The Hired Man. Lynna Banning

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СКАЧАТЬ “About... I guess I’m worried about Danny. It’s so hard to be on display.”

      “Yeah.” He raised his eyebrows but said nothing. Instead he picked up the traces and they started off.

      Danny clambered down to shut the gate behind them, then climbed back into the back. He looked so preoccupied Cord had to chuckle. Probably rehearsing his speech in his head.

      The schoolhouse was lit up like a Christmas tree with kerosene lamps and candle sconces along the walls. Children milled about in the schoolyard, and as Cord maneuvered the wagon into an available space he heard Danny let out a groan.

      “I don’t wanna do this!” he moaned.

      “I don’t want to do this, either!” Eleanor murmured.

      Molly stood up in the wagon, propped her hands at the waist of her starched pinafore, and at the top of her voice screeched, “Well, I do! I do wanna do this!”

      All the way into the schoolhouse Cord chuckled about Fearless Molly in a family of Nervous Nellies. Danny disappeared into the cloakroom, and he followed Eleanor to an uncomfortable-looking wooden bench near the back. He lifted Molly onto his lap, careful not to squash the ruffles on her clean pinafore, and then looked around.

      He recognized Carl Ness, the mercantile owner, with a thin-faced woman he took to be Carl’s wife, flanked by two young girls. He recognized Edith, the girl who had painted the mercantile front pink; the other girl looked exactly like her so that must be Edith’s twin sister.

      Ike Bruhn, the owner of the sawmill, sat with two women, one with a baby in her arms and the other tying a bow on a young girl’s braids. Then a very beautiful young woman with a bun of dark hair caught at her neck with a ribbon stepped to the front of the room and clapped her hands.

      That must be Danny’s teacher. At the clapped signal, a humming sound began at the door behind him, and all at once he heard singing.

      Twenty or so students, ranging in age from about six or seven to a strapping blond boy of maybe fourteen, marched in two by two, singing “My Country ’tis of Thee.” A chill went up Cord’s spine.

      Danny was the seventh in the line, walking next to a small blonde girl in a pink gingham dress. The boy looked like he wanted to sink through the floor.

      The teacher, Mrs. Christina Panovsky, arranged them in rows against the front wall and turned to the audience. “Welcome, everyone. This is an extraordinary class of extraordinary young people—your sons and daughters. We want to share with you what we have been learning this school year.”

      What followed was impressive. Four students acted out a scene from a play about Robin Hood they had written themselves. Then a small choir sang “Comin’ Through the Rye” in three-part harmony and a larger choir presented a “spoken word” song, a clever recitation of geographical names chanted in complicated rhythms. “Ar-gen-tin-a. Smoke Riv-er. Clacka-mas Coun-ty. Mex-i-co Ci-ty.”

      Molly loved it; she bounced up and down on his lap in time with the words.

      Finally Danny stepped forward to deliver his speech.

      Molly sat up straight and craned her neck to see. Eleanor clutched Cord’s arm. He felt a tightening in his chest.

      “Ladies and gentlemen...” The boy’s voice shook slightly, but as he progressed through his speech it grew stronger, and when he finished with, “We are one people, one nation... We are Americans,” his words rang with assurance. He stepped back to spirited applause.

      Eleanor still clutched his arm, and now she was crying. Cord pried her fingers off his bicep and pressed his handkerchief into her hand.

      “Th-thank you,” she wept.

      It made him chuckle deep down inside. Molly twisted around and flung her small arms about his neck. “Wasn’t Danny wunnerful? I wanna go to school, too!”

      Following Danny’s speech there were more songs and recitations, ending with the little blonde girl in the pink dress, who sang a haunting folk song, first in French and then in English. Something about yellow daisies in a meadow.

      “That’s Manette Nicolet,” Eleanor whispered. “Her mother is French, from New Orleans. Her father is Colonel Wash Halliday, over there.” She tipped her head to the right, where a small, very attractive woman sat holding the hand of a well-muscled gent with a bushy gray-peppered mustache. His eyes were so shiny Cord could see the moisture from here.

      “Colonel, huh?” he murmured. “Blue or gray?”

      “Blue, I think. Union. His full name is George Washington Halliday. It’s her second marriage. Her first husband was killed in the War.”

      “The daughter, Manette, doesn’t look much older than Molly. Looks like she does well in, uh, school.”

      Eleanor let the remark lie.

      When the presentations and recitations drew to a close, Mrs. Panovsky invited them all to stay for cookies and lemonade.

      “Oh, boy, lemonade!” Molly sang. She scooted off Cord’s lap and bobbed excitedly at her mother’s side until Eleanor rose and moved toward the refreshment table in the far corner. Cord was about to follow when a feminine voice called his name.

      “Why, Cordell Winterman, is that really you?” A ruffle-bedecked Fanny Moreland made a beeline across the room toward him. “Y’all remember me, don’t you? Carl Ness introduced us at the mercantile? You were buying coffee and lemon drops and—”

      “Chicken mash,” Eleanor said from beside him.

      “Oh, hello, Mrs. Malloy. I haven’t seen you in town for such a long time I thought you might be...well...you know, expecting. Are you?”

      “Expecting what?” Eleanor inquired with a perfectly straight face.

      “Um...well, you know,” Fanny said, lowering her voice. “Expecting a...baby.” She whispered the last word.

      “I am not, thank you,” Eleanor replied, her voice cool. “My husband, you may recall, has been away for some years.”

      Fanny looked nonplussed for just an instant. “Oh, that’s right, I remember now. Why, you’re practically a widow!”

      Molly reached up and gave Fanny’s flounced skirt a sharp tug. “That’s not very nice! My mama is not a widow.”

      Cord lifted Molly into his arms and started to move away, but Fanny wasn’t finished yet.

      “Oh, Cordell, I am so terribly thirsty. Would you be so kind as to fetch me some lemonade?”

      Cord gave her a level look. “Sorry, Miss Moreland. As you can see, I have my hands full.” He shifted Molly’s weight to emphasize his point.

      “Why, who is this darling little girl?” Fanny gushed. “Surely you are not the father? You’re not married, are you, Cordell?”

      “No, he’s not!” Molly blurted out. “I’m Molly, and he’s not married. He lives with us!”

      Fanny’s expression changed. “Oh, you mean with Mrs. Malloy?”

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