“Are you sure you’ll be all right staying home alone?” Emma Larson, the new school teacher in the small town of Oakton, Missouri, bent and peered into her grandmother’s face. Having recently moved in with her grandmother in order to help the poor dear who had a tendency to get lost in a town of only one thousand people, Emma feared leaving her while she headed to work.
“I managed just fine before you got here.” Grandma pulled the knitted shawl tighter around her shoulders. “I think I can manage not to die in the next few hours.”
Emma wasn’t so sure, but grabbed her new leather purse, pinned a jaunty blue hat on her head, and sailed out the door anyway. Her new navy crepe silk dress with streamer tie left her feeling confident enough to face the one room schoolhouse and twenty students.
With a bounce to her step, she headed down the road and toward the end of town where the white washed building shone like a diamond in the sky. She’d have her work cut out for her since the school had lacked a teacher for over a month, but she could do this with God’s help. That and her sheer will not to fail.
She passed a storefront where a man swept the walk under a shingle that said, “Doctor Baxter.” He glanced up at her with eyes as blue as the sun and hair the color of ripened wheat. She returned his smile, her cheeks heating. It had been a long time since a handsome man looked at her like that. Not since her former fiancé, anyway. That was another reason she’d chosen to come live with Grandma. Why stay in St. Louis, where heartache lived?
“You must be the new schoolteacher,” the man said, setting aside his broom. “I’m Doc Baxter.”
“How can you tell by looking at me that I’m the schoolteacher?” Emma cocked her head.
“I can tell a lot by looking at you.” A dimple winked in his cheek.
Well, Emma could flirt with the best of them. She tilted her head back to get a better look at him. “Such as?”
He chuckled. “You’re excited about your first day, much like most of your students I’ve talked to. You’re courageous for one so young.” He stared harder.
Her pulse raced.
“And, I’d give my best hat if you didn’t have a heart as big as the Ozarks.”
“You’re only saying that because I’ve come to take care of my grandmother.” She clutched her purse tighter. “Thank you for the compliment, but I don’t want to be late on my first day. I’m Emma Larson, by the way.” She strolled down the walk, the grin never fading from her face.
The sun dappled the sidewalk through branches emerging with spring green. Birds serenaded from a large oak tree in the schoolyard. While the air still carried a tiny bite from winter, the first day of teaching in a new school could not be more beautiful.
Emma dug the key out of her purse, climbed seven steps, and unlocked the door. Inside, twenty desks sat in neat rows. A wood burning stove occupied the back corner next to a large chalkboard behind the teacher’s desk. Another door, open to reveal hooks and shelves for students to hang coats and store lunch pails, was on the other side. An American flag stood proudly beside the door. Windows lined both outside walls. Emma couldn’t ask for anything better. It was perfect.
She walked across the floor. Boards in the center of the room echoed her footsteps. She glanced down. A trap door had been set in the middle of the room. They were in the Ozarks, after all. Most likely the town founders thought it necessary to install a storm cellar. She shrugged. Most people built the entrances to cellars on the outside of buildings, but it reassured her to know the school had one.
After storing her purse in a drawer of her desk, she grabbed a piece of chalk and wrote Miss Larson in big scrawling letters. Under that, she listed the day’s spelling words and math problems, putting each grade in a separate column. When she finished, she had ten minutes to spare and stepped outside in preparation of ringing the bell. At five minutes before the beginning of school, she rang it to give the five minute warning.
Students, ranging in age from six to fifteen, dashed into the yard. Emma’s heart swelled. For eight hours a day, they were hers to teach, nurture, and protect. There was no greater responsibility outside of being a mother. She glanced heavenward and gave a prayer of thanks before ringing the final bell to start the day.
The students sat according to grade level, starting with the youngest in front. Emma moved to the front of the room and stood, hands folded in front of her, until the room quieted. “Good morning. I am Miss Larson, your teacher. Each morning, your spelling words and math problems will be written on the board. First thing, once you’re seated, is to copy these in your notebooks. Then, we will proceed with reading.”
A little blond girl in the front row raised her hand. “I can’t read.”
Emma smiled. “I will help the younger students. Now, let’s proceed with roll call so I can acquaint myself with you.”
She picked up the roll sheet from her desk and read the names out loud, committing each face and name to memory. A young red-haired boy in the front row, Tommy Baxter, grinned impishly up at her. She wondered whether he might be the doctor’s son, and felt shame that she might have flirted with a married man. She shook off the humiliating thought, took a deep breath, and continued.
“Tommy Baxter!” The little imp plunged his neighbor’s pigtail into his inkwell. “Come up here and face the chalkboard. You’ll remain after school for your behavior, and I’ll be speaking with your father.”
Tommy stuck his tongue out at the other students and ran to the board. Emma handed him a piece of chalk. “Start writing, I will not bother the other students, fifty times.” She wrote the sentence at the top for him to copy.
He sighed. “I don’t care. I can write a hundred if you want.”
She had no idea how to respond to such a comment. Hopefully, his parents could give her guidance. Handing out discipline was not strange to her, she’d been teaching for five years, but to have a student, even one so young, openly defy her, was not something she had dealt with before.
“You will also stay in for recess.” She turned to the rest of the class. “As spring quickly approaches, I thought it might be fun for us to put on a spring recital. As we disperse for lunch and recess, I hope you will be thinking of ideas. We will continue in thirty minutes.”
The class stampeded for their lunch pails and headed outside, leaving Emma with a sullen six-year-old boy. “Sit at your desk and eat, Tommy.” Emma took her own seat and unwrapped a simple cheese sandwich.
Tommy fetched his pail and set out a thermos, an apple, and a sandwich with cheese and meat. Obviously, his doctor father could provide well in the food department. Hopefully, Tommy’s lack of discipline was not the absence of parental concern, but rather the testing of a new teacher.
Lunchtime inside passed in silence, the only sound, the laughter of children playing outside. Tommy glanced at the window a couple of times, but resumed his eating without comment. What type of child did not beg to go outside and play?
Sadness clouded his features, wrenching at Emma’s heart. “Tommy, is there something you want to tell me? Is there a reason for your misbehavior?”
Without glancing up, he said, “My mama is dead.”