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“Good. I miss our checker games.” The man grinned.
Still tracking Mr. Chandler’s progress skirting the gathering, Emma smiled with grim politeness, then excused herself. Her sister Judith welcomed her.
“A strong sermon,” Emma whispered into her sister’s ear.
Judith nodded, brushing her cheek against her sister’s. “Good of Noah,” she whispered in return.
Then, as the two sisters chatted about the upcoming sewing day and watched the children playing silent tag around the adults, Emma tried not to continue to track Mason Chandler. When she’d ventured here nearer him, he’d moved away as if fencing with her.
His two girls had not joined in the sedate Sunday game of tag in the churchyard. Charlotte sat on the swing and Birdie was gently pushing her. Birdie’s devotion to Charlotte inspired the most tender regard for her. Emma had no idea what prompted little Birdie to befriend Charlotte, but God would reward her selfless love.
Again, Emma tried to keep her gaze from wandering to Mason and again failed. She found ignoring a man who’d assumed responsibility for these two little girls difficult, nearly impossible. His broad shoulders evidently could carry burdens with dignity. She hoped that Noah’s support and that of Mason’s other friends would smooth the way toward acceptance. She reined in her sympathy so drawn to him. She could not give him false hope.
She could not do more than pray that this situation would resolve itself in a good way. She had come here to marry Mason Chandler, but marrying him would have been a mistake. And God had prevented that. With what remained of her heart, she still loved Jonathan, though he was just a memory.
* * *
In the morning, doubts and worry over sending the girls to school lingered. But Mason pressed the girls’ dresses and two fresh white pinafores to go over them. He brushed and braided their hair as best he knew how, though somehow the braids ended up slightly crooked. And the bows. He shook his head at the sad bows he’d tied.
However, Birdie was beaming with anticipation. Charlotte kept glancing back and forth between the two of them. Then she did something she rarely did. She patted his arm and signed to him. He caught part of it but turned to Birdie. “What did she say?”
“She says don’t worry. Miss Emma likes children.”
Moisture flickered in one of his eyes. Emma’s good heart drew him almost irresistibly. “She does. Shall we go?”
“Yes!” Birdie answered, and Charlotte sent him one of her rare smiles. Whatever happened at school—evidently his little sister wanted to go.
He set his hat on his head and shooed the girls ahead of him, and then he latched the door. He felt the same way he had reporting for duty in the army years ago. This must be faced. He breathed in the fresh air and listened to the crows cawing to each other from tree to tree.
Behind them the sun was slowly ascending from the east and a nip of fall touched the morning air. The three of them walked down the track toward town. He was glad his homestead was within walking distance of school.
When harvest came, he’d be busy in the fields. Just a few more weeks and the corn might be dry enough to pick. The worrying thought of his friend Asa’s crop being destroyed unfurled in his mind. Would his fields, and what was left of Asa’s, feed the two families with four children for the winter? He hoped so.
Almost to Asa’s clearing, Mason glimpsed the children Asa had taken in. He still hadn’t heard the story of how that had come about.
The children were coming toward them. Not away toward school.
“Morning!” Colton called out. “We were coming to walk your girls to school!” Lily still seemed hesitant, but she did look at his girls and sort of smiled.
Mason wondered at the children coming for his girls. Had Emma instigated this? He wouldn’t put it past her. But he didn’t want to question the children. And Birdie, along with Charlotte, was already running to meet the brother and sister.
Colton drifted over to walk beside Mason. “Mr. and Mrs. Brant said it was time we walked your girls to school,” Colton said in an undertone, supplying the answer to Mason’s unspoken question.
Mason paused and wondered if he should just let the children go on alone.
Then Charlotte broke away from Birdie and claimed his hand, pulling him to come along.
He obeyed.
Birdie and Lily talked on and off as if searching for common ground. Birdie kept her hands busy, including Charlotte in the conversation.
“How did you learn to talk with your fingers?” Lily asked Birdie, appearing fascinated.
“A lady come to the orphanage and taught me and Charlotte. It’s easy. See? This is hello.” Birdie demonstrated the simple motion.
Lily tried to mimic it.
“That’s pretty good for your first try,” Birdie approved.
Charlotte signed back at Lily, who tried to imitate it again.
In a low voice, Colton told Mason, “Don’t worry. I won’t let anybody pick on your girls.”
The words warmed Mason toward this solemn boy who had helped him when he was laid up. “Thank you.”
Colton merely nodded, looking determined.
In a way, this promise was reassuring and in another way, worrying. This young lad expected Mason’s girls to be targets of trouble. But the five of them were heading to school this morning, come what may. Miss Emma and the girls were determined about school.
* * *
Wondering if Mason Chandler would bring Birdie and Charlotte today, Emma pulled the school bell rope, sounding the signal, and then stepped to the doorway to greet her pupils as usual. And as usual, the children began to run toward her.
Then she glimpsed Mason. Her heart somersaulted. He stood tall and imposing with his jaw set. His hat sat forward, hiding much of his face from her. Whatever his feelings, he’d brought Birdie and Charlotte. Emma began praying silently for the girls and their acceptance here today.
The youngest to the oldest, the children had formed a line in front of the school door. The boys wore flannel shirts, suspenders and dark pants, and the girls wore white pinafores over dresses that ended a few inches above their ankles. “Good morning, students!”
“Good morning, Miss Jones!” the children replied nearly in unison.
Mason with his two girls stood at the rear. The fact that he was trying to hide his concern caused Emma to like him one little bit more. So many parents communicated fear and engendered it in their children, sometimes needlessly. She’d observed that happen this spring when a traveling doctor had come to town and held a clinic. His mission was to vaccinate as many children on the frontier as possible to prevent smallpox. The children whose parents feared the procedure had made the experience more difficult for their children.
Now some of the students were glancing over their shoulders at the trio at the end of the line. Emma ignored this, following her usual routine of greeting each child by name. Finally Mason, his hat in hand, stood before her.
“Mr. Chandler, so glad to see your girls ready to start school.” She motioned toward the classroom behind her. “Good morning, Birdie, Charlotte. Since this is your first year in school, please go and sit on the front bench beside Lily.”
“Yes, miss!” Birdie crowed and nearly skipped inside, holding Charlotte’s hand and drawing her along.
Mason stared into Emma’s eyes. She noted he was gripping his hat, nearly bending the brim.
“I’ll bid you good day.” Emma stepped back.
“I forgot to pack them lunches,” he said. “I didn’t think.”
“That won’t be a problem. I’ll see to their lunch today.”
The man mangled his hat a bit longer. Then he straightened it and put it back on his head. “Thank you, Miss Jones.” He strode away, his long legs stretching over the wild grass.
Though an unreasonable part of her wanted to detain him, Emma turned and prepared herself to face this new challenge. Her students were good children. Some had been orphaned just like Mason’s girls. Some had come from the 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. It’s not easy to learn.”
“No, it isn’t.” She gripped her intention tightly and announced, “That’s why I’ve come. I think as the teacher, I should know more sign language than just what Birdie teaches the class daily. I was hoping that Birdie could give me private lessons.” Preferably after school—without you nearby to distract me, she thought to herself.
Before Mason could reply, Birdie squealed, “Then you can come to our house to the lessons I give our pa every night!”
Emma’s heart sank. Exactly what she didn’t want.
“Birdie,” Mason said with obvious patience, “maybe Miss Jones can’t come every evening. She’s a busy lady. Why don’t you girls run back and finish your chores while Miss Jones and I talk about this?”
The girls looked up at her and then ran, hand in hand, toward the rear of the cabin. A red cardinal flew overhead. Birdie pointed it out to Charlotte.
Emma walked forward and met Mason, trying to shed her response to the kind way he treated his girls. This seemed to be her Achilles’ heel when it came to this man. She could resist his good looks but his character drew her.
“I’m sorry that Birdie put you in an awkward position, miss. She doesn’t understand gossip and such. Tongues will wag if people find out you and I are seeing each other regularly—even doing something this innocent.”
As he said the words, she felt herself stiffen inside. “I am not one to pay attention to gossips.”
“You are in the minority, then.” He sent her a rueful smile.
The smile hit her directly around the heart, chipping at the ice there. She resisted this. Learning sign language was the right thing to do. And she was not a weak-willed woman, vulnerable to any handsome man. “Mr. Chandler, when does Birdie usually give you your signing instruction?”
He eyed her. “Usually after supper, but if you’re game, why not begin now?”
He had thrown down his gauntlet and she picked it up. She would not be swayed by fear of gossip. “I have time now. I’m expected at my sister’s for supper.”
Mason studied her for a moment and then called over his shoulder, “Birdie! Come inside! Miss Jones wants her first lesson now!”
Emma followed him inside, wondering at how she had ended up doing the exact opposite of what she’d planned. She didn’t think Mason Chandler was manipulative. He’d merely stated the truth about how people might misinterpret this, and that had goaded her. Well, let the gossips enjoy themselves. She had nothing to explain.
However, the ice around her heart had cracked the tiniest bit and that frightened her. I can be with him but not let down my guard. Love is a risk I cannot test again. And then her mind chided, Mason Chandler has not given you the slightest hint that he wants you to reconsider his original proposal, has he? But the words he’d whispered after his fall might hint otherwise. Or not?
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