Loving Liza Jane (2 page)

“How much farther is it, Mr. Brackett?” she asked, fanning her face with the fingers of her long white glove. She’d long ago realized the futility in wearing such impractical articles of clothing in the sweltering August temperatures.

“How many times you gotta ask that question, miss? I done told you we’d be there by nightfall.”

“Well, pardon me, sir, but it is going on six o’clock, and I have not yet come across one sign that would indicate we are nearing our destination. How do I know you’re even driving in the right direction?”

He chuckled quietly. “You won’t be seein’ any sign until we’re near on top o’ the place. As for whether I’m goin’ in the right die-rection, l’il woman, I ’spect you’ll have to trust me on that.”

“My name is Miss Merriwether, and I’ll thank you to address me as such,” she said as her temper flared in a decidedly unchristian manner. “Since I am Little Hickman’s new schoolteacher, I should think you would show me a bit more respect.”

He snorted loudly. “Oh, you got my respect all right. But you’ll need a lot more ’n that to make do as Hickman’s new schoolmarm.”

Liza twisted the fingers of her soiled white glove and shot an upward glance at the man beside her. “What do you mean by that?”

He snickered before swatting a pesky fly away from his face with one of his giant hands. “Ya ain’t the first teacher Hickman’s hired, and ya won’t be the last.” He spat on the side of the road, and Liza wrinkled up her nose at his uncouth behavior. “Hickman’s hired three in the last three years.”

“Three?”

“Yep.” Loosening up on the reins a bit, he rested his beefy elbows atop his knees before exploding with another round of laughter. “I guess that ole biddy, Mrs. Winthrop, failed to inform you ’bout Hickman’s history of teachers.”

“History?” Something told her she shouldn’t have voiced the one-word question.

Mr. Brackett took her in with a sweeping look. “Why, a pretty little thing like you oughta know you cain’t handle a bunch of ruffian boys. Hellions they are, yes indeed. There’s Clement Bartel for starters; he’s mean and nasty that one. Then there’s Gus Humphrey, Sam and Freddie Hogsworth—twins they are, and Rufus Baxter, just to name a few. Troublemakers, ever’ last one of ’em. They done run off the first woman-teacher Hickman Creek ever had, and the two men that follered her. Gone—like the dust off a used saddle.

“Guess it don’t make no never mind whether the Board o’ Education hires a woman or a man; you’ll be gone ’for the rooster crows on the third mornin’. Yep, you got yer work cut out for ya, little wom—er—Miss Merriwether.”

Liza swallowed down a lump the size an apple and feigned nonchalance. “Well, I’m sure it’s not nearly as bad as you’re letting on, Mr. Brackett.” Then tucking a stubborn strand of loose golden brown hair behind her ear, she concluded, “It’s not as if I don’t have prior experience in handling children.” Of course, she doubted looking after Mr. and Mrs. Handy’s two small children qualified in terms of educational experience. After all, she’d only recently obtained her license from a small teacher college in Boston.

“Children? Hah! Them boys don’t hardly qualify as children, ’specially Clement and Rufus. They’re plenty big enough to drive their paw’s rigs and farm the land. Them boys is plain lazy about learnin’, and gettin’ into trouble is one way of breakin’ the boredom.”

“Well, if they’re bored, I’ll just have to find a way to make learning fun for them.” To that, she folded her hands and set them in her lap, as if the simple act should settle everything.

“Well, you just do that, Miss Merriwether. It’ll make my Eloise tickled pink to hear that. There weren’t nothin’ fun ’bout learnin’ with them other ones far as I know.”

Liza’s ears perked up. “Eloise? You have a daughter, Mr. Brackett?”

“Shore ’nough. She’s eight, my Eloise. Right smart, too, you’ll see. And sweeter than a teaspoon o’ honey. Sure do love that l’il angel o’ mine. ’Course, you probably won’t be around long enough to get to know her.” He raised an eyebrow in challenge.

“Oh, I’ll be around, Mr. Brackett, you can bet on that.”

She’d had to prove to Aunt Hettie that she’d made the right decision in coming to Little Hickman. Now it seemed she also had to prove it to Mr. Brackett and herself.

Minutes seemed to roll into hours as the wagon tipped and turned along the dirt path. Conversation between the two of them withered into dead silence, save the chirping of birds and the continual squeak of rusted springs in the wagon bed. Just as Mr. Brackett had stated, there were no signs pointing the way to Little Hickman.

Liza had about given up hope of ever reaching their destination when her eyes lit on an old dilapidated wooden board nailed to a rotted tree stump. Hand-painted letters, crookedly situated, spelled out the words Little Hickman Creek and under that, Welcome.

Liza glanced at her surroundings, curious when Mr. Brackett stopped the wagon outside a small ramshackle building and began to dismount.

“Is this it?” she asked, certain the actual town had to be around the next bend.

He gifted her with another of his toothless grins and winked. “You seen the sign, didn’t you, Miss Merriwether?” Walking around to her side of the wagon, he reached a hand up to help her down from her perch. She took his callused hand and stepped to the hard earth, nearly losing her balance in the process, her wobbly legs refusing to hold her in one spot.

“But…” Giving the place another fleeting look, she noted several crudely built structures.

“This here is Main Street,” said Mr. Brackett. “Over yonder is Flanders Food Store where you’ll be gettin’ yer food supplies an’ such.” He pointed to a basic little building sporting a crooked sign. “Next to that is Emma’s Boardinghouse.”

“Further up is Winthrop’s Dry Goods, then the mercantile, and around the bend is Grady’s Sawmill. That there’s the school,” he added as an afterthought, pointing to a little white structure two or more blocks away. The schoolhouse, although small, looked to be the nicest and the newest building in the entire town. She gave an audible sigh.

A rickety, planked sidewalk trailed along one side of the road where she made note of two curious bystanders in muddy farm clothes who had halted in their steps to peruse Mr. Brackett’s arrival. One tipped his hat at Mr. Brackett before continuing his conversation with the other. A rickety wagon carrying a woman and her child passed by, the swayback horse pulling it looking ready to drop in his own dusty tracks.

Several other horses stood tied to a hitching post outside a tawdry looking building. At first glance, she thought it was an eating establishment, but common sense told her it was more likely a saloon when she heard twangy piano music and saw a round, flabby fellow come swaying through the swinging doors and promptly vomit on the sidewalk. Turning her head away, she fought down her own brand of queasiness. Lord, help me if this is to be my new home.

“Winthrop swore she’d be here to meet you,” said Mr. Brackett, a hint of apology in his tone as he searched the street. “Don’t know where she could be.” He pointed at a crooked bench in front of a nearby building. “Go sit a spell.”

She must have worn a look of sheer panic, for he hesitated only briefly before waving her in the direction of the bench. “I said sit.”

Too tired to argue, she walked to the bench and dropped into it.

“Havin’ second thoughts, are we?”

“Absolutely not,” she assured, bristling at his ill-mannered tone. That she was indeed having second thoughts was something she would keep to herself. Certainly, Mr. Brackett would be the last to discover her inner turmoil.

While she waited on the straight-backed bench in front of a square little building, she turned to peer through the front window. Layers of dust covered the pane, but despite the haze, she managed to identify the place as Little Hickman’s Post Office. Closed now, she could see the front counter, marred and dirty, and beyond that, several empty slots into which Liza presumed the postal clerk sorted incoming and outgoing mail. Several “wanted” posters hung haphazardly on one wall, along with a crooked sign advertising a Sunday Picnic. “Evryone Wulcome!” The malformed letters and incorrectly spelled words reaffirmed in Liza’s mind how much the town of Little Hickman needed a decent teacher.

“Hello there! Yoo-hoo, Mr. Brackett, is that you?”

Mr. Brackett was just crossing the dirt road when a tall, portly woman, finely appareled, approached him briskly from the opposite sidewalk, her full skirts dragging along behind her as she held to her wide-brimmed, feathery bonnet. She carried a dainty parasol in her other hand, and Liza quickly decided that the woman’s fancy getup did not seem to mesh with the backdrop of falling-down buildings and dirt-packed roads. Nor did it blend in with the woman’s coarse features. However, it did make Liza mourn the loss of her own beautiful hat lying facedown in a mud hole some miles back. She had the distinct notion that this woman would have placed a great deal of importance on Liza’s new hat. Hastily, she stood to her feet awaiting introductions.

“Just the person I was lookin’ for,” Mr. Brackett said, failing to sound pleased.

Hurrying across the road, the woman dismissed Mr. Brackett with a curt nod and immediately turned her attention to Liza. “Well, I declare, would this little mite be Miss Merriwether?”

“That it would,” answered Mr. Brackett, coming alongside Liza.

“Why, you’re no taller than some of your prospective students, Miss Merriwether. I had hoped, I mean I expected…” The woman looked her up and down with worried eyes, then took two full steps backward as if to gain a better perspective. Liza squared her shoulders and stretched to her fullest height. But what was the use? She was all of five feet two inches tall in her Sunday-go-to-meetin’ shoes.

“Is there a problem?” Liza faltered.

“Oh, begging your pardon, young lady. What foul manners I have.” To this, she tittered nervously, her owl-like eyes drilling holes into nearly every inch of Liza’s petite frame. Then, offering her gloved hand, she said, “Iris Winthrop. You will remember me as the president of Little Hickman’s Board of Education.”

Liza smiled as best she could and fought down nervous butterflies. “Of course. So nice to finally make your acquaintance, ma’am,” she said, taking the offered hand and wincing under its firm, hot squeeze and vigorous shake.

After having spotted a public notice in one of Boston’s newspapers advertising the need for a teacher in beautiful Kentucky, Liza had put the matter to prayer. Within the week, she’d applied for the position, asking God to close doors as He saw fit. Since then she’d received exactly three letters of correspondence from Mrs. Winthrop, the final one containing an offer of employment, the teaching contract, a payment schedule, meager as it was, and information pertaining to her arranged housing. It appeared every door had opened wide for the new teacher’s entrance.

Although Liza had jumped with joy at the opportunity, her aunt had seemed to view it more as a death sentence. “Kentucky?” Aunt Hettie had cried, “but it’s so desolate and uncivilized there. I’m afraid you’ll be taking on a mission project instead of a respectable teaching position.”

“Aunt Hettie, I’ve prayed about this, and I truly believe this is where God wants me to go. You must look at this as an opportunity for me to spread my wings.”

To that, her aunt had frowned sorrowfully. “If your parents were alive I know they would agree that you should think this through more logically.”

“Trust the Lord, Auntie. He will take care of me. Remember Mark 5:36 says, ‘Be not afraid, only believe.’ We must claim that verse as ours.”

Now, looking about the town of Little Hickman Creek, Liza couldn’t have explained for the world why she’d been so all-fired determined to fill the position as teacher. Had she misinterpreted God’s leading? The place looked as unproductive as a wobbly pump handle. Even the lazy, scrawny dog meandering across Main Street affirmed her worst fears. Aunt Hettie had been right; Kentucky was an uncivilized place.

Even so, she couldn’t ignore the yearning she’d had to set herself free of Aunt Hettie’s loving, yet constrictive, apron strings and Uncle Gideon’s watchful eyes. Oh, they’d been wonderful guardians to her, taking her in so willingly after she’d lost both her parents to a house fire that she had survived thanks to an alert neighbor. But now, at twenty-one years old, she was ready to experience life on her own. If living in this town didn’t help accomplish that, she didn’t know what would.

“Well, my dear, you must be exhausted. How was your train ride from Boston?”

The trip had been anything but pleasant, the long hours grueling, the heat sweltering, but she wouldn’t let Mrs. Winthrop believe she was unaccustomed to a little hardship.

“Everything went very smoothly, thank you,” she said, praying the woman wouldn’t detect her fabrication of the truth.

Foolishly, she’d thought that her twenty-five-mile ride from the train depot with Mr. Brackett would be a blessing in comparison, but riding atop the mud wagon’s buckboard alongside the sweaty, unkempt man had been just as excruciatingly uncomfortable as the overcrowded train ride, if not more so.

All she wanted to do now was settle into her new surroundings, unpack her large trunk and satchel, and finally take advantage of the opportunity to relax. A cool bath would suit her fine, she decided, wiping beads of sweat from her brow even as she hurriedly scanned her surroundings. Indeed, she was anxious to explore the school, but sheer exhaustion dictated tomorrow would be soon enough.

“Well, fine then,” Mrs. Winthrop said, continuing to peer down her nose at Liza before favoring her with a puny smile. “Where is your luggage?”

“My trunk is on the back of the wagon.”

“Mr. Brackett, do get Miss Merriwether’s bags,” she ordered.

“You got my pay—Ma’am?”

Liza noted Mr. Brackett took pains to draw out that last word, his obvious distaste for the woman seeming to seep from his pores.

“Begging your pardon?”

He gave a churlish grin, yanked a filthy handkerchief from his hip pocket, and mopped his equally filthy forehead. “You heard me. I been on the trail for more hours ’n I care to count. I’d appreciate my pay first.”