Lacy Williams (8 page)

The horse nosed around her midsection and Oscar plopped another piece of apple into Sarah’s palm, which the horse quickly took.

The horse neighed softly and bobbed its head, scaring Sarah into taking a step back.

“It’s all right.” Oscar reached forward and ruffled the horse’s neck. “This guy is a hog for goodies. He’s telling you he likes it. He likes everything. Apples, carrots, grain...”

Sarah found a store of courage to step up to Oscar’s elbow.

“Watch his ears.” Oscar didn’t stop petting the horse, even though the animal was nudging his opposite hand, attempting to get at the rest of the apple. “Forward means he’s at ease. Pointed back behind his head means he’s upset or fearful.”

“Has he ever bucked you off before?”

“This guy? No. He’s even-tempered and we’ve been in accord pretty much since we’ve been working together.”

She still stood half-behind Oscar’s shoulder, and he looked back to grin at her. “I’ve had my share of spills, though.”

Sarah couldn’t find any humor in that. “Have you ever been hurt?”

“Naw. A bruised rib or sore ankle, maybe. When you grow up with a lot of brothers, you learn how to duck and roll.”

She could only imagine. Two years ago, she’d had a passel of boys from one family in her classroom and they’d spent all day tussling and wrestling each other. They’d moved midyear, but she’d never forgotten the rowdy family.

The horse certainly seemed calm. It almost acted as if it was enjoying Oscar’s scratching of its neck and shoulder.

Sarah didn’t know if she dared, but she had to try. “Can I...?”

He glanced at her again and his eyes lit from within. He reached down and took her hand, his warm fingers enclosing hers and causing a tingle all the way up her arm. He pressed her palm against the horse’s neck, his hand covering hers completely.

It took a while, but eventually Sarah stopped shaking. The horse stood patiently and Oscar didn’t move, either, providing his shoulder and hand for support. Finally, the sound of the horse crunching into the apple in Oscar’s other hand broke Sarah’s concentration.

Oscar let the horse take the whole apple between his teeth and with a final pat, urged the horse away.

“But what about her?” Sarah asked, nodding toward the mare. “She didn’t step over to us. Isn’t that what you wanted?”

Oscar squatted and began putting the plates and utensils back in the picnic basket. “It’s not a failure. All on her own, she got closer to me—to us—than she ever has before. Maybe it’s next time that she comes and eats out of your hand. And she stayed close the whole time.”

They moved to fold the blanket, Oscar taking one side and Sarah the other. When they met in the middle, his fingers closed over hers as he took the half-folded blanket from her. Their eyes locked and her breath froze in her chest.

“When you’re gentling a horse, even a small step forward is a win.”

Sarah moved away, bending down to scoop up the picnic basket. His words, his manner.... If she were younger, or more attractive, less bossy...she might think his words had a double meaning. That he’d wanted to get closer to
her,
Sarah.

But he couldn’t have meant that, could he?

Before she’d quieted her swirling thoughts, he had come beside her, falling into step on the path toward Main Street. “Want to hold the reins while we walk back to the buggy?”

“No!”

He laughed, the sound rich and full, and a funny little tickle deep in her belly responded to him.

Surely he hadn’t intended anything deeper by his words...surely.

Chapter Eight

T
he mild autumn weather lasted several days past Thanksgiving, but as it got colder, Sarah worried about Cecilia’s exposure to the cold with no shoes.

With none of the mothers or women from town willing to help, she had no choice but to come up with a solution on her own.

She really couldn’t afford to purchase a new pair of shoes for the girl out of her meager savings. And she couldn’t imagine what the school board would say if she showed such favoritism.

So she’d stuffed an extra pair of thick socks into the bottom of her second, more worn pair of shoes and hid them under her desk when she’d arrived at the schoolhouse this morning. She would try to find a time when the other children weren’t paying attention to give them to Cecilia.

When the temperature dropped noticeably before lunchtime, Sarah called Cecilia up to her desk as the other children filed out for the midmorning recess.

“I’ve noticed that you don’t have shoes.” Sarah purposely kept her voice low as the last child exited the schoolroom.

Cecilia bristled, her arms immediately crossing over her middle and lips tightening into a frown. Even her toes curled beneath the slightly too-high tattered edge of her skirt. “So what?”

“It’s getting on to winter,” Sarah responded gently. She knew that she needed to approach the girl with care or risk offending her. “I would hate for you to get frostbite because you don’t have appropriate footwear.”

The girl looked away, shrugging her thin shoulders.

Sarah reached below the desk and grasped the shoes with one hand, setting them on top of the desk in Cecilia’s view. “These are for you. I’m sure they are too large, but a trick I learned with my younger sisters was to stuff an extra pair of socks in the toes of the shoes.”

Poor Sally had been stuck with Sarah’s hand-me-downs for years, and they’d often had to make do with what they had.

Cecilia looked at the shoes for a long silent moment, but remained perfectly still. “My pa won’t take kindly to charity,” she mumbled. “I can’t take them.”

“Yes, you can.” Sarah pushed the shoes across the desk. “I want you to have them. And if your father argues with you, tell him that you can’t perform your chores if you have frostbitten feet.” She held her tongue on what else she wanted to say—that he should already be providing for his stepdaughters’ clothing needs.

“Besides, how can you take care of your sisters if your feet are injured?” Sarah said the words casually, looking down at her desk as if she wasn’t invested in whether the girl decided to accept the shoes or not. Perhaps it was a
bit
manipulative to play on Cecilia’s sense of responsibility for her sisters, but Sarah did have the girl’s best interests at heart.

Hesitantly, Cecilia reached out one finger and touched the toe of one of the shoes. “They’re nice,” she whispered.

“They’re yours.” Sarah turned to the blackboard, as if the matter had been decided. She heard a twin pair of clunks as the shoes hit the floor and rustling as Cecilia slid them on. Sarah regretted that she couldn’t give the girl a pair of shoes that fit better, but this was better than nothing.

A bustle at the door preceded a loud giggle. “What are you doing?” asked Barbara. “Aren’t those your shoes, Miss Sarah?”

Sarah turned to see a gaggle of girls tumble into the classroom, puffing hard from their outdoor exertions.

“Why’re you wearing the teacher’s shoes, Cecilia?” “She’s too poor to have some of her own!” chorused two more voices.

Barbara looked chagrined, standing just inside the door. Sarah knew the girl most likely hadn’t meant to draw attention to her classmate; Barbara wasn’t cruel, she was just innately curious and always wanted to know why things were the way they were.

Susie pushed her way through the small knot of girls and ran to her sister’s side. Cecilia’s face had gone red, but her chin was in the air.

“Poor, poor Cecilia and Susie!” rang out a voice and rude laughter followed.

“Quiet!” Sarah called out.

From the back of the classroom, Junior Allen sent Sarah a squint-eyed look and muttered something she couldn’t hear, but it set off the children again.

“Children, quiet!” Sarah rapped a ruler on the edge of her desk, temper flaring at the children’s cruelty and refusal to obey. Finally, she stuck two fingers in her mouth and let out a shrill whistle.

The room went silent. From just in front of her desk, Susie looked up at Sarah with tear-filled eyes. Next to her sister, Cecilia stood with a belligerent stance, arms crossed as if daring the other children to hurt her with their words. Sarah well knew how that stance tried to hide the tender feelings beneath the bravado.

“I am ashamed of you children,” Sarah said. “There’s more to your education than reading and arithmetic. I thought I had trained you better in the ways of kindness and respecting your fellow students. Cecilia and Susie are very special girls who are going through a hard time right now. Instead of belittling them, you should be asking your parents how you could help them.”

There was a pause. Junior snorted, and several children laughed in response.

“You shoulda left things alone,” Cecilia hissed at Sarah. The girl grabbed her sister’s hand and ran for the door, pushing aside other children to escape the room. The outer door slammed amid tittering from the children.

But at least she had the shoes on.

Temper hot, Sarah felt the ruler she now clutched in her hands snap. She hadn’t meant to do that. But it served to capture the children’s attention. They went ominously quiet.

“Please sit down,” she said firmly.

They were silent as they shuffled into their seats. Several of the girls wore guilty expressions and Barbara looked near tears. Junior looked particularly smug, and his attitude, so like his father’s, infuriated Sarah.

“You will all copy this verse ten times on your slates.”

Hand trembling with the force of her emotions, Sarah wrote out the Golden Rule, straight from Matthew chapter seven, on the blackboard.

There was rattling from behind her as the children got out their slates and chalk.

Sarah dusted her hands as she turned back to the room, hoping she appeared more composed now. “When you are finished, you will be dismissed for the day. I hope that you will all go home and think very seriously about the words you are writing at this moment.”

* * *

That afternoon, Sarah worked at the schoolhouse, unwilling to go home and face Mr. Allen. No doubt he had heard all about the events of the day from his children. She still struggled with what had happened earlier.

Perhaps she’d overreacted, but after days of continued coldness from her boss, and the utter lack of compassion from the people of Lost Hollow, she hadn’t been able to help her reaction.

She refused to give any credence for her turbulent emotions to the fact that she’d only seen Oscar in passing as he worked Mr. Allen’s colt. They were barely friends, but after the picnic they’d shared, she’d thought...she didn’t know what she’d thought, but his silence was unexpected.

Afternoon sunshine streamed around her, but the air had a particular bite and a stiff breeze blew her hair into her eyes. The schoolyard was blessedly quiet as she fought to cover a broken windowpane with thick paper. This side of the schoolhouse was wind-worn and really needed a new coat of paint.

She still needed to look over and mark lessons from earlier in the week, and was woefully behind on getting the pageant backdrops put together, but with winter so close, the one-room building needed to be secure to keep out the cold air. If she could just—

The wooden bottom of the sill broke off beneath her hand, and Sarah tumbled backward, hitting the ground unceremoniously with an “oomph!”

The thick brown paper fluttered to the ground at her feet, leaving a gaping hole in the windowpane.

Tears of frustration filled her eyes, but she quickly blinked them away. At least none of the students had been here to see—

“Miss Schoolteacher, you all right?”

Fast hoofbeats halted and then footsteps approached. Sarah didn’t have to look up to know who it was. The prickling awareness heating the back of her neck was enough of a recognition.

“What are you doing here?” Embarrassment and a sharp pain shooting down her leg made her words sting as she struggled to get up. Her hair flopped down into her eyes, and she pushed it out of her face. She must’ve lost some pins when she’d fallen.

He was already there beside her, helping her up with a warm hand at her waist and the other beneath her elbow.

“I was going to see about escorting the girls home from school today, but it’s awful quiet around here so I guess they’re already gone. I saw you fall—you sure you’re okay?”

She stepped away and brushed at her skirt. “Yes, I’m fine. I was trying to...” She motioned to the window with its missing pane and his eyebrows went down, making him look almost dangerous.

“Can’t you get someone to fix that for you?”

“Keeping the classroom maintained is part of the job,” she explained, moving to pick up the stiff paper and the piece of window frame that had broken off and caused her fall.

“But this is the building, not the classroom.”

She moved toward the window again. “There’s no one else.” If she complained to Mr. Allen, he would only think she couldn’t do her job. She didn’t dare.

Oscar easily overtook her and took the paper and wood piece from her hands. “I don’t suppose you have a hammer? No? All right. I’ll come early tomorrow morning and fix the window and stoke the fire.”

He examined the chunk of wood from the window frame before tossing it on the ground beneath the window. “Did you have a visitor before me? Is that why the children are already gone?”

“No. I sent them home early.” She wouldn’t admit that she’d been afraid she wouldn’t be able to hold her temper.

“Hmm. I thought I saw someone riding away....” Distracted from the broken window, he followed her around to the front of the schoolhouse, where she stopped cold.

A bulky burlap sack rested at the bottom of the steps.

“That wasn’t here when I came outdoors,” she said. “Did you get a look at the person riding away?”

“Not a good one. They were slight...might’ve been a woman.” He approached with Sarah following reluctantly a few steps behind him.

“Be careful,” she cautioned. “Is it moving?”

“What exactly do you expect to be in that bag?” he asked over his shoulder.

“In the past I’ve received snakes, feral cats, frogs...I’m sure you can imagine from your own school days. And with some of the townspeople being unhappy with me wanting to help the Caldwells, you never know...”

He squatted and reached for the bag. She held her breath.

“Or perhaps we’ve both underestimated someone’s compassion,” he murmured.

He held up the bag, with its mouth wide open so she could see the contents. Looked like something woolen.

“Dresses?” she asked, breath caught in her chest. She crossed to join him.

“Not quite.” He pulled out the fold of material. “But enough yardage to make some.”

* * *

Oscar watched Sarah’s shoulders slump. Other than the day he’d arrived, when she’d nearly been run down by his mare, he’d never seen Sarah so disheveled and harried as she appeared now. He could only guess what mischief her schoolchildren had gotten into today if she’d sent them home early. That on top of all her other duties and the upcoming pageant...he could see she was overwhelmed.

And he wanted to help in some way.

“This is a good thing,” he said.

The afternoon breeze was nippy and he motioned her into the schoolhouse. Going up the steps behind her, he realized just how worn and creaky they were. He’d noticed it before, but now understood there might not be anyone to fix it—unless he counted Sarah. And he didn’t.

“It’s a nice gesture, but who is going to sew new dresses out of that?”

“You can’t sew?” he teased.

Her face flushed pink as she moved toward a stack of wood and other detritus in the back corner of the schoolroom. “Probably only well enough to make a doll’s dress.”

He couldn’t resist joshing her. It was too fun. “So you can’t cook and you can’t sew but you want to catch a husband? Are you really prepared for that?”

She bent down, and he lost sight of her face. “Perhaps I’m looking for a man with some house and home skills. It isn’t an impossible request.”

“Hmm...like a cowboy? A lot of us can cook and you’ve got to know how to darn your shirts if you get a rip out on the range. There aren’t usually women around to do it for you.”

She shot him a look. He grinned.

“What’s all that?” he asked, leaving the burlap bag on one of the desks and joining her.

“It’s supposed to be props—and a backdrop—for the pageant. One of the fathers brought it yesterday. He was supposed to have them fully installed, but instead he brought this pile of boards and some canvas. As if I don’t have enough to do!”

She sounded close to tears. And if there was one piece of advice about women that his pa had passed down to him, it was to stay as far away as possible from a woman’s tears.

“Look, I’ll help you build whatever you need. But I’m not artsy, so any painting you’re going to have to do yourself. And we’ll figure out something about making the girls’ dresses. Maybe I’ll sew them.”

He’d meant the last to be a jest, to pull a smile from her, but she stood and faced him, eyes glistening.

His gut clenched and he desperately wanted to erase that look from her face.

“I don’t—I don’t have anything to trade this time. You’ve already convinced me to help with your skittish horse....”

She looked so worried, in addition to her hair falling around her shoulders and the tremble in her lips, that he couldn’t find anything to smile about this time, only a deep desire to make things better for her.

“I’m not looking for a trade,” he said. “I’ll do it for you.”

She turned away quickly, reaching for her satchel, but not before he saw one silver tear spill down her cheek.

But he didn’t know if her emotion was a good thing or a bad thing.