Simon was glad to see things get back to something like normal. He didn’t understand why his mother had been so upset. He had gotten confused and lost, and Pa had come to find him, simple as that. They’d been snowed in, and that was scary, but Pa had dug them out. He was ready to get back to school, but the frigid air and drifts piled as high as twenty feet made wanting and doing two different things. Simon read, practiced his letters, and ciphered with chalk on a slate board at the kitchen table. It was what he was doing now, his fingers dry and scaly from rubbing the board clean between problems. He missed school, at least, most of it. He lowered his chin into his cupped hands, and the slate board drifted out of focus.
A young single woman named Margaret Fritz taught at and maintained the Carlisle School. In dark clothes, hair tied back in a bun so tight it made her squint, she always had a scowl on her face, and Simon thought she looked like a witch. His mother said that Miss Fritz was a good teacher and a good person too. Miss Fritz just missed a few good chances early on, and life had kind of left her behind, was the way his ma put it. When she’d said that, Simon had nodded like it made sense, but in fact he wondered, if Miss Fritz had been left behind somewhere, how come she was here? And so, every day, with every intention to please and learn, Simon applied himself.
At first, the older kids in the school caused enough trouble for Miss Fritz that she more or less ignored Simon. But, eventually, she either whacked the bigger kids into submission with her ever-present hickory ruler, or they got tired of standing in the stuffy cloakroom and settled down. Unfortunately for Simon, the result of their improved deportment was that she then had time to direct her full attention toward him, and apparently, for no reason that he could see, she particularly disliked Simon.
This interest caused him no end of confusion and hurt feelings; he’d carefully write the alphabet, the letters perfectly formed, all even on top and spaced just so, only to have the inevitable backward “d” or “b” send her into a fit. He knew he wasn’t stupid because Pa said he wasn’t, and that was good enough, but after six weeks of constant criticism, Simon started to doubt his worth.
Simon got along quite well with most of his classmates, especially Buell Mace, a skinny kid with coal-black hair and eyes that were just as dark. His pa ran the blacksmith and livery in town. Buell didn’t have a ma, the why of that something Simon hadn’t pursued. Buell didn’t say much to anyone, not even Miss Fritz. When recess came, he’d usually go to the sunny side of the schoolhouse to just sit, and watch.
Simon kind of liked the boy who sat next to him. Named Gus, after his pa, Werner Gustav Swartz, who ran the trading store, he was nine years old, fat, unkempt, and rowdy. If you heard a girl squeal, you could be sure Gus was either there, or in the act of leaving quickly. Simon couldn’t understand how, but Gus seemed completely unaffected by Miss Fritz’s temper. Every fifteen or twenty minutes, she would whack, pinch, or ear-pull him, and every fifteen or twenty minutes, Gus, big grin on his face, would flick another spitball, or slam another hand in a book, or belch. He seemed to enjoy school immensely, and he thought flicking spitballs was a cracker. Therefore, Simon reasoned, if Gus could do it, so could he, and so came the day he learned that life does not treat everyone equally.
His very first spitball went astray, and the cold, spit-soaked wad of paper caught Miss Fritz square in the ear hole. His face in his hands, Simon barely glimpsed Miss Fritz’s head snap around, but to his horror, he saw quite clearly out the corner of his eye, Gus, grinning so widely it must have hurt, point his pudgy finger, and direct Miss Fritz to an object for her wrath. Simon squeezed his eyes closed, but could not shut out the sound of the four giant strides that brought her to his desk.
She grasped his ear firmly in her bony fingers and brought him out of his seat. Straight up he rose, as if levitated, his head tilted awkwardly, and then skipped directly toward the cloakroom, his feet barely touching the wood floor. His panic rose with each long step as his fellow students tracked his course, mouths agape. He had attacked Miss Fritz! What had he been thinking? Had he been thinking? Even hulking Armand Swaggart, fourteen years old and almost a man, had always stopped short of physical contact.
Through the curtain and into the cloakroom she marched him, until he stood alone and out of sight with the witch; alone and at her mercy, a sentiment, Simon was sure, she knew nothing about. Along the outside wall, coat hooks, four and a half feet off the floor, and eighteen inches apart, stuck out like so many skinny fingers, tips turned up. Miss Fritz grabbed Simon by the pants waist and lifted him off the floor like he weighed nothing. She hooked the back of his trousers on one of the skinny fingers and dropped him. He stopped with a jerk. Her eyes sparked, and she didn’t utter a sound as she turned and marched out of the cloakroom, digging at the gloop in her ear.
Simon counted the clack-clack of Miss Fritz’s sturdy brogans as she crossed to the front of the room. He hung there dumbstruck for several seconds, the classroom as silent as a rock. And then she went at them, railing for what seemed like forever, the whack of her ruler on desktops splitting the air to emphasize her points. Her voice got higher and screechier as she chastised the class, her steam really up. Simon actually felt he had the better of the deal, just hanging there, looking around at lunch buckets, various hats, coats, and girls’ vests.
It was after Miss Fritz had blown off sufficient steam, and settled back into her singsongy, put-a-polecat-to-sleep voice, that Simon started to feel the intended effects of being strung up by his waistband. The pants-seam that runs from front to back had found its way into the valley that separates one butt cheek from the other. As Simon squirmed to relieve the binding, the rough wool cloth of his trousers chafed the tender skin of his crotch. And when he tried to support himself with his hands on the hooks either side, the points dug into his palms and he quickly gave up on the idea. He leaned forward and tried to get some purchase with his heels, but that didn’t work either; it just chafed more. It soon occurred to him that the coat hooks were not that at all, they were torture tools, installed by the evil witch in the next room to punish spitball-throwing boys.
After half an hour, Simon started to regret his mischief. “Dern Gus,” he muttered to a coat, three hooks down. “He didn’t tell me the wad might stick to my finger.” He squirmed. “That wadder was meant for Sarah.” Once more, he tried to relieve the crotch pressure by using the hooks beside him. No use; his hands were too tender from previous efforts, and besides that, when he straightened up, the hook he hung on dug into his spine. As he sagged back down, his full weight continued the process of cutting him in two.
“This isn’t fair,” Simon complained out loud to the floor, and conveniently forgot whose fault it was. I’m going to be damaged forever if I don’t get down. I’m a good kid. Ma says so all the time, and so does Aunt Ruth. This isn’t right, and besides, I can’t take much more. His throat tightened.
The first tear welled up, squirted out of his eye, and cut through the recess-dirt like a swipe of a mother’s spit bath. He could imagine the clean pink line all the way to his chin. One tear begat another, and soon Simon, in full flood, was sobbing silently. Suddenly, Miss Fritz threw back the curtain and reentered the cloakroom to unhook Simon—recess. Snatched from the hook like a fetched ham, she set him down, and then stomped out. Both Simon’s legs and spirit failed at the same time and he slumped to the floor, his dignity gone. The tears of self-pity became tears of frustration and embarrassment, the pain in his crotch enhanced by her having seen him cry.
Of course, every kid in the class, eager to see what had happened, crowded around to get a closer look. Their attention to his tearful plight made it all the worse. He was about to explode with humiliation when Jacob Luger appeared. Jake, as he was called, sat in the back, on the boys’ side of the room and rarely said a word. Gus said Jake was a dummy because, at eight, he hadn’t even finished the second McGuffey’s reader. His sudden appearance didn’t make Simon happy.
“What’re all you ninnies lookin’ at?” Jake bawled. “Get on outta here, before I thump a couple of ya.”
The smaller children scattered like chickens in a hawk’s shadow, out the door in seconds. The outburst shocked and frightened Simon some, but he felt grateful and mortified at the same time. Jake had never said a word, or even looked at him, in the two months since school started, so Simon thought the rescue a bit strange.
Jake clumped up to Simon, grabbed him by the arm and stood him on his feet. “Guess you showed the ol’ witch a thing or two didn’t ya? She kept looking at the curtain, expecting you to start hollerin’, and by gum, ya never did.”
“Yeah, I’m not afeared of her.” He couldn’t completely keep the quaver out of his voice. “Shucks, I was just getting comfortable before she came in and dropped me on the floor.” His voice felt stronger. “That’s what hurt . . . that dropping.” He liked his story more and more. “Thought my leg got busted there for a minute. And her finger in my eye didn’t help . . . made it water something awful.”
Jake grinned his approval, and punched him in the shoulder, which hurt—Jake was a big boy. “Let’s go out and throw rocks at the outhouse,” he invited and headed for the door.
Simon could hardly believe his good luck. Jake had bought the finger-in-the-eye story, hook, line and sinker. He did his best to stride as he followed Jake out into the dusty yard. Buell gave him a shy smile from his place by the wall. Simon smiled back at him, and nearly ran over the girl standing in his path.
“I’m sorry, Simon,” she said in her melodious voice. “She was mean to do that.” It was Sarah, the prettiest girl in town, and Judge Kingsley’s only child. Simon was afraid of the judge.
“She didn’t hurt me none,” he said. “I could’ve stayed there all day.”
“Well, I think it was mean. Do you want to walk me home after school?”
He couldn’t speak until Jake punched him again, on the same spot, and headed for a cluster of kids on the other side of the playground. “Su-su-sure,” he said, rubbing his arm. “I know where you live. It’s right on my way.”
“I know. I’ll see you after.” She ran off to the girls’ cluster, leaving him to stand, stunned.
Remembering that day caused a flutter in his chest that made it hard to breathe. His gaze picked up the slate again, and then he looked around the sod house, and his family. It was so crowded.
As the days passed, small things started to niggle. To stay cooped up in a twenty-by-twenty-foot-square house with six other people is hard enough if they are all able to somehow keep themselves busy. But with three babies, two youngsters and two adults, the harmony was soon lost in the cacophony of squabbles and tearful complaints. His pa had made one trip into town already to tell his customers that he had lost his chicken flock, and that he could no longer deliver the eggs they counted on. He’d also gone to see Mr. Swartz at the trading store about getting credit until some work came available. The customers understood and were very appreciative of his father coming by to let them know, but the same could not be said for Mr. Swartz.
More often than not, Simon lay awake after bedtime with thoughts about something he had learned in school, or heard his folks say. And because of this, if his folks had a discussion around the kitchen table at night, the chances were good he heard it. And so it was that the dire straits they found themselves in were shared with Simon.
The beans and rice might hold out until spring, and they had a couple hundred pounds of spuds and some parsnips and rutabagas in the root cellar. But they needed flour, salt, soda, coffee, and sugar, in that order. Normally, his pa would have had another month to cut and deliver wood to his regular customers for winter. The storm had fixed that. And normally they could count on selling ten or twelve dozen eggs a week, and that, too, was gone as they ate the few eggs that the dozen underfed hens laid. And they certainly couldn’t eat the chickens. He’d heard them say the cow and chickens plus a few staples would see them through, but an odd, unsteady tone in his mother’s voice told Simon they were in trouble.