elvira stepped into the dark, carrying an apple pie, Nell dabbed vanilla behind the girl’s ears. “You’ll be the prettiest girl there.”
“Best-smelling, too.”
It was ten before Elvira returned, cheeks flushed. “Our pie was the best-looking one,” she rhapsodized. “And guess who bought it—Mr. Lundeen!”
The girl flung herself onto the screeching daybed. “We got to talking and he said they could use an extra hand at the dry-goods store on Saturdays, at least till after Christmas. And Mrs. Lundeen said yes, they were short-handed and they’d probably need me till after inventory, whatever inventory is.” She sat up. “Would you mind?”
“Saturday afternoon and Sunday are your time. If you want to work at the store, that’s fine. You can make yourself a little cash.”
“That’s what I was thinking. Wouldn’t Ma be surprised to get a store-bought present for Christmas?” Elvira hugged her little body.
