Stoney Ridge 03 - The Lesson Read online

  Maggie Lapp would never have insisted that she finish out Alice Smucker’s teaching term. She would have understood M.K.’s point of view, which was . . .

  What was it? Well, that she didn’t want to teach.

  But maybe her mother would say that growing up meant you realized you didn’t always get what you wanted. Growing up meant that you start to look for ways to give to others.

  Wait. That sounded an awful lot like Fern.

  How exasperating! M.K. was getting Fern’s voice mixed up with her mother’s voice.

  As M.K. cut through the corner of a cornfield to reach the schoolhouse, her thoughts drifted to Jenny Yoder. Imagine anyone calling me dumb! Yet a little part of it felt true. About teaching . . . she did act dumb. She didn’t teach. She just watched the clock.

  A feeling of shame burned within her when she thought of how she handled a situation yesterday afternoon. She had caught Jenny Yoder with her nose buried in a book while the class was supposed to be doing arithmetic. M.K. took one look at the book’s title, To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, and told Jenny to keep reading. No wonder Jenny thought she was as dumb as a box of rocks.

  What is wrong with me that everything I touch turns out a chaotic mess?

  She wished she could go home, fling herself across her bed, and put a pillow over her head.

  Dry cornstalks started to rustle, like a small animal was following her. The brush crackled behind her and she whirled, ears straining. Suddenly, a boy’s round face appeared out of the cornstalks.

  M.K. let out her breath. “Danny Riehl! You gave me quite a start.”

  Danny looked down the dirt path at the school yard where the pupils were starting to gather. “I just thought you should know that the reason Eugene Miller leaves in the afternoon isn’t because of your teaching. He slipped out a lot with Teacher Alice too.”

  “Why does he leave?” M.K. said.

  “Because the upper grades read out loud after lunch.” Danny poked his spectacles back up the bridge of his nose. “Eugene can’t read very well. He doesn’t want anyone to know.” He squinted up at M.K. “You won’t tell him I told you, will you?”

  “I won’t tell, Danny. Thank you.”

  Danny slipped back into the cornfield and disappeared. She heard more rustling, then she saw him burst through another section of the field and cross over the fence to meet his friends on the school yard. Danny could be a crackerjack detective, she thought.

  Eugene Miller was drawing a picture in the dirt with a stick and stuck his foot out as Danny hurried past. Danny tripped, went flying into the dirt, picked himself up, brushed himself off, and joined his friends by the softball diamond.

  So maybe Danny’s detective skills needed a little bit of work.

  She took a few steps, then stopped. I am a bad teacher. I am! M.K. realized. And while I am not dumb, I have been acting dumb. I have been acting like a bad, dumb teacher. There was no gainsaying what Jenny Yoder had said. It was just true. Just true.

  But that was about to change.

  The cramp of panic inside her chest eased a bit. She marched through the cornfield and into the schoolhouse, her sails full of wind, and dropped anchor.

  Deep in the barn, Amos could hear Uncle Hank ranting and raving. He finished adding oats to Rosemary and Lavender’s buckets—a small thank-you for a good day’s work in the fields—and walked over to the buggy shop to see what was eating his uncle.

  “I CAN’T FIND MY MONEY!” Hank roared when he saw Amos approach. “I kept it right there.” He pointed to an open drawer in the workshop, filled with screwdrivers and hammers and receipts. “That’s always where it’s been. Until now.”

  Now, that was an amusing thought. Hank Lapp was many things—inventive, bighearted, a dedicated fisherman—but organized? That would be a quality Uncle Hank would never be accused of possessing. The buggy shop was a disaster. And his Dawdi Haas? Fern refused to step inside.

  Come to think of it, Amos hadn’t been inside Hank’s apartment for over a year. For one, there was no free space to sit down. Everything was covered with newspapers and shoes and dirty laundry. And two, the heavy smell of cigar smoke made Amos hack and cough. And that brought back unpleasant memories of the year leading up to his heart transplant, when he would cough relentlessly, trying to get air.

  Hank was pulling everything out of the drawers of his workshop. “Edith Fisher has been missing some cash lately too.”

  That was interesting. Not about the missing money—it seemed to Amos that Edith Fisher was always sputtering away about not having enough money—but it was interesting that Edith was talking to Hank again. Maybe the spurning over Doozy and the puppies wasn’t as final as it first sounded.

  That was another thing that puzzled Amos about women—they said things they didn’t really mean. Just last night, M.K. said she wanted to move to Oslo, Norway. She thought it would be too cold for children to survive in Norway and that sounded like an ideal climate to her. Certainly, she didn’t mean that. He knew she was upset about having to finish Alice’s teaching term. He felt a tug of pity for her, but it vanished when he caught a warning glance from his wife. Fern knew best about this kind of thing.

  Finally, Hank threw his hands in the air. “AMOS! I have come to the conclusion that there is a thief in Stoney Ridge. Maybe a crime ring. Targeting us older folks.”

  That, Amos thought, or more likely, us older folks won’t admit we’re getting older. And forgetful.

  M.K. rang the school bell and called everyone in, five minutes before school began.

  “You’re too early, M.K.,” Eugene Miller complained as he came inside and saw the clock.

  She noticed a fresh bruise on his cheekbone. “Are you all right? How did you get that?” She reached out a hand to touch him, but he flinched and shrugged her off.

  “I have some news to share,” she said. “Everyone take your seats.”

  Eugene started to head back outdoors.

  M.K. blocked the door. “I don’t want any arguing. If I say something is to be done, then it is to be done. And here’s another thing. From now on, you call me Teacher M.K. Is that quite clear?”

  She gave Eugene a glance of reprimand. He straightened to his full height, towering over her as he glared at her. She glared back. She held his stare. She would not back down. There was too much at stake. Amazingly, he seemed to wither under her fierce glare. He smirked, turned, and plopped in his seat. The rest of the children remained still and silent, all but Barbara Jean. She nodded her small head enthusiastically.

  “Teacher Alice is not going to be able to return to teach this year,” M.K. said. “So I am going to be her replacement for the term.”

  Barbara Jean Shrock grinned.

  Danny Riehl poked his glasses up the bridge of his nose.

  Eugene Miller groaned.

  Jenny Yoder clunked her head on her desk.

  As Amos crossed the threshold of the farmhouse, he practically tripped over a cardboard box left by the kitchen door. It surprised him to see a box left out, unattended. Fern was a dedicated housekeeper—a bit on the fanatical side, he thought. He often teased her that he didn’t dare release his fork during dinner for fear it would be washed and cleaned and put away before he swallowed the bite of food. To see a box left out was unusual, but there it sat, gathering dust, as Fern worked in the kitchen.

  She was furiously whisking her new starter—the one she had made after M.K. had knocked over her great-great-great-grandmother’s starter, which, Amos suspected, wasn’t really as old as she liked to claim. But Fern did this every few days without fail—she called it refreshing her sponge. The tangy smell of yeast filled the air, so powerful that it made Amos sneeze. “A starter is a living organism,” Fern often said in its defense, “that needs to be fed and tended. Like a family.” He felt a wave of fondness as he watched her give the starter a good stir to bring in fresh oxygen. He sneezed and she glanced up, noticing him for the first time. “Look inside.” The box, she meant.


  He unfolded the top flaps of the box and crouched down to look. “Why, they’re M.K.’s detective books. Is she getting rid of them at last?”

  “She came home from school, asked me for a few boxes, and packed them up,” Fern said, still whisking.

  Amos closed the box up and crossed the room to the kitchen. He folded his arms and leaned his hips against the kitchen counter. “What do you suppose has caused this? Teaching?”

  “Maybe.”

  He grinned. “My little girl is finally growing up. You were right, Fern. This teaching job has been good for her.”

  Fern didn’t seem as convinced. “Seems like something else happened lately, but I’m not sure what. Haven’t you noticed how quiet she’s been the last few days? Thoughtful and reflective. Very, very unusual.”

  Amos hadn’t noticed. It always irked him that Fern was so observant about his own children, and yet he was grateful too. Irked and grateful. That just about summed up his feelings about his wife. And love. There was love.

  They wouldn’t even have Windmill Farm today, he was quite sure, if it weren’t for Fern. The year his heart was failing, she had become his guiding force, his rudder. She had kept things going. She had kept his family together.

  He took the whisk and bowl out of her hands, set them down on the counter, slipped his arms around her waist and kissed her. A kiss that meant serious business too. A down payment for later.

  She put her hands against his chest, surprised. “What was that for, Amos Lapp?”

  “That was for paying attention to the most important things.”

  Fern smiled, pushing him away playfully. She picked up the bowl as M.K. bounded down the stairs with another box.

  “What are the most important things?” M.K. asked. “I want to know.”

  Amos looked at her. What were the most important things for his youngest daughter to learn? Think before you act. Understand the big picture. Put the needs of others above your own wants. Start thinking long-term.

  He glanced at Fern. Or was the most important thing to find the right partner to help M.K. become the person he knew she could be?

  Maybe it was all of those things. Serious stuff for a man with an empty stomach. Amos picked up the whisk. “Never miss a chance to refresh the starter!”

  One week had passed and Chris hadn’t seen any sign of Sheriff Hoffman. He was just starting to relax, to not keep looking over his shoulder when he went into town or tense up when he heard a car drive by. And then one morning, after Jenny had left for school, he walked out of the barn after he finished feeding Samson, and there the sheriff was, leaning against his police car with one ankle crossed over the other.

  “Morning, Chris,” Sheriff Hoffman said. “Did you give some thought to our conversation?”

  Chris put the empty bucket down. “I thought I was clear. I told you everything.”

  “I need ideas about anything else you can remember.”

  Chris took a metered breath. “I don’t know anything.”

  “I know. I know you were only seven. I know you had already seen too much for a boy your age. But I’m guessing there might be something else. Something more you might remember if you really tried.”

  “And how do I do that?”

  “Anything that might trigger a memory. Anything that comes to mind.”

  Two or three small bright-winged birds hopped about on the ground, pecking at the stale bread crumbs Jenny had sprinkled before she left for school.

  The sheriff took a few steps closer to Chris. “Look, if you cooperate, I might be able to overlook the fact that you crossed a state line with your sister without the permission of Child Protective Services, and that you’re squatting in your grandfather’s house.”

  Chris snapped his head up. “This house will be legally mine as soon as I turn twenty-one. My grandfather wanted me to have it. He wanted me to take care of my sister. I have papers to prove that.”

  “But you’re not twenty-one yet. I checked.” The sheriff raised an eyebrow. “So maybe you want to try again to remember. Try real hard.” He took his keys out of his pocket and went back to the car.

  Chris took a few steps. “That day . . . the day we left . . . I might remember one or two things.” There was, he understood, no going back.

  The sheriff put his keys back in his pocket and took out his notepad. “I’m listening.”

  As soon as school let out for the day, M.K. went straight to visit Erma. She found her hanging laundry in the backyard. “Erma, why did you become a teacher?”

  Erma continued to hang pillowcases on the line, gathering her thoughts. “I suppose it was because I had such a natural curiosity about people and things. I was always sticking my nose into other people’s business. I’ve always thought of teaching as being a little bit of a detective.”

  Detective? Had M.K. heard Erma right? Did she say that teaching was like detective work? Her ears perked up.

  “A good teacher has to hunt and dig to find the right way to reach each child—to give him a love of learning that will last his entire life.”

  M.K.’s heart started to pound. “Erma, help me become a good teacher.”

  Erma sat on the picnic bench and patted the place beside her. “What made Gideon Smucker such a good teacher for you?”

  M.K. had to think that over. “He gave me extra math problems. He let me work ahead of my class. He brought me books he thought I would like.”

  “So he challenged you.”

  “Not just me. He made things interesting in the classroom. We didn’t always know what to expect.” She smiled. “Once, he had a handful of us meet at the schoolhouse at five in the morning, to watch the tail of a comet as it raced across the sky.” She sighed. “He was a marvelous teacher—the kind that every child remembers fondly for the rest of her life. That’s the kind of teacher I need to be, Erma. If I have to be stuck teaching, I want to be that kind of teacher.”

  Erma nodded. “Teaching has its advantages and disadvantages. But there are golden moments, when you connect with a child.”

  “But how do I do that?”

  “Mary Kate, it begins when you try to see life through other people’s eyes.”

  Erma went back to the business of hanging sheets on the clothesline, so M.K. joined her. She hung one blue-checked dish towel on the line, then another. She thought about each pupil, trying to imagine life through his or her eyes.

  Anna Mae, she knew, mostly thought about marrying Danny Riehl. Barbara Jean wanted to be home, helping her mother with the new baby. She played dolls at every recess. What would it be like to see life through Danny Riehl’s eyes? He could do math problems in his head and he was the runner-up in yesterday’s eighth-grade spelling bee, even though he was only a sixth grader. The word that tripped him up was “Hallelujah.” When Danny heard the letter he forgot, he slapped his forehead with the palm of his hand. “Ooh . . . silent J! I forgot silent J.” She smiled at the memory of it. She reached down for another towel and realized she had emptied the basket.

  “Which pupil do you worry about the most?” Erma asked.

  That was easy for M.K. to answer. “There’s a boy, an eighth grader, who is smart as a whip, but I think he is having trouble reading. He tries to hide it, but he’s going to be graduating soon. And then what? I feel as if I have just six months to help him.”

  “What’s he like?”

  “His name is Eugene Miller. He’s a swarthy boy with a wiry build. He wins the sprint races on field day. He has an amazing talent for drawing.”

  “So he has some things he’s good at.”

  “Yes. He loves drawing and he loves getting attention even more.”

  “In his own way, Eugene has found a way to get what he needs. I think he’ll do all right for himself.” Erma was observing a butterfly light on a white sheet, luffing in the wind. “I’ve found that it’s often the people who don’t call attention to themselves who have the most to offer.”

  Jenny. That’s who M.
K. thought of when Erma said that.

  Amos grinned at the sight of watching Uncle Hank try to harness the horse to the buggy with four puppies nipping at his pants legs. He kept hopping around as if he were barefoot on live coals.

  A few days ago, Edith had re-reconsidered her spurning of Hank after he came calling with Doozy and four puppies in tow. Now, Edith meant serious business and Hank had been moping around the farm ever since. Yesterday, he tried to find homes for the puppies. No luck, not even from softhearted Sadie, though he tried again last night. She told him that twin babies and four puppies would unhinge her fragile balance. Hank returned home with a forlorn look on his face and four puppies in a cardboard box. Fern saw him coming up the porch steps and headed him off. She pointed toward his Dawdi Haas over the buggy shop.

  Insulted, Hank spun around, muttering about women and their lack of understanding.

  And then a happy surprise for Hank came late in the day. Edith Fisher had another change of heart. She still didn’t want Doozy or his offspring hanging around her chicken farm, but she did pardon Hank. She sent her son Jimmy over to Windmill Farm with a note saying that Hank was invited for supper on Sunday. The spring was back in Hank’s step.

  It was amazing what a little romance did for a person.

  10

  M.K. was surprised to see that Chris and Jenny Yoder were at church. They hadn’t attended before today, so she figured someone—like Bishop Elmo or Deacon Abraham—had put a little gentle pressure on them.

  It had been almost a week since that unfortunate misunderstanding with the sheriff. And nobody blabbed. That was the incredible thing. It was touching—to think Chris and Jenny would protect her from embarrassment. So kind! So unexpected.