Bloody Lessons (8 page)

When Della didn’t immediately respond, Laura continued. “I ask only because I know from experience that she tends to downplay her illnesses. I can’t count the times at school I had to put my foot down and insist she go to the school nurse, not just soldier on when she was sick. I worry that she is over-taxing herself, planning for her wedding with Mr. Russell in such a short period of time.”

“Yes, yes, her wedding.” Della leaned closer and said, “I wasn’t sure if a date had been set.”

“I believe it depends on when her parents can arrange to come,” Laura said, wondering what they thought of their daughter’s sudden decision.

“It will be in San Francisco, then.” Della sounded surprised. “Perhaps the two of us can arrange a nice little wedding breakfast for after the event. Yes, that sounds like a splendid idea. I will visit her and feel her out on the subject. I am sure that the other
Clement teachers would be very glad to help out.”

A knock at the door to the teachers’ room
gave Laura a chance to think of a response. Knowing that Hattie might not welcome Della’s well-meant offer, she said, “A lovely idea, but I’m not sure there will be time.” She opened the door to see Jamie Hewitt standing there, and she said, “Oh my, is it four already? Tell your mother I will be right out.”

Laura turned to Della and shook her hand, saying with warmth, “Thank you so much for the time you have given me today, but I must go. Of course you know Barbara Hewitt
, since you both teach at Girls' High. That was her little boy, Jamie. Because we all live at the same boarding house on O’Farrell, we walk home together.”

As she gathered up her coat and satchel and exchanged the last set of pleasantries with Della, Laura felt a definite improvement in her mood. She had the promise of a stimulating working relationship with a colleague, the challenge of guiding Kitty’s training while perfecting her own skills, and the welcome knowledge of the boarding house and the friendships waiting for her when she got home.
If Hattie wants to devote herself to Andrew Russell and give up the life we had planned together, well, that is her problem, not mine.

Chapter Ten

Wednesday evening, January 14, 1880

"Some mothers think they are overburdened with three or four young children to take care of. What might they think if they had half a hundred?" ––
San Francisco Chronicle
, 1879

“Mrs. Anderson, the teacher who was mentioned in the anonymous letter, accompanied Mr. Emory to our law offices yesterday afternoon. I had asked to meet with her, but I rather hoped I might see her without Emory,” Nate said, sitting down beside Annie in the formal parlor.

Annie was delighted to see him
, because even though she kept Wednesday free, he wasn’t always able to get away. Now that the law firm had the much-sought-after Able Cranston as a partner, he was working long hours, and sometimes Sunday was the only time they both had free. Nate was good about writing every day, telling her about the cases he was working on, and she looked forward each night to sitting in the privacy of her bedroom, reading his words and hearing his voice in her head. She would write to him in return, imagining his laugh when she told him about how Mrs. O’Rourke had scolded her nephew Patrick McGee for stopping by when he went off patrol and distracting Kathleen from her duties or Dandy’s latest exploit as the best rat-catching Boston terrier west of the Mississippi.

She leaned close and gave him a swift kiss on the cheek, thankful once again that he was willing to go against male fashion dictates and forgo a mustache and beard. She wondered if his Shawnee heritage explained why her lips felt no prickly stubble, even at this time of night, or if he had shaved again before coming to visit her. If so, it was one more example of how thoughtful Nate was compared to her deceased husband, John.

“What was that for? Not that I mind.” Nate slipped his arm around her. “But I want to know what I did to deserve that welcome so I can do it again.”

“Oh, I am just glad to see you,” Annie replied. “Last Sunday seems an eternity ago. Go on and tell me about your visit with Mrs. Anderson. Do you still suspect that Mr. Emory hasn’t been entirely forthcoming about his relationship to her?”

“I don’t know. He certainly is very solicitous. Evidently, her father was his best friend. I suppose it’s possible he really sees himself as a sort of paternal figure. Doesn’t mean he didn’t intervene on her behalf, but I really don’t see this as causing much of a scandal.”

“What is Mrs. Anderson like?”

“Young, tearful. Pretty enough, if you like the clinging vine sort of female.” Nate smiled and tightened his arm around her. Annie leaned away from him and playfully boxed his ear.

He laughed. “She brought her son with her.
Jack, a fine fellow of four. Came right up to me and shook my hand like a little man. Mrs. Anderson’s mother takes care of him while she is at work, and I must say he seemed very comfortable with Emory. Climbed right up in his lap while we were talking. Not that this necessarily means anything.”

“Did Mrs. Anderson tell you about her hiring? Isn’t that what you wanted to find out?”

“Yes, and I wanted to see what kind of witness she would make if this came to a formal hearing or even a trial. She was very vague. Couldn’t quite remember who had told her there was an opening. She did say she wrote Mr. Swett, the Girls' High Principal, about her interest in the job. I understand it was Mr. Hoffmann, the Vice Principal, plus the senior English instructor, Miss Thorndike, who were responsible for the decision to hire her. When I asked if they had mentioned her lack of the appropriate teaching certificate, she said she couldn’t remember.”

“Did she have any idea of who might have written the anonymous letter?”

“She says not. Says she can’t imagine anybody being ‘so mean.’ That’s why I hope to talk to Mrs. Hewitt, see if she has a different perspective.”

Annie nodded. “I caught her before she went into dinner and asked her to come to us in the parlor when she was finished, and she didn’t demur.”

Annie had spoken with Barbara on Monday evening about Nate’s case and his wish to speak with her. At first, Jamie’s mother had visibly recoiled, her hands flying up defensively, and she responded that she wouldn’t feel comfortable talking about her fellow teachers. Annie understood this attitude, particularly if one were the kind of person who valued one's own privacy, and Barbara Hewitt was an intensely private person. She never talked about her past, where she grew up, her marriage, or what happened to her husband. Annie respected that reticence since she seldom spoke about the painful aspects of her own personal history to anyone. Especially not about the disaster of her marriage to John or the miscarriage. She had never told a single soul about that, not even her closest friends, not even Nate.

However, as Madam Sibyl, Annie had learned to read a person’s thoughts from their physical reactions, and, in her opinion, Barbara Hewitt wasn’t just uncomfortable with the idea of
"gossiping" about her colleagues; she was frightened by Nate’s request, and Annie wondered why. Then Barbara Hewitt changed her mind and said she would be willing to speak with Nate. She explained that she had been thinking about how she would feel if she found herself in Mrs. Anderson’s position. Annie wondered what information she would be able to contribute but was glad she felt comfortable enough to talk.

Nate shifted and removed his arm from around her, and she realized there were sounds coming from the hallway. Supper must be over. She stood up and went over to the open door and saw Miss Minnie and Miss Millie being ushered out of the dining room by Herman Stein, Annie’s most distinguished boarder and a successful west coast merchant. He nodded to her in passing but continued to shepherd the two elderly seamstresses up the stairs, Miss Minnie talking steadily, her sister silent as usual.

Next came Esther Stein, the older boarder who was Annie’s closest confidante. She was listening to an animated Jamie, and they turned towards the back stairs that went down to the kitchen. Annie silently blessed Esther, a woman with numerous grandchildren of her own, for taking the boy under her wing after supper. Barbara may have asked the older woman to accompany her son down to the kitchen so he could let Dandy out.

Esther and Jamie were closely followed by Laura and Mr. Harvey, the quiet dry goods clerk who shared a room with David Chapman
. Finally came Barbara, who was looking distracted by Chapman's usual attentiveness. When Laura and Barbara saw Annie standing in the hallway, they both broke away from their escorts and came towards her. Nate, standing in the parlor doorway, stepped forward, bowed politely to Mrs. Hewitt, and shook her hand.

Annie had already ascertained that Barbara would prefer to speak to Nate alone, so her responsibility was to make sure they weren’t disturbed. Seeing Laura approach
, she said, “Could you keep me company for a spell? Your brother has some business with Mrs. Hewitt, and I would like to give them some privacy. Can you spare a minute to sit with me in the hall? I don’t know how long they will be, so I would like to stay close at hand.” Annie pointed to the bench next to the hall coat stand.

“What does Nate need with Barbara?” Laura asked as they sat down. “I hope he isn’t being an annoying older brother, checking up on me?”

“Good heavens, no!” Annie laughed. “It is about a case he is working on. He might want to talk to you about it as well, since it seems that someone is sending anonymous letters spreading malicious rumors about teachers. Have you heard anything of this nature at Clement?”

“I haven’t heard a thing like that. How disturbing.” Laura frowned. “On the other hand, that doesn’t mean anything. Truth is
, I haven’t had a chance to talk much with the other teachers beyond greetings when we meet in the hallways. Last week, Jamie’s teacher was kind enough to sit and talk with me at lunch, but I confess we mostly talked about Jamie! And this week, after I agreed to supervise Kitty Blaine, the Normal class student I told you about, I spent my lunch hour with her, talking about my lesson plan for the day.”

“Oh yes, how is that going?” Annie asked.

“I really don’t know. Miss Blaine is very quiet, and I’m not sure what to make of her. It’s just been two days. The only time I have gotten her to say more than a few words was when I asked her about her language studies. Apparently, she is learning German from Hattie’s intended, Mr. Russell. She got very excited for a moment when talking about that. Since she is only observing my class this week and next, she sits quietly in the back of the room. I guess if you are a student at Clement Grammar you are used to having practice teachers, because none of the students batted an eye when I introduced her. I am the one who feels self-conscious.”

“I would hate having someone observe me when I work as Madam Sibyl, potentially criticizing my every move,” said Annie, “but you probably went through it when you did your practice teaching at San Jose, right?”

“Yes, and I was very nervous then as well. We rotated through all the different grades, from first to eight. Miss Titus, one of my pedagogy professors, was very kind and gave me good marks, but I never felt comfortable, with the younger children in particular.”

Annie nodded encouragingly and said, “Did you have many very young children in your school at Cupertino Creek?”

Laura gave a little shudder. “Five of them under the age of seven. It was awful! Only one of them knew the alphabet, and none of them could sit still for more than ten minutes at a time. I would just get one settled, copying letters and numbers on a slate, and another one would have gotten up and wandered away. I finally figured out I had to pair each of them with an older student whose job was to keep them at their tasks. When the weather was nice, I would send one of the more proficient readers outdoors with the group of them to read aloud. That worked better.”

Annie chuckled. “Oh my, I don’t know how you did it.”

“I am not sure how I did it either. Not well, I can assure you. That was one of the reasons I jumped at the offer to teach at Clement. I was certainly more successful with the children at Cupertino Creek who were in the middle grades, and I am starting to enjoy my seventh graders.”

“It is interesting to hear your perspective. You weren’t here in December, but the newly elected Board of Education voted to lower the primary school teachers’ salaries a great deal. There was quite a public outcry, teachers writing letters to the editor, holding a large protest
meeting, saying that they would have to leave teaching rather than take these ‘starvation wages.’ Did your friend Hattie tell you about it?”

“No, but that explains one of the comments that Mrs.
DuBois, Clement’s principal, made when she was interviewing me. She said that she was glad I had been able to step into Hattie’s position at the last minute because there had been a terrible scramble to get all the positions filled in the lower grades in the week before Christmas.”

“That would make sense,” Annie replied. “I just looked it up in my back copies of the
Chronicle
. Prior to the Board vote, a teacher with the highest level certificate and ten years experience was making $70 a month in the primary grades. Now they can make no more than half that amount. I wouldn’t be surprised if many of them looked for jobs outside the city that paid better.”

“What could the Board be thinking?” Laura exclaimed. “You couldn’t pay me enough to teach a whole class of five
- or six-year-olds! Hot sticky fingers pulling at you, unexplained fits of giggles, endless fights over who touched whom first, and tears when you try to give them the least discipline.” Laura shuddered again and continued, sounding defensive to Annie. “I know that sounds terrible since taking care of small children is something that a woman is supposed to do naturally.”

Annie laughed and said, “I never understood that attitude, but it’s very common. The newspaper said that one of the Board members justified lower salaries for the primary grades because taking care of the youngest children didn’t require any special training or experience to do well.”

“Poppycock!” Laura ducked her head and whispered, “Don’t tell Nate I used that term. I know it isn’t ladylike. But since I learned it from him, he will feel all guilty and give me a scold.” She then laughed.

Annie promised not to tell Nate but pondered what Laura had said about taking care of young children. She’d had very little exposure to children in her life. She had no siblings, and
her mother taught her at home until she was twelve and her mother died. Then her father tutored her on shipboard as they traveled back east. Her first experience with school was at age fourteen when she started the Academy, but that was with girls her own age. Lately, however, Annie found herself thinking more and more about what it would be like to be a mother. What
she
would be like as a mother.

Laura looked at her quizzically, and Annie realized she had been silent too long. Thinking she might learn more about what had upset Laura last fall, she said, “So you didn’t like the babies in your class. What about the older students? I always wondered how hard it would be to teach someone who wasn’t that much younger than you are. Did you…”

The front bell pealed, followed by a loud pounding on the door. Annie stood up and spontaneously put her arm around Laura, who had given a startled cry. Kathleen was probably down in the kitchen starting on the dishes, so as another thunderous series of raps rattled the front door, Annie wavered. Should she open it? She didn’t want to leave Laura, whose nerves were obviously still in a state. Nate appeared, Barbara right behind him, and he said, “Shall I?”