South like the sheriff’s son, Jacque Merriday, and some from the East. Eight years after the devastating Civil War, the tensions in the South continued. It seemed like the war would never stop hurting them, all of them.
She walked briskly down the center aisle to stand at the front of the schoolroom. Today Birdie and Charlotte would become welcome members of her school or she would know the reason why.
At the front of the room, she turned and faced the class. “Children, please rise for the morning prayer.” Emma read a psalm of David and prayed for a good day of study at school. Then the children sat back down on their benches. Many were eyeing the new girls.
Emma took a deep breath, praying silently for wisdom. “As all of you can see, we have added two new students today, Birdie and Charlotte, who have been adopted by Mr. Chandler. I hope you will make them feel welcome.”
Johann Lang held up his hand. “Miss Jones, I spoke German when I first came here and had to learn English. How can we make the girl who can’t hear welcome if we don’t know how to talk to her?”
Birdie bounced up and, following Johann’s example, raised her hand. “I know how, Miss Jones.”
Emma had thought she would be the one leading this discussion, but perhaps it would be better if the ideas came from the children. “Yes, Birdie, what do you have to suggest?”
“On the way here, Lily—” Birdie gestured toward the little girl sitting farther down the same row “—learned how to say hello with her hands. I can teach the other children, too.”
“Thank you, Birdie. You may be seated.” Emma looked over her students. “I think that might be a very good idea.” How to phrase it? She smiled inwardly. A challenge? “How many of you think you are capable of learning to speak with your hands?”
Jacque, the sheriff’s son, raised his hand, as did many others, though some students looked hesitant.
“Jacque, you’d like to learn it?”
“Yes, miss, I think it would be fun and I like to know how to do things. Can she, the black girl, show us how to do that sign?”
“Birdie, will you come up and teach us how to say hello to Charlotte? I will sit in your place because I will be the student, too.”
This announcement caused a hubbub of murmurs from her students. But Emma passed Birdie, who was nearly skipping to where Emma had been standing.
Birdie beamed one of her contagious smiles. “I was already livin’ at the orphans’ home when Charlotte come to live there, too. She was very sad and scared because she couldn’t talk to anybody. I mean—wouldn’t you be if you had to go somewhere you didn’t know anybody and you couldn’t tell them nothin’ and couldn’t understand what they were sayin’ to you?”
Emma felt the interest of the students. And the aroused sympathy.
“To teach Charlotte ’merican Sign Language, Mrs. Hawkins, who runs the orphans’ home, hired a lady who come all the way from Chicago.”
A few students ohhhhed when they heard “Chicago.”
“I told Mrs. Hawkins I wanta learn to talk with my hands, too. I wanta to be Charlotte’s friend ’cause we all need a friend.”
Again Emma felt the empathy for Birdie and Charlotte swell all around her. Every child here had come from somewhere else and had gone through the painful process of making a friend. “Excellent, Birdie. Now teach us how to greet Charlotte. We want her to know she is among friends here. Isn’t that right, students?”
Different but heartfelt words and sounds of approval flowed around Emma.
“This is how you say hello in sign.” Birdie demonstrated the hand motion in total and then part by part. Emma along with her students mimicked the sign.
“Y’all did good!” Birdie crowed. “Now, Charlotte, your turn.” Birdie signed to the little girl sitting beside Emma.
Hesitantly Charlotte rose and faced the classroom. Shyly she signed, “Hello.”
And everyone, including Emma, signed it in return. The children were beaming at this new knowledge.
Emma rose. “Thank you, Birdie. I think tomorrow you will teach us to sign ‘How are you?’ I think that would be the next thing we would say to Charlotte, don’t you, class?”
Affirmative replies sounded around the room and soon Emma moved the children to their first lesson. Matters had gone much better than she’d expected. Her schoolroom hummed with productive energy. Birdie was not only a sweetheart, but she understood people and how to charm them. Or perhaps Birdie was just being Birdie.
Emma realized something else, too. All through the daily routine of lessons she tried to figure out how to help Charlotte even more. She kept coming up with one answer—no matter how many times she tried to find a different solution. She didn’t want the obvious answer to be true because it involved her being with Mason.
And she did not want to give him or anyone else in town the idea that she might be interested in him as a suitor. She could only hope that with time, people’s expectations for their becoming a couple would dim. The one thing she was thankful for was that Mason never tried to sway her to look upon him with favor. And then she wondered why that was so.
* * *
Emma waited till the end of the school week, and then she walked through town toward her sister’s place. She had a standing invitation to supper there and she looked forward to family time with Judith, Asa and the children. But first she passed her sister’s clearing and proceeded to Mason’s. “Hello, the house!” she called when his neat cabin came into view.
Birdie with Charlotte’s hand in hers ran around the house toward Emma. “Teacher! Teacher come to see us!” Birdie called out, her face bursting with joy.
Emma would have had to be solid granite not to respond. She caught the girls as they cannonaded into her. “Girls, girls. You just saw me at school.”
“But you came to our house again,” Birdie said.
For the first time, Charlotte took Emma’s hand in both of hers.
For this one moment, Charlotte’s lost expression vanished. Emma’s heart sang.
“Miss Jones.”
At Mason’s subdued greeting, Emma looked beyond the girls. Mason had come around the side of his cabin. He had rolled up his sleeves and his sinewy, tanned arms drew her unwilling attention. “To what do we owe this kind visit?”
Switching focus, she contemplated his tone—something about it definitely sounded restrained. No doubt he must also feel the awkwardness over the demise of their plans to marry in March. And here once more there were only the girls as chaperones.
He moved a bit forward. “How may we help you, miss?” he prompted.
She tried not to study the way he stood so easy within himself yet with sadness lurking in his direct gaze. “Has Birdie told you that she is teaching the other schoolchildren a new sign every day?”
“Yes, she told me.
