Home Is Beyond the Mountains (10 page)

“She told you that there's a
lot to be done, didn't she?” said Anna. “She's getting started.”

Miss Shedd was busy counting
boxes. When she saw the big boys and girls watching, she called, “Come on
over and give me a hand.”

The children came closer but
they stood a respectful distance away.

“Not over there,” she said
sharply. “Right here. Two by two. I'll tell you what to take and where it
goes.”

In no time at all Samira and
Anna found themselves carrying a rolled-up rug into each dormitory room. The
boys lugged pots and pans and dishes into the kitchen and big boxes of cloth
into the school building.

As the children worked, word
spread that this woman was the new orphanage director.

At last there was nothing
left except six sewing machines standing in a row. Miss Shedd motioned to
Benyamin and Ashur.

“These are heavy,” she said.
“Can you two carry them to the schoolroom?”

The boys nodded.

“Good,” said Miss Shedd.
“But don't drop them. These machines must be treated with great respect.
After all, they'll keep you warm this winter.”

By the time all the supplies
were in their proper places, every older child had met Miss Shedd.

“She doesn't wait even a
second before she tells you to hurry up,” complained Anna as they went into
the eating hall for lunch. “I need time to get started.”

“She's the same with
everyone,” said Samira. “She told one of the oxcart drivers to move his cart
quickly or winter would catch up with him. She's in a hurry to get things
done.”

“Maybe,” said Anna. “Or
maybe she's just bossy.”

Before the children were
dismissed after their meal, Miss Shedd came in and stood at the front of the
room. She looked around the room at the children sitting on the
floor.

Elias was right in the
front. Samira could see him staring hard at Miss Shedd.

Suddenly his voice rang out
in the silent room.

“I saw you before,” he said.
“You were wearing trousers.”

Before Samira could take a
breath, Miss Shedd said, “Well, I saw you, too. And you were wearing a shirt
that came right down to your feet.” Then she laughed and everyone laughed
with her, though they had no idea what Miss Shedd and Elias were talking
about.

Miss Shedd went on,
“Children, we have so much to do but we need to laugh, too. Thank you. I am
Susan Shedd and I am now the orphanage director. For me coming to this
orphanage is a little like coming home. You see, I was born in Urmieh. My
father was with the American Mission in the city and I lived there until I
was fifteen years old. Then I went to America to go to school. Now I've had
the chance to return to Persia and be with you.

“I've been away for a long
time but I remember how hard everyone in Urmieh and the villages worked to
be ready for winter. This orphanage is new and there hasn't been time to get
everything ready, though the cold weather is already here. We have a lot to
do very fast. We must make clothes and shoes, store food and make your rooms
comfortable. And at the same time you must go to school. We will not let
your education fall behind, for you'll need it when you're back in your
village or wherever you go in the world.”

Samira felt dizzy. She
remembered how a gust of wind would suddenly blow down the streets of Ayna,
lifting the leaves that lay peacefully on the ground and swirling them high
into the air. Now she felt like one of those leaves.

Miss Shedd was still
talking. While she talked she was looking around the room, and Samira had
the feeling that she was noticing every single child and deciding what task
each one would do.

“Until things are in order
we will have school in the morning and jobs in the afternoon. Once
everything is organized there will be time for afternoon classes and games
and music. It won't be all work, I promise, but the work must come first. I
want each of you to go to your room in the dormitory. You will find a rug
there and some other supplies. You can arrange things as you wish. Just be
sure that everyone who lives in the room is pleased with it. Stay in your
room until I come around to see how you've settled in. Now, off with
you!”

She turned quickly and
walked out the door.

Samira looked over at Anna.
“Let's get Elias and go and look at our rug. I hope it's red.”

The rug turned out to be
dark red with a pattern of blue diamonds and a golden brown border. In some
places it was very worn, but the girls agreed that it was beautiful, and it
felt soft and warm under their bare feet.

Elias immediately lay down
on his stomach on the rug. He took a small stick from his pocket and began
tracing the blue shapes against the red background, humming quietly.

“I remember doing that,”
Samira said, almost to herself.

“Let's see what else there
is to arrange,” said Anna. “I want to be ready when Miss Shedd
comes.”

There were three cotton
quilts and three baskets to hold the clothes they weren't wearing. And there
was a metal lantern with a candle in it. It had a loop at the top so that it
could be hung from a hook in the wall, if there had been a hook.

They put their extra clothes
in the baskets and set the baskets against the wall along with the folded
quilts so that they would have the whole rug to play on. Since there was no
hook for the lantern, they put it in a corner.

Samira looked around the
little room. It held everything that was theirs and they could sit
comfortably together on the rug. She sat down beside Elias, who was busy
finding many diamond shapes, little and big, in the pattern.

Anna watched for a moment.
Then she went outside and came back with several roundish pebbles. Samira
knew at once what those pebbles were for.

Anna showed Elias the big
blue diamond in the middle of the rug.

“All the pebbles go here,”
she said. “Now, pick the one you like best and Samira and I will choose,
too.”

Elias spent a long time
choosing the best pebble.

“Now what?” he
asked.

“Put your pebble down on the
rug and flick it with your finger, like this.” She showed him how to flick his
first finger against his thumb to make the pebble move across the
rug.

Elias's short fingers were
surprisingly strong, and soon his pebble was shooting straight and far.

“Now,” said Anna, “flick your
pebble at those pebbles inside the diamond. If you hit one and it goes out
of the diamond, then it's yours. We'll take turns and whoever gets the most
pebbles out of the diamond wins.”

This was harder. Elias
managed to hit one pebble out of the blue diamond and was so pleased that he
didn't notice that Anna and Samira were sneaking back the ones they hit so
that they wouldn't win too fast. In the end Anna couldn't help winning, but
Elias promised her that he would practice and beat her next time.

“He probably will,” said
Samira. “He's a very determined boy.”

Miss Shedd came by as they
were gathering up the stones.

“I used to play something
like that,” she said. “And there's another game where you toss a stone in
the air and pick up others as fast as you can.”

“Yes,” said Samira. “First
you throw down all the stones except one.” She could remember how the other
girls always watched closely to be sure you tossed the stones and didn't
just drop them in a heap.

“That's it,” said Miss
Shedd. “Now, what were the words we said?”

“It's
shkelta
when you throw them and
metaytah
when you
pick them up. But you have to get them all up before the stone you tossed
comes down,” said Samira.

“Oh, yes. I remember.” Miss
Shedd glanced around the room. “You'll need a hook for the lantern to keep
it away from anything that might catch fire. And you'll need some hooks for
clothes, too.” She smiled. “Don't worry. You'll have new clothes to hang up
as fast as we can make them. Shoes, too. Winter's coming, you know.” She
gave the uncovered window a quick glance, shook her head and was
gone.

THREE DAYS LATER
Miss
Shedd made an announcement as the children were finishing lunch.

“For a few weeks this eating
room will also be the schoolroom, and the schoolroom will become a workshop
for making clothes and shoes. Some of you will be helping with that work. If
you are not on the list, don't worry. The rest of you will have other
jobs.”

She took a piece of paper
out of the bag she always carried with her and read the names of girls and
boys who would go immediately to the schoolroom. Samira's name was on the
list. She walked over to the schoolroom with the three other girls who were
to become seamstresses.

“She looks at you with that
look and decides that you can sew,” one girl grumbled. “I can patch a hole
in a shirt but I can't make anything.”

“We'll have to learn,” said
another. “We have to do what she says.”

“It might save us from
kitchen duty for a while,” said Samira.

The other girls brightened
up. Kitchen duty meant chopping endless onions and stirring rice so it
wouldn't burn and scrubbing out pots. The girls didn't like it and the boys
hated it, but now that Miss Shedd was in charge everyone had to take a turn
unless they were doing some other urgent task.

When the girls entered the
schoolroom they stopped and stared. The shelves of books, the blackboard and
the mats where the children sat to do their lessons were gone. At one end of
the room three women stood behind a big table heaped with cloth. The sewing
machines were lined up and ready to go. At the other end of the room two men
were sorting through tools and pieces of canvas cut into squares.

Samira went over to the
women. One was old with gray hair. The other two were not old, though they
were thin and worn. They all looked very happy.

“You will be helping us make
new clothes for everyone,” said the gray-haired woman. “I am Hanna, this is
Zora and this is Britha. We are refugees like you but we have been in
Hamadan all this time living on the little the British gave us. Miss Shedd
has blessed us by giving us some work.”

Zora was looking at the
dress Samira was wearing. She shook her head.

“You won't live through the
winter in that,” she said. “It gets cold here, you know. You need a nice
thick skirt and a blouse and a warm jacket.”

Samira believed her. She was
wearing the dress that had been made for the heat of Baghdad. Her other
dress was warmer, but the cloth was getting thin at the elbows. It had been
somebody else's dress for a long time before it was given to her in
Kermanshah. As for her warm jacket, she had mended it so often it was hard
to put a patch on it anymore.

“Warm clothes will be
wonderful,” she said. “Will we have new shoes, too?”

“Yes, the men down at the
other end are shoemakers,” said Britha. “Some boys will work with them and
every one of you will have the shoes and clothes you need if we just get to
work.”

Hanna laughed. “We'll all
work,” she said. “Susan Shedd won't rest until every last child is properly
dressed.”

Samira was surprised. “Do
you know Miss Shedd? She hasn't been here very long.”

“I knew her when she was a
girl, living with her family in Urmieh,” said Hanna. “She was just as
determined then as she is now. She asked for a horse so she could explore
outside the city walls. Of course she was never allowed to go unless her
father or some other man could go with her but she never gave up
asking.”

“She told us she went to
America when she was fifteen,” said Samira.

“Yes, people who came from
America to work in the mission always sent their children back there to go
to school when they were old enough to live so far away from their families.
Susan Shedd hated to leave Urmieh, but she had no choice. Of course, being
in America meant that she missed the war, so maybe she was lucky. I never
thought I'd see her again but I should have known she would come back and do
something useful. And now that she's here she'll expect us to be working,
not talking. Let's get started.”

They got to work. Samira
remembered watching the women in Baghdad make the green dresses on sewing
machines, but she had not used the machines herself.

“Look,” said Hanna. “You
turn the wheel with your right hand so that the needle goes up and down. You
guide the cloth under the needle with your left hand.”

Samira found that sewing on
a machine wasn't hard as long as she kept her eye on the line of stitches.
It had to be straight. If the seam was crooked she had to rip it out and
stitch it again.