The Secret School (8 page)

"Yes, ma'am."

"So, if you please, just give me each student's name and grade level."

Ida found a piece of paper, and while the class looked on in silence, she provided the information.

Miss Sedgewick took the paper, folded it up, and placed it in her purse. "I wish each and every one of you good luck," she said, and started for the door. Reaching it, she paused. "Two more things," she said. "I urge you to inform your parents and the school board about what you are doing. And, Miss Bidson, do get into dry clothing before you catch your death of cold."

The children waited until they heard the sound of a car driving away.

"I suppose," said Ida, "we'll just have to work harder."

"And there's one more thing," Herbert called out.

"What's that?"

"No more swimming!"

 

When Ida and Felix got home that afternoon, Ida went right into the kitchen. Her mother was at the big plank table kneading their weekly bread.

"Ida!" she cried. "What happened to you?"

"We had some fun at school today," Ida said ruefully.

Mrs. Bidson gave her daughter a look. "Ida, are you teaching or playing games down there?"

"I'm
teaching,
Ma," Ida said hotly. Then she told her everything that had happened, including the unfortunate visit by Miss Sedgewick. "Now the whole school has to take exams," Ida said. "I've ruined everything."

"If you had," her mother said, "that woman would have said so."

"In the whole time I've been teaching," Ida said, "it was the only fooling I've done. Anyway, it was fun." She pouted. "The most fun I've had in a long time."

"Ida, a teacher will always be held up as an example to her students."

"That's not fair!" Ida burst out. "I'm a person, too. I should study electricity, like Tom. Or play with a printing press. No one thinks
he's
bad when he's fooling."

"Speaking of bad, I'm afraid I have more unfortunate news," said her mother. "I met Herbert Bixler's pa when your father and I were at the feed store today. He complained to me that Herbert is wasting his time going to school. Said he wants to go to the school board and complain that you're keeping the school open."

"He didn't!"

"Well, perhaps he was just talking big."

"Ma, you know what I think? I think Mr. Bixler doesn't want Herbert to come to school at all!"

"I'm just telling you what he said."

"Or maybe Mr. Bixler's mad at me because I went down to his place," Ida confessed.

"Did you? Why?"

"Ma, it's what teachers do. Herbert hadn't been in school. I'm supposed to find out why. You know what Mr. Bixler said? Said Herbert's schooling doesn't matter."

"Honey, Mr. Bixler's wife died when Herbert was still a baby. Mr. Bixler's had bad luck on his farm. Lost a whole lot of sheep because of disease. Folks say his debt is piling up. He's not a happy man. Unhappy folks do unhappy things."

"Do you think Mr. Jordan already knows what we're doing?"

"Ida, in this valley—sooner or later—everybody knows everything about everybody. You could tell him yourself, you know."

"He'd only say no."

A frowning Ida sat down before the kitchen table.

"Is there something else?" her mother asked.

Ida said nothing.

"Is it Tom?"

Ida shook her head.

"Can't be any worse than what you've already told me, can it?" her mother coaxed.

"Ma ... I've been working so hard at teaching, I've been letting my own studying go. Way I'm going, I'll be the only one failing the exam."

"Well, Miss Bidson, however you decide to head off that problem, I suggest you start by getting into some clean clothes."

T
HAT EVENING AFTER
her chores and grading were done, Ida worked late into the night. She began with her reader, focusing on sections she had not read before. She studied grammar and tried to memorize passages, working in particular on "A Psalm of Life," a poem by Longfellow. In the morning she parsed sentences in her head as she milked Bluebell. At the breakfast table she did math problems, her eyes glued to her textbook.

Though her father frowned at her, he said nothing.

As she and Felix drove to school she recited the Longfellow poem:

 

"Tell me not in mournful numbers—
Brake, clutch!
Life is but—
Not so hard!
—an empty dream—
For the soul is dead that slumbers—
Brake!
And things are not—
Brake, clutch!
—what they seem

Life is real!—
Brake!
—Life is earnest!
And the grave—
Clutch!
—is not its goal;
Dust thou art, to dust returnest—
Brake!
Was not—
Brake! Clutch!
—spoken of the soul.

 

"We're here!"

 

In school, right after the morning exercises, Ida stood before the class.

"Anyone know where Herbert is?"

"Working, probably," Charley said.

"I need to know," Ida said, "if our school is still secret. How many of you told your parents what we're doing? I did," she informed them. "Had to."

Tom was the first one to respond. Then, shyly, Natasha raised her hand. Charley said, "I just told ours that school was going on. Didn't say you were teacher."

Ida explained what had happened when she went to Herbert's place and spoke to Mr. Bixler.
"By mistake I told him I was the teacher," she said. "He didn't like it." Then she told them what Mr. Bixler had said to her mother.

"Think he really will say something to Mr. Jordan?" Natasha asked.

"My dad says Mr. Bixler isn't really mean," Susie put in. "Just unhappy all the time."

"My ma said the same," Ida agreed. "I don't know what he'll do. But if you haven't already, I guess you'd better let your parents know everything. Just try to get them not to tell anyone else, specially Mr. Jordan."

She sighed. "Guess we better get on with our own work," Ida said. "Can't be any shirking if we're going to pass those exams."

Ida went to her desk and consulted her notebook, then gave instructions to the class. "Tom, sentence parsing. Mary, penmanship. In particular, your Gs, Qs, and Fs. Susie, I'd like you to help her. Natasha, when you're ready, I'll quiz you on the continents. Charley, reading. Felix, you start off with a recitation of your ABCs."

Everybody set to work.

More than before, Ida put everyone to tasks that they could do on their own. While they set about their assignments, she sat at her desk, secretly working on her own studies—in particular, math.
Secret school Secret student,
she thought.

Halfway through the morning, Ida walked up to Tom's desk.

"Yes, Miss Bidson," he said.

"Tom," Ida said, whispering so no one else would hear. "I'm not teaching now. I'm studying for myself. How do you do this kind of math problem?"

Tom looked at her, pushed the hair away from his forehead, and gave her a wink.

"Tom," she whispered. "
Please.
"

"Okay. Better sit down, though," he said, and showed her how to do the problem.

"Thank you," she whispered, giving him a grateful look when he was done.

In the evening as soon as she got home, Ida raced through her chores, retreated to the loft, and worked on her studies. After dinner she did the same.

Her mother found Ida in bed. By the glowing light of a kerosene lamp she was rereading the school's frayed copy of
Great Orations by Great Men.

"Ida, it's very late. You're pushing yourself too hard."

"What's the good of me being teacher?" Ida replied with anguish. "If everyone else passes the exams and I don't, it'll be the last time I ever teach."

"Honey, I'm sure you know more than you think."

"Ma, the exam is a couple of weeks away, but I have no idea what's in it. I have to know
everything
."

"Honey, I don't want you getting sick. Won't be good for anything then."

"I'll be a whole lot sicker if I don't get to high school."

Mrs. Bidson sighed and retreated down the ladder.

 

The next day school started as usual. As the hours passed, it grew darker and darker. Recess was held, but the thunderheads gathering around the mountain peaks made it clear that a big storm was coming.

"We'd best light the lamps and get in some dry wood," Ida said.

Right after lunch the storm struck. It came softly at first, then quickly shifted into roof-rattling hail.

The children gazed around, watching the large hailstones bounce off the windows.

Tom raised his hand.

"Yes, Tom?"

"Can I bring in Ruckus? He gets panicky in hailstorms."

Ida frowned. "You never did when it stormed before."

Tom nodded toward the windows. "That's big hail."

"Very well, I suppose it's all right. But I don't want that mule interfering."

Tom dashed out. Moments later he returned, leading the mule through the schoolhouse door. He looked around, then backed the animal into the boys' wardrobe and shut the door.

With the lamps on and the stove hot, it was cozy in the schoolhouse. The students stayed attentive to their work. Now and again in the wardrobe, the mule stamped and occasionally brayed, but no one paid him any mind.

It was still raining that afternoon when Mary, standing before the class, got ready to recite a poem. The rest of the children were listening intently.

"'The Song of the Bee,'" Mary began.

 

"This is the song of the bee.
His legs are of yellow,
A jolly, good fellow,
and yet a great worker is he.
In days that are sunny—"

 

The door burst open. Mr. Jordan stood there, his yellow rain slicker dripping wet. "So it's true what I was told. You
are
meeting here. Well, this school is supposed to be closed. And as of this moment, it
is
closed. Now all of you get on home where you belong!"

No one moved.

Suddenly from the boys' wardrobe, there came a loud stamping.

Puzzled, Mr. Jordan opened the wardrobe door. The mule stuck his head out and brayed in Mr. Jordan's face.

"And get this mule out of here!" Mr. Jordan cried.

T
HE NEXT DAY
Ida and Felix stayed home. There was no choice.

Felix was more than happy to work along with his father, helping repair the barns and tend to the sheep in the fields. Ida, however, woke that morning completely miserable. No teaching. No exams. No high school. No future. She was trapped. And it was her own fault. If only she hadn't spoken to Herbert's father!

Though she wanted to, she knew she couldn't lay abed doing nothing. She did her regular chores before breakfast, then took care of the baby when her mother asked her to. The spring sheepshearing had begun.

Ida took Shelby up to the loft and tried to entertain him with one of her schoolbooks.

"I could teach you your ABCs," she offered. The little boy studied her with large, uncomprehending eyes.

"
'A
is for apple pie,'" Ida began, pointing to the letter in the book. Shelby, however, suddenly reached forward and grabbed hold of a page. Ida just managed to keep him from tearing it.

"All right," she said with a sigh. "Let's go for a walk."

She took the boy's hand and they made their way, with Shelby waddling, from their log house to the stream back behind it. Still hoping to do some reading, Ida brought along her book.

At the water's edge, Shelby squatted and placed his hands, palms down, into the water—still cold and high from mountain snow runoff—and laughed. Ida, for safety's sake, sat close behind him, watching. She wondered what Tom was doing. Probably, she thought with a pang of envy, printing church circulars or fiddling with his radio, listening to the world. She picked up her book but didn't open it.

"Shelby," Ida said, "what am I going to do?"

Shelby slapped the water with his hands, making a splash that wet him. First startled, he then laughed with delight and did it again.

"Slapping the water won't help
me
," Ida said with a sigh. Leaning back against a tree, she opened her book and tried to read. Every so often she glanced up to make sure the boy was safe. The result was she read only by bits and pieces, hardly taking in any meaning. The way she was feeling, the words before her seemed empty.

She was only staring at the book when she suddenly felt a poke on her left shoulder. Startled, she turned. No one was there. She turned back to her book. Standing in front of her was a grinning Herbert.

"Fooled you!" he cried.

"How'd you get here?" she asked.

"Walked," he said. "Hey, you Ida or Miss Bidson now?" he asked.

"Guess I'm nothing but Ida," she replied glumly. "What are you doing here?"

"Nothing," he said. "Just thought I'd come by and say howdy."

"Herbert Bixler," she replied, "don't tell me you walked seven miles just to say hello."

Herbert grinned again. "Maybe I did. Maybe I didn't. That your baby brother?" he asked.

"That's Shelby all right."

"See you got a book. Trying to teach him now?"

"Can't use the school, can I?" Ida said, suddenly feeling cross. "Which probably makes you happy."

"How so?"

"You don't like school."

Herbert looked at his feet. Wiggled his toes. "Hey," he said, "no kid is gonna say they
like
school. 'Cause if they do, other kids will rag on him."

"But you don't like it," Ida said accusingly.

Herbert still didn't look up. "Come on, Ida. There's lots of work on my dad's place," he said. "Just him and me, you know."

"I know," Ida said, already sorry she had spoken so sharply.

Herbert was quiet for a moment. Then, without looking at Ida directly, he said, "See, my dad, he never had much learning. Sometimes I think he gets fretted up about me knowing more than he does. Worries I'll get uppity. Thinks if I know too much, I might take off. You know, hightail it somewhere far away. Never come back. Which I just might do. Someday. Angry old cuss, he is. Lonely, too."