Chapter 15
School

One of the most important things about to happen in Miracle Springs during this time, at least as far as the kids were concerned, was the opening of the Miracle Springs school.

Pa and Mrs. Parrish and the school committee had met quite a few times, and I’d been hopeful about Pa and Mrs. Parrish as a result of working like that together and seeing each other more regularly.

Pa did go to her house pretty often, and sometimes he’d take me, and it got so they were downright friendly to each other. Mrs. Parrish’d greet Pa with a smile and say, “How are you today, Mr. Hollister?” and Pa’d tell her something about the mine or what we kids had been up to while he handed her his coat and hat.

Of course most of the time Mrs. Shaw and the Dewaters were there. Rev. Rutledge was always there, and looking so at home and comfortable you’d think he lived there. He was always the first to come and last to go.

Nobody said anything about it, but I got the notion that people noticed his being with her so much and wondered when the new church was gonna have a pastor’s wife to go with the new hymnbooks and freshly painted walls. I wouldn’ve dared ask her something like that, but I had the idea Mrs. Parrish might be wondering the same thing.

That wasn’t the kind of thing that Pa and I talked about, but I know it crossed his mind now and then too. Once, coming home from town, he was quiet most of the way, and then finally, like he’d been thinking about them all the way since the meeting, he all of a sudden said, “Yep . . . she’s a fine woman, that Parrish lady! I may have been wrong about her, Corrie. Ol’ Rutledge’s a lucky fella—the two o’ them’s gonna be a mighty fine thing for this town, though I never thought I’d be sayin’ such a thing.”

I was dying inside to ask him more of what he meant, but by then we were just coming around the bend and the cabin came into sight, and it was too late. Another meeting was scheduled the following week. Pa was taking me almost every time.

I don’t know if his agitation had anything to do with what he’d said to me in the wagon, but when time for that next meeting came round he seemed nervous the whole day and quit work at the mine early so he could wash and spruce up.

When he and I got into the wagon later in the afternoon to go to town, he looked cleaner than I’d remembered seeing him in months—his hair washed and combed back, with a clean shirt and pair of trousers. I looked at him, smiled, and said, “You look real fine, Pa.”

“Well, a man’s gotta scrape the dirt off hisself sometime,” he mumbled. “I just didn’t figure I oughta be trackin’ it into Mrs. Parrish’s place, that’s all.”

Pa’d gotten ready so soon that we left earlier than we needed to. When we got to Mrs. Parrish’s, we were the first ones there, even before Rev. Rutledge. But Mrs. Parrish didn’t act at all surprised to see us, and invited us in and had us sit down in her parlor and gave Pa coffee while she drank a cup of tea.

For the first time I can remember, the two grown-ups I cared most about in the whole world were acting friendly toward each other. After a while Pa got to feeling at ease and told her some things about him and Uncle Nick. Mrs. Parrish laughed and laughed, and I found myself wishing there wouldn’t be a school meeting at all.

But it had to come to an end by and by. Pretty soon a knock came on the door, and when Mrs. Parrish rose to answer it, into the house walked Rev. Rutledge. He seemed a bit taken off guard to find us there, because he started to say something quiet to Mrs. Parrish after she closed the door behind him, but stopped when she walked back into the parlor. When he glanced up and saw Pa, a look of surprise passed over his face, but it was quickly replaced by a smile as he walked forward and shook Pa’s hand.

Pa stood and greeted him cordially. They were on fine terms with each other by this time. But on Pa’s face, too, I saw a brief look as he rose—his face did not show surprise, but rather disappointment. I glanced over at Mrs. Parrish as she watched the two men shake hands from the entryway. Her eyes were fixed on Pa instead of the minister.

Maybe Pa’s growing friendship with Mrs. Parrish was why his letter from Katie Morgan took me so by surprise. I figured I was getting old enough to have him think of me as a grown-up, and I did most of the mothering for the young’uns already. As for the rest, why couldn’t he hire someone to do other stuff, or ask Mrs. Parrish to look in on us every once in a while?

But I knew what he’d say to those notions—that I would soon be grown and married, and he’d still have the young’uns to take care of, that Mrs. Parrish had her own business and the affairs of the church to tend to, and that she was likely gonna be the minister’s wife before long, and didn’t have time to worry about us. And then he’d say that getting a new wife was the only decent solution.

Maybe he was right, but it would take some gettin’ used to on my part.

In the meantime, during the first week of October Pa came home from town one day with the news that Mrs. Parrish’d gotten a reply back from one of the letters they’d sent out to a lady about being the new Miracle Springs schoolteacher.

Her name was Harriet Stansberry, and she’d been wanting to come to California from Denver with her brother. She said if the town wanted her, she’d like to accept the new teaching position.

Pa seemed real pleased with the news, and I was so happy to see him taking such an interest in the town’s growth. Three weeks later, Pa asked me to come to the next school committee meeting with him.

After everyone had sat down, I was feeling strange, because both Mrs. Shaw and Mrs. Dewater were looking at me smiling. Before I had a chance to wonder too long, Mrs. Parrish said, “Your father’s told you about our correspondence with Miss Stansberry, hasn’t he, Corrie?”

“Yes, ma’am,” I answered.

“After receiving her letter, we decided to offer her the job, which she has graciously accepted. She had one condition, however,” Mrs. Parrish went on. “Here,” she said, taking a white sheet of paper from the top of her oak secretary which stood next to where she sat, “I’ll read you what she said.”

She cleared her throat, then read: “‘I must tell you, however, that I am crippled in my left leg. It was broken by a carriage wheel when I was a child, and though I can walk on it, it is not without a considerable limp and some pain. Therefore, I make use of a cane most of the time. I am a good teacher, but some people would not be altogether comfortable having someone like myself teaching their children. So I want you to know that I will understand perfectly if you feel you must withdraw your offer.

“If you do want me, notwithstanding this liability, I shall be most happy to accept the position of schoolteacher at Miracle Springs, and my brother and I will plan to arrive in your community by stagecoach, weather permitting, before the worst of the winter snows set in—hopefully before the first of December. We realize the danger in the mountain passes, but we have been ready to leave Denver for some time and are anxious to come to California.

“There is but one stipulation I would like to make regarding the position. Because of my injury, I will need an assistant. This should preferably be an older young person in your town who would like to not only be in my classroom, but would also be willing to help me as the need arises. A boy or girl of fourteen would be fine, although I have had assistants in the past as old as eighteen.’”

Mrs. Parrish put down the paper and stopped reading.

“Well, Corrie,” she said, “will you do it?”

“Me? Be her assistant?”

“Yes, of course. We all agreed you are the perfect choice! You’ll be seventeen in a few months.”

I glanced around at Pa. He was smiling proudly.

“Don’t look at me to tell you what to do, Corrie,” he said. “This is your decision! Though what the lady says is true enough—everyone here thought of you first off.”

“Oh, why—yes! Of course, I’d love to, but—” I glanced over in Pa’s direction again. “But what about the young’uns, Pa, and everything I gotta do at home?”

“The young’uns will be in school with you, so you can all go together and you can take just as good care of ’em there as at the cabin. And as for the rest, I’m fixin’ to get you some help with all that.”

This was before he’d read us the letter from Katie Morgan. In hindsight I know he was talking about her. But I didn’t know it then, and I hardly paid much attention to his words at the time because of everything else about the school I was thinking.

“We thought you’d want to do it,” Mrs. Parrish said, “as much as we wanted you to. We’ve been hoping you would be involved with the school as more than just one more of the students, and we’ve been glad your Pa’s been bringing you to some of our meetings here. That’s why we’ve already written Miss Stansberry, and we hope she’ll be on her way to California within a week or two.”

“I . . . I don’t know what to say,” I said.

“Just say you’ll be her assistant, Corrie,” said Mrs. Shaw.

“If it’s all right with Pa,” I said.

Pa nodded.

“Then it’s all decided!” said Mrs. Parrish. She rose and walked over to me and shook my hand solemnly. All the others did the same.

Pa stood back, watching, proud of what was happening, although my face was all flushed, being the center of attention in the middle of all those grown-ups.

Then we all sat down again, and there followed a lot of talk and planning about the school. They had to go to Sacramento to get some more books and other stuff. The desks and blackboards were already in the church building, but now that they’d hired a teacher who was actually on the way, suddenly they realized they had to get everything else ready as quick as they could. And there was talk, too, about the rest of the money they’d need for the books and for Miss Stansberry’s salary.

But I couldn’t pay much attention to all the rest of what went on that evening. I was thinking too much about what I was going to get to do, and I couldn’t have been happier!