(3241 words)
The Schoolmaster
ã 2004
The following event depicted
actually took place in the
As the author, I used my ‘creative license’, embellished the story and moved the location. I also used a couple of things my father had told me about when he was a boy.
My grandmother related this
incident to me when I was very young, and she did go to school
with the
The
Nancy J. Swift…November 3, 2004
***
Mary Rogers was in the third grade. She had long,
blond hair turning a light brown, with watery blue eyes, and was a tall and
gangly child for her age. She lived beyond the outskirts of the small town of
On school days, Mary would arise from her small bed in the loft of her cabin home she shared with her ma, pa, and two brothers. She would do her chores, take her lunch bucket, and trudge off to school with a frown on her face, and her head hanging down. She loved learning, but dreaded school. Walking ahead of her brothers, Mary was kicking a rock along the road ahead of her; watching little puffs of dust float into the air, as the rock skidded in front of her, Mary spoke out loud, “It just ain’t fair! I wanna learn and I am a good student. My Ma says so. Why do those boys have to spoil it all?”
The boys she was speaking of were not her brothers, but three older brothers from another family in the area. The tall, lanky boys, showed the promise of broadening through the shoulders. They had medium brown hair with eyes to match. The Granger brothers did downright mean things all of the time. They bullied the children in school, and had them scared half to death with fear. Their latest episodes included putting small wagons or buggies on the top of roofs of businesses or homes. They were famous for tipping over outhouses while someone was inside. The most devastating thing they pulled was running off any teacher the town had been able to hire. The teachers never lasted longer than a week, maybe two. These teachers, all young women, were forewarned about the brothers and tried everything they could think of to discourage the boy’s antics, but to no avail.
Eating their lunch in what shade they could find, the children were discussing the Granger brothers. The older children dismissed any ideas the younger children suggested. They would say, “That is a dumb idea, or it is too far fetched“
One child thought they should all gang up on the Grangers and beat the snot out of them. Mulling it over, they decided they had better not try something like that. There just weren’t enough of them to take the three brothers down and they certainly weren’t strong enough to handle the older boys.
“Mary, being a quiet child, finally said, “I reckon I know what I’m gonna do.”
“What’s that?” asked an older boy named Joseph.
“I’m gonna ask Pa what he thinks should be done. He’s pretty smart and I know he’ll come up with an idea.”
“Now, that’s a thought,” piped up Joel, a boy a little older than Mary. The others concurred.
Joseph remarked, “Yep, that’s a pretty good idea, even if a girl did come up with it.”
Mary became silent and she was seething to the core, and was thinking, ‘my pa will do something! I’ll show these boys that a girl can be as smart as what they think they are, even if I have to womp on some of the good ones.’
During supper Mary told her pa she really needed to talk to him when she was finished with her chores. “Sure thing, Mary. You know I’m always ready to listen to you and your brothers.”
After supper and the chores were completed, Mary’s father lit his pipe and when he got it going to satisfy himself, he glanced over at Mary. She was sitting in one of the rocking chairs on the front porch waiting for her pa to talk to her. Staring out towards the desert and mountains hovering in the background, Mary had a very serious look on her face for someone so young. She seemed to be deep in thought and contemplating something beyond her control. Her pa’s eyes crinkled at the corners, but he knew better than to laugh, as he didn’t want Mary’s ire turned on him. Settling himself into one of the other rockers, he asked, “What did you want to speak to me about, Mary?”
“Pa, we have a big problem at school and don’t know what to do about it. It’s those Granger brothers. They give all of the children trouble and sometimes they are so mean. They have been running off our teachers and the rest of us are really tired of it. We’d like to learn and it’s pretty hard when we don’t have anyone to teach us. I was wondering if there is something you could do about it?”
“Don’t fret yourself about this, Mary, it will be taken care of very soon.”
***
The wheels of progress were all ready in motion. The parents of the children knew what was happening without the children saying one word to them. The fathers held a meeting one evening, excluding Mr. Granger. He seemed to be a good man and the others did not want to upset him needlessly. The group had been racking their minds trying to figure out what could be done to curb the problem of the Granger brothers. The meeting took place about two weeks before Mary approached her pa about the boys. Mr. Rogers, Mary’s pa, told the others at the meeting, “I know of a school teacher who might fit the bill. It will take a while for him to get here, if he agrees to come. Only one thing, the children won’t be able to go to school till he arrives.”
When the other fathers found out whom Mr. Rogers had in mind, they readily agreed for him to get in touch with the gentleman teacher. Telegrams were sent out to locate the man in question. The telegrams were sent from a near-by fort that allowed civilians to send something of importance. This was important!
***
Mary had conveyed to the other children what her pa had told her the evening before. “Maybe now we’ll get something done with those Grangers,”
“Wouldn’t that be great?” asked one of the older girls.
It was Friday, and just one week after Mary had spoken to her pa. On that bright, sunny morning when the children arrived and entered the schoolhouse, they found Mrs. Walker standing at her desk. She was on an area that was raised higher than the rest of the floor, and stretching the width of the room. It had been built at the head of the room so the teacher would be able to see all of the children while sitting at her desk. The children’s desks sat in rows, the younger children sitting towards the front of the room. Every grade was represented, and located in one schoolroom. A wood-burning stove sat to the left and in front of the dais. It was warm out now, but the stove was needed for heating in the winter months
As the children filed into the room taking their seats, Mary turned to another girl and whispered, “Another day at school and those dumb Grangers have another chance to run Mrs. Walker off.”
The girl whispered back. “I wish somethin’ would happen soon, so we don’t have to worry about ‘em anymore.”
“Pa told me it would be very soon, and I know I can trust him to do just what he says he’ll do to take care of things.”
As the children quieted, Mrs. Walker cleared her throat and spoke to them. “Children, I hope you won’t be too disappointed, but this will be my last day teaching you. I regret having to leave you in a lurch once again without a teacher. I was hoping I could handle certain things; it has been proven to me I cannot.”
“But Mrs. Walker, what will happen to us? You’re one of best teachers we’ve had so far,” one of the children in the middle of the room asked.
Smiling a sad smile, she said, “Thank you. You will have a week or so of vacation, then hopefully you will have another teacher arriving to take over.”
The children groaned. Except of course, the three brothers who sat looking at the teacher with smirks on their faces, as if to say, “We’ve done it again. Ha, ha, ha! We’ll take care of the next one too.”
***
Mary’s twin brothers, Ernie and Al, who were fourteen months younger than their sister, and were as tall as she was, saw the chance coming for what they and Mary loved best, riding pa’s horses, free as the wind.
Mr. And Mrs. Rogers called the children together that Saturday morning, and Mr. Rogers told them, “Your Ma and I are going into Farley to buy supplies and do a couple of other things that need tending to. I want you to keep an eye on things here and behave yourselves. Above all, I don’t want you messing with the new horses I bought from Mr. Watson. They are still a little on the skittish side, so I repeat, do not mess with ‘em. Clear?”
“Yes sir,” the siblings answered.
Mrs. Rogers announced to them, “We’ll be gone for several hours and Mary will be in charge while we are away. Mary, you will have to fix your lunches and start dinner. Be careful with that butcher knife Mary, your pa just finished sharpening it. I want you two young men to mind Mary and help her. Everyone understand? ”
Mary looked up into her ma’s eyes with her straightforward way, “Yes ‘em, I understand. We will be careful and behave ourselves. Have a nice time in town Ma.”
“Thank you Mary. Boys?”
Digging their bare toes into the dirt, Ernie responded, “Sure Ma, we will listen to Mary and help her. Right Al?”
Al was a child of few words if he didn’t have to use them. He nodded his head up and down. That was the only answer Mrs. Rogers was likely to get from him.
Mr. Rogers helped his wife up to the seat of the wagon. After settling himself beside her, he picked up the rains and gave the horses a slight slap on their backs to get them moving. Looking over her shoulder and smiling, Mrs. Rogers waved to her loving children, and they answered her wave and smiled back.
Mr. Rogers yelled back at the children, “Mind what I said about those new horses, ya’ hear?”
“Yes Sir,” they hollered
back. As their parents drove off to
town, the
As fate would have it, this was the one time the parents came home early. Driving up the dirt road, they looked over toward the corral. They both gasped at the sight they saw. Mr. Rogers pulled the team to a halt. On the backs of three of the newly purchased horses were the children doing tricks; standing on the backs of the mounts, exchanging horses in mid-stride, flipping themselves over and around, like they were bareback riders in a circus.
Mr. Rogers was turning red around the collar, but Mrs. Rogers laid her hand on his arm and told him, “Stay calm. Don’t yell. It might make them fall off. Look at them, isn’t that a beautiful sight and aren’t they wonderful?”
Mr. Rogers answered with a nod, all the while grumbling under his breath, “They disobeyed me. They know it makes me crazy for them to try something so dangerous. I won’t say anything yet, but you wait till later, the fur will fly. They are good at what they are doing, though. I’m really quite pleased and proud with how they handle themselves. They must have been practicing for a long time to do so well. ”
Slowing their steeds to a halt by grabbing the manes, laughing all the while, in unison the children glanced over at the road. Their eyes seemed to be drawn there by an unseen force. They saw their parents pulled to a stop and sitting in the buckboard watching them. All of the color faded from their faces and they had a pasty look to them. “Oh, boy, we’re in for it now,” Ernie mumbled.
Sheepishly, they slid off the backs of the mustangs. Purposely delaying facing their pa, they cooled the horses down by walking them around the corral. They gave their mounts some water, and proceeded to rub them down with hands full of straw. Then they trudged towards the house. Standing before their parents, looking as if they were about to be sentenced to hard labor on a rock pile, they said almost too quietly to be heard, “Sorry Pa, we couldn’t resist trying them out. We won’t do it again and we will start listening to you and Ma more.”
“That seems highly unlikely!” Mr. Rogers huffed. He started unloading the wagon and the children and their ma helped. “We’ll talk about this later. Right now we have something to tell you. I think you will be greatly pleased.”
When the supplies were
unloaded, the
“We think so.
Seeming to have forgotten all discipline and taking a swallow of the hot coffee, Pa then told the children, “The town has found a new teacher. We know this one will work out and will be able to control the antics of the Grangers. We have high hopes for this teacher and school will start again a week from this Monday.
The children looked at one another and sighed. All were thinking the same thing. “Another one for the Grangers to run off.”
“What’s the new teacher like Pa?” Mary asked.
“You will just have to wait and see for yourselves,” Pa answered.
***
The morning that school was to resume, the children were sitting at their desks, but the teacher had not yet arrived.
The oldest of the Granger brothers popped up with, “Ha! I’ll bet the new teacher chickened out before she even got started. Probably knew we three would give her a bad time and get rid of her like we did the others. If she isn’t here in another few minutes, we’ll all get up and leave.”
The words were no more out of his mouth, when the front door opened cautiously. A small-framed man, looking very frail, approached the front of the room. He stepped up one step and went behind the teacher’s desk. He stood there, not looking at any of the children, keeping his eyes averted down to the top of the desk. The mild-mannered gentleman was dressed all in black, from his flat-brimmed hat to his boots, except for a white starched shirt. He wore a long frock coat with one button fastened; a black string tie at the neck completed the outfit. The man looked more like an undertaker than a schoolteacher.
The Grangers started to snicker at the sight of the little man, and then broke out into a gut-busting laughter.
The rest of the class slid down in their seats and made a low groan. They knew what was coming. Some shook their heads; others rolled their eyes. Mostly, they felt sorry for the man behind the desk. He just didn’t know what he was getting himself into.
Making a shuffling noise, the man moved closer to the desk. They all looked up at to see what he was doing. First, he removed his hat and laid it on the corner of the desk. Next, he unbuttoned the one button and very carefully swept the tails of his coat back. Around his waist was a black belt. Stuck into it was a brace of Colt .45’s sporting seven and a half inch barrels, placed butts forward. He reached over to his left side with his right hand, withdrew the Colt and then did the same thing with the other one, reaching to his right side with his left hand. He laid the two Colt’s on the desktop, pointing in the Granger’s direction. They could see the sights had been filed off both pistols.
The boys sat straight up in their seats, while their mouths hung open, their jaws hanging nearly to their chests.
There wasn’t a sound in the room. The other children kept looking from the guns on the desk to the Granger brothers. Never had any of them ever seen the boys so quiet and subdued.
The teacher looked up and in a resonant voice belying any timidity, proceeded to say, “Good morning young ladies and gentlemen. I am your new schoolmaster… Mr. Josiah Rawlins.”
A sudden intake of breath filled the room. They all knew about the famous gunfighter. ‘Dangerous’ was the word used when referring to him.
“Please open your books to the next assignment.”
The Grangers couldn’t comply quickly enough. They would do anything asked, especially with the guns pointed straight at them. They could see the cartridges in the chambers, and the bores of the pistols looked about two and a half inches in diameter, which they really weren’t.
At lunch time the children filed outside. On returning after eating, the children noticed the Granger brothers had not come back to class.
Mary had a smile on her mouth and in her eyes. She thought, ‘‘When my pa says he’s gonna do something, he really does it!’’
For some reason, with only the children and the new schoolmaster knowing what it was, that was the last day the Granger brothers attended school.
Mr. Rawlins ended the problem of the school children, but the troubles of the Granger brother’s were only beginning.
The End