THE SCHOOLHOUSE STOOD BY ITSELF in an empty stretch of prairie, the only building on Second Street west of Main. From afar, it looked as if it were barely afloat on the expanse of rolling grassland. As Hanna drew nearer, she could see the lean-to tacked to the north wall, a miniature of the structure itself, its peaked roof copying the angle of the main roof.
Hanna hesitated at the schoolhouse door, her head lowered. She stared at the weave of her blue cambric dress. The fabric was sturdy, made for everyday, but she had added rows of featherstitching to the cuffs and hem. Not showy, but not plain, either.
She had been up most of the night, dozing off for only moments at a time, always waking with her heart pounding. At long last, she was getting the chance to go to school—and she found herself dreading it.
Images from her younger years appeared in her mind’s eye. Children taunting her, shouting derisively in fake Chinese, pulling at the corners of their eyes to mock her. The few who spoke to her did so only on a dare: When she answered, they would screech in triumph and run back to their friends.
Their mothers were seldom better, and often worse. On spotting Hanna, they would cross the street hastily, sometimes covering their mouths as if she were diseased. Or they would pull their smaller children behind their skirts, protecting them. From what? Hanna always wondered.
As she stood on the threshold of the schoolhouse, it was hard for her to recall why she had wanted so badly to be here.
I could turn around and go home. Maybe Papa is right about a diploma being just a piece of paper . . .
Then Mama was in her head again, showing her how to weave the needle in and out of the last few stitches on the wrong side of a garment, pulling the thread through to ensure that the seam would not come unstitched.
“Finish,” Mama had said. “Good work is no good if you don’t finish.”
A diploma was more than a piece of paper. It was proof that she had finished her high school studies.
A big breath. One arm wrapped tightly around her books and her face far back in a deep scoop bonnet, she turned the doorknob.
Hanna had deliberately arrived early; she wanted to be seated before the other students came in. The teacher, a fair young woman with light brown hair twisted into a knot low on the nape of her neck, was sitting behind a big desk across the room.
“You must be Hanna Edmunds,” the teacher said. She did not smile, but her voice was kind. “I’m Miss Walters. I was told that you’re fourteen, which would put you in the class with the oldest pupils. Have you started the Fifth Reader?”
“Yes, miss.”
In fact, Hanna had already finished the Sixth Reader. She remembered the first time she had come across the poem titled “To My Mother.” Her breath had caught hard enough to make her cough.
I know thou art gone to the land of thy rest . . .
Although Hanna knew well there were plenty of people who had lost their mothers, it had still stunned her to find a poem about a mother dying. It was as if the poet had seen right into her heart, and the poem immediately became her favorite. She thought of it as “Mama’s poem.”
But she didn’t want to sound boastful about having already read the Sixth Reader, and besides, she loved the Fifth.
“Your desk is at the back there, on the left. You’ll be sharing with Dolly Swenson.”
“Thank you, miss.”
Hanna made her way to the desk. She sat down, put her books away, and took out her reader. She bent over the book; the sides of the scoop bonnet kept her face all but hidden.
Mr. Harris had said that pupils usually took off their caps and bonnets, but that it was not actually a rule. He had agreed to tell Miss Walters that Hanna would wear her bonnet at school; the fact that she was half-Chinese would be kept from the other students until Hanna was ready for them to know.
“Just for a few days,” Hanna had said to Mr. Harris.
Until I can make a friend. One friend.
Then she could take the bonnet off.
Miss Walters rang the bell, and for a few moments, the room was filled with the lively clatter of the other pupils. Hanna’s seatmate slid in next to her. Hanna hated to be rude, but she didn’t acknowledge the other girl’s presence. It wasn’t until Miss Walters called school to order that she risked a peek at Dolly.
Dolly was a strawberry blonde with skin as pale as bleached muslin. Hanna thought of what Mama had often said about pale skin: that it was considered desirable among Chinese people because it meant a life of privilege. “You don’t have to work outside. In sun, in wind. Only rich people, treasured wife, treasured daughter.”
With that single glance, Hanna also appraised what Dolly was wearing: a dress of fine brown poplin that fit her nicely. But Hanna’s practiced eye saw traces of picked-out seams along the bodice. Which meant that Dolly’s dress had originally been a different size and had been made over for her.
She doesn’t work outdoors, in the fields. Her family doesn’t have enough money for new clothes, but she wants to dress nicely, so someone—her mother, probably—does the best she can with castoffs.
For most of her life, Hanna had made quick conclusions about the people she met, in an effort to guess how they might treat her. The trick was to keep her own conclusions light—never giving them too much weight, in case it turned out they were just plain wrong.
Is Dolly spoiled? Maybe.
The morning went by quickly enough. The teacher was tactful and did not call on Hanna to read or respond on her first day.
Miss Walters was a small woman; the oldest boys were all taller than she was. Her hair was styled with curled bangs; her dress was blue challis with a lace collar and cuffs. Very demure and proper, with one subtle exception: The bodice was buttoned with dark blue roundels made of sparkling cut glass.
Hanna knew that those buttons were costly. The button box held similar ones; she could picture the compartment, a third of the way down on the right-hand side. Miss Walters—she chose them for her own pleasure. They’re not too showy, but whenever she wants, she can look down and see them catch the light.
Somehow, Miss Walters reminded her a little of Mama. Maybe because Hanna wanted badly to see reminders of Mama and so seldom did.
At midday, most of the students went home for their noon meal. Hanna had brought her dinner pail because she did not want to walk through town with the other pupils on the way home to eat.
Two of the twenty children stayed and ate at their desks; Hanna guessed that they lived outside town on a homestead claim. Like the other towns in Dakota Territory, LaForge was surrounded by parcels of land, each 160 acres. People—usually men—would “claim” a parcel by filing their intention with the government and paying eighteen dollars. They had to farm the land and live on it half the year for five years, after which they had “proved” their claim and would own the land.
Hanna recalled the words of a popular folk song:
Uncle Sam is rich enough to give us all a farm!
Then she thought of the Indians she had met, and wondered, as she often had before, why Uncle Sam was allowed to give away land that wasn’t his in the first place.
Even though only two children remained at their desks for lunch, Hanna guessed that many of the other students lived on homestead claims as well. They would be staying in town for now, to go to school, and would move out to their claims when the term was finished.
As the hour came to an end, the older girls returned and gathered in the schoolroom. Having heard them recite their lessons earlier, Hanna now knew the names of the students in her class. Besides Dolly, the girls were Bess, Margaret, and Edith. Bess’s last name was Harris, so she would be Mr. Harris’s daughter. The boys were Albert, Ned, and Sam. Hanna guessed that Margaret and Albert were siblings—they looked so much alike.
Bess and Ned were the best students. Edith smiled the most.
Hanna sensed something else, too.
The other girls don’t like Dolly.
Bess, Margaret, and Edith stood in a cluster at the window, watching the boys play ball outside, with Dolly standing a step apart. Hanna stayed at her desk, her reader open in front of her, although she wasn’t reading. She was thinking.
The girls might not like Dolly because she’s spoiled. So I could be right about that.
Or she could be perfectly nice, and they’re mean to her for some other reason that might not be her fault.
It seemed to Hanna that there were always a hundred reasons for disliking people and not nearly as many for liking them. For the moment, it was looking as if Dolly might be her best chance at a friend.
That afternoon, Miss Walters chose a few of the older students to read aloud from the Fifth Reader. Hanna stared down at her book, following every word.
Dolly and Ned took their turns. Then the teacher called on Bess.
Bess had brown hair braided and coiled at the back of her head. From the size of the coil, Hanna could tell that when unbraided, Bess’s hair would fall to at least her hips. She was the shortest of the big girls, sturdily built, with a round face and a chin dimple. She chose a poem called “Minot’s Ledge,” about a lighthouse keeper and the shipwreck of his son’s boat.
Like spectral hounds across the sky,
The white clouds scud before the storm;
And naked in the howling night
The red-eyed lighthouse lifts its form.
Bess read beautifully, her voice rising and falling like the sea’s waves. There was not a sound in the room as she reached the closing stanzas: Young Charlie, with the chestnut hair and hazel eyes—would he survive the storm?
The other pupils had abandoned any pretense of attending to their own studies. They were all staring wide-eyed at Bess. When she finished reading, the whole room seemed to heave a sigh. Hanna stole a quick glance at Miss Walters, who seemed to be trying not to smile.
She knows that everyone is listening, Hanna thought, but that’s what she wanted.
“Nicely done, Bess,” Miss Walters said.
Hanna saw Bess blink a few times, almost as if waking, then blush at the teacher’s praise and lower her head a little.
Why, she’s a bit shy. But not while she was reading.
Sam was next. Although he was not much taller than the other students, he looked to be the oldest in the class, with wide shoulders and a firm brow. He was blond and brown-eyed, his face tanned and hair bleached by the sun. He had a very quick smile that might have been called cheeky if it weren’t so friendly. “‘The Blind Men and the Elephant,’” he announced.
Sam had chosen one of Hanna’s very favorite selections from the reader, a funny poem about six blind men and their mistaken assumptions about an elephant. By the third stanza, most of the pupils were hiding their giggles behind their hands; by the fifth, many were chuckling out loud.
“Hush,” Miss Walters said. Her voice was stern, but she had that same smile behind her eyes. Everyone quieted down to listen to Sam recite the last verses.
And so these men of Indostan
Disputed loud and long,
Each in his own opinion
Exceeding stiff and strong,
Though each was partly in the right,
And all were in the wrong!
Hanna couldn’t help but smile as the whole room burst into applause and laughter. Sam was not the least bit shy. He grinned and made an exaggerated bow.
“Sam,” Miss Walters said, “you read very well, but please remember that modesty is always becoming.”
“Yes, Teacher,” Sam said.
“You may return to your seat.”
As Sam passed Hanna’s desk, he was still smiling.
Is he smiling at me?
Alarmed, she tried to draw back deeper into her bonnet. She did not want to be singled out.
Not even by a nice-looking boy with a friendly smile.