forward to its full reach, opened her palm and there for all the room to see, she offered to shake Mrs. Tucker’s hand.
Jay Langston, who hadn’t taken his eyes off Margaret since he first caught sight of the auburn curls that flowed over her shoulders, noticed the exchange with Mrs. Tucker and exclaimed to the men huddled near him, “The new teacher shakes hands.”
“She thinks she’s a man,” said Ed Garvey. “My mother has treated that girl like a daughter, helped send her off to college, and now she comes back thinking she owns the place.”
Margaret realized there was a flutter in the room, but she held steady, her gaze fixed and her smile as broad as Tiny Tucker’s bosom. Mrs. Tucker was not prepared to be on the defensive and had no idea how to respond. She was a private person in a world where people did not draw attention to themselves in public, certainly not by shaking hands, which women just did not do, and not by sharp words or wild gestures either. She turned and walked to her seat, head down, realizing her humiliation and vowing to exact an appropriate vengeance, just as soon as God made his wishes known. Margaret Chambers had committed the sin of pride, and Tiny Tucker had no doubt that she would soon feel the wrath of the Lord.
The handshake attempt brought the room to order as quickly as if someone had tapped a spoon on a glass, and the evening’s formal festivities began. The teacher at Mt. Pleasant School, Mr. Talmage Grimes, welcomed the parents and friends to the first Literary of the year.
Mr. Talmage Grimes was only twenty-three. He had completed just one year of high school, the minimum requirement for getting a teaching certificate from the State of Kansas, and he had spent nearly four years helping his father in the local grocery store before leaving in a family dispute and deciding on a career in education. He found himself well suited to education, patient with the children, studious in his preparations, and serious in his ambition. As a man, he enjoyed the preferential benefits of a higher salary and community recognition. He was in his third year of teaching, and he was earning thirty-six dollars a month, well above Margaret’s starting salary of thirty-one dollars and fifty cents. He introduced Margaret briefly as the new teacher at Sunnyside, whose family had resided in Nickerly for many years.
Margaret had thought about her introduction to the community carefully. Although this was an evening of socializing, she wanted to express her seriousness of purpose and to educate the parents as to their children’s curriculum. This first Literary might be the only one of the year for the men folk, especially if the remaining ones occurred during a snowstorm or at harvest time.
“Good evening,” she began, “I’m delighted to meet you all, even though I know most of you from living here, and I thank you for coming. I want to take this moment to tell you about our new eighth-grade graduation test. It will be given to all proposed graduates, and since we don’t have any eighth-grade students this year, I thought you would like to take the test, just to see how smart our children have to be to graduate.”
The audience was not prepared for levity, and missed the attempt entirely.
“These questions were developed by the State of Kansas,” Margaret continued, “and will give you a clear idea of what your children are learning. Now, here’s the first question on the exam: Name the parts of speech and define those that have no modifications.”
Margaret paused for emphasis, and to let the parents think about the question. But most of the fathers in the room, still having nightmares about questions they couldn’t answer in grade school, thought she might be waiting for one of them to stand up and answer. They started slumping on their benches, pressing closer together, and looking at the floor. All the repressed fears of being called upon as a boy suddenly resurfaced, striking a resentful anger.
“She isn’t going to make us answer, is she?” Ed Garvey whispered to Jay Langston.
“Who does she think she is?”Jay responded, suddenly thinking this teacher was not someone he wanted to tangle with, in spite of her curls.
“Let’s turn to geography,” Margaret said. “Name and describe the following: Monrovia, Odessa, Manitoba, Hecia, Yukon, St. Helena, Juan Fernandez, Aspinwall, and Orinoco.”
Jay swore under his breath. “I know Denver and the Yukon,” he whispered. “The rest I never heard of.”
“Those will give you a hint as to how tough the test is,” Margaret concluded. “I think it will be a useful measure for achieving graduation.”
There was silence. The men breathed a sigh of relief that the possibility of questioning was over, and the women clasped their hands in their laps, a stern show of sympathy for the discomfort of their husbands. Only Mrs. Garvey offered support, smiling at Margaret and mouthing the word “good.”
“Thank you,” Margaret said, and took her seat beside Mr. Grimes.
Easy Tucker pulled his wheat wagon, led by two dappled mares, onto the scales at the Garvey Mill, tied the reins to the front of the buckboard seat, and jumped to the ground. The horses were sweating from the pull, and Easy swatted aimlessly at the large flies circling their haunches. He patted the left horse’s front shoulder to let him know the trip was over, then waved to Ed Garvey’s shadow in the window of the elevator.
The August morning sun cast a glare in the window, so Easy couldn’t be sure whether it was Garvey senior or junior behind the scales. He opened the door with a rush, befitting his celebratory mood, and hardly noticed the handful of men seated on benches around the room or leaning against the back wall.
“Hello, Ed,” Easy said. “This is the last of it. Got my boy out there plowing today.”
“Good to see you, Easy,” young Ed Garvey said. “The boys here were wondering if you’d be in this morning.”
Ed Tucker had farmed near Nickerly all his life. And as sure as weevils like the wheat, Ed liked the feel of cold hard cash for his crops.
The threshing machine was hardly out of the field before Easy had every scoop of wheat in the elevator and every dollar in the bank, not that he left it there long. His philosophy was that every year’s work earned him at least one extravagance, and this year he was planning on a new car.
Ed Garvey studied the scale before him, moved the weights to the far right, then jotted a figure on the back of a letter from the Kansas Grange.
“Easy,” Garvey said, “I suppose that horse and wagon outfit weighs the same as yesterday, or do we need to weigh it again?” In order to weigh the wheat, Garvey normally weighed the wagon fully loaded, emptied the wheat, then weighed the wagon empty, and subtracted the difference. It would save time just to use the weight of yesterday’s wagon, since presumably it hadn’t changed overnight, although Ed Garvey Jr. knew his father wouldn’t approve of this practice.
In addition to his love of cash, Easy Tucker had a number of eccentric qualities, including the fact that he could never remember anybody’s name. He had no trouble with numbers or places, and he had done pretty well through the seventh grade, which was as far as his family let him go, but he couldn’t always tell you Ed Garvey’s name, even though he sat beside Ed all seven of those educational years. It was very embarrassing, and more than a little frustrating, and so he got to calling everybody by an all-purpose nickname of one kind or another. This was a perfect solution because every man in Nickerly had a nickname, from Cavity Ben Johnson who had no teeth and was called Cav, to Red Romberger who had bright red hair and freckles. Easy Tucker
