“It was during the third year of the war that sister Belle got her certificate to teach. Our school had been closed for a year, first because there were no teachers, all the young men having enlisted, and secondly because there was no money to pay a teacher. The few schools in the county had been given out before Belle got her certificate. She was awfully disappointed, for she wanted to go to the academy in the spring and she didn’t think Father could spare the money to send her, times being so hard.
“But since she couldn’t get a school she would make the best of it. She would help Aggie and Truman and Charlie and me at home, and she promised to teach the Brierly children, too. Then the Orbisons wanted to come, and to save Mother the fuss and dirt so many children would make in the house, Belle said she would hold school in the schoolhouse and let any one attend who wanted to.
“‘It will give me experience, anyway,’ she said, ‘and dear knows the children need some one to teach them!’
“‘Why don’t you let them pay you?’ Aggie suggested. ‘A dollar apiece a month for each pupil wouldn’t be a bit too much.’
“But Belle said some of them couldn’t pay and they were the ones who needed schooling the most. And the ones who could pay probably wouldn’t, because the county should pay for a teacher.
“So one Saturday in October, armed with brooms and buckets, window cloths and scrubbing brushes and a can of soft soap, we set out to clean the schoolhouse. We scrubbed the floor and the desks and polished the stove and cleaned the windows, and on the next Monday, the date set for the opening of all the schools in the district, sister Belle took her place at the teacher’s old desk.
“It wasn’t a very different opening from the one she had planned and looked forward to so eagerly. The only difference was that there would be no payment for Belle at the end of the term.
“The last pupil to start in was Joe Slater. He was a tall, strong boy of seventeen, but was not considered very bright. He was a fine hand to work, though, and from ploughing time in the spring until the corn husking was over in the fall, he was always busy. During the winter months he did odd jobs and went to school, but he had never got beyond the first-reader class. Because he had nothing to do he had always been more or less troublesome in school, and the very first day he came he threw paper wads and whispered and teased the younger children.
“Belle found that he knew the first reader ‘by heart.’ More to encourage Joe than for any other reason, she promoted him to the second reader. It was hard to tell whether pupil or teacher was the most astonished to find that Joe was actually learning to read. Belle helped him before and after school, and Joe became a model pupil and refused to do any work that would make him miss a day of school. He always came early in the morning and had the fire going and wood enough in for all day by the time Belle got there.
“So Belle was surprised to find Joe’s seat empty one snowy morning in December. His sister Nancy said he had gone to the railroad in a sled to get some freight for Mr. Grove. They lived on Mr. Grove’s place, and Joe could not well refuse to do this for him. Nancy did say, though, that Joe had wanted to wait until Saturday, but Mr. Grove was afraid the sledding snow would go off before that time. So Joe had started long before daylight, hoping to get back to school in time for the afternoon session.
On the steps a big man was stamping his feet and shaking the snow from a fur-collared great-coat
“About half-past eleven there was a loud knock on the door. It was snowing and blowing, and we all turned around to look when Belle went to open the door. On the steps a big man in a fur cap was stamping his feet and shaking the snow from a fur-collared great-coat. Belle said afterward that she knew him instantly—it was the new county superintendent—but she couldn’t imagine why he had come. She had seen him at institute in Clayville, but none of us children had ever seen him before.
“Belle soon found from his talk that he thought he was in the Cherry Flat school. When she told him where he was and the peculiar circumstances of our school, he was very much surprised.
“‘Why, I can’t understand it at all,’ he said. ‘I was talking to the station agent this morning, asking how to get to Cherry Flat school, and a boy who was warming himself at the stove spoke up and offered to take me there. He was on a sled and of course I jumped at the chance. He let me out at the forks of the road, and here I am, three miles from the Cherry Flat school, you say.’
“‘I bet it was Joe,’ Betty Bard whispered to me.
“Now that the superintendent was there and couldn’t get away until the storm let up, he made a speech. Then he listened to our recitations and asked Belle a great many questions, such as how many pupils she had, where they lived, and whether she received any pay at all for teaching. She told him about her certificate and her failure to get a school, and he wrote it all down in a little notebook.
“The storm grew worse and worse. The wind whistled around the schoolhouse and rattled the windows, and the falling snow looked like a thick white blanket.
“Belle asked us to share our dinners with the superintendent, and we did. He sat on one of the desks and told us stories while he ate everything we gave him—bread and apple butter, hard-boiled eggs, ham sandwiches, pickles, doughnuts, mince and apple pies, and cup cakes. When he left we were all good friends and we filled his pockets with apples. He said he would eat them as he walked along to Cherry Flat school, but he didn’t have to walk. Truman took him in our sled, and we all stood in the door and waved until he was out of sight.
“No one could get Joe to say a word about the superintendent’s visit, but everybody thought he had brought him there on purpose, hoping in this way to help Belle. He was a great deal smarter than people gave him credit for, and Belle had helped him and he wanted to do something for her.
“But if sister Belle nourished any secret hopes that the unexpected visit would help her in any way, she gave them up as the weeks went by and she heard nothing from the superintendent.
“School went on just as usual, though. Christmas came, and Belle didn’t have money for the usual treat. But we had lots of sorghum molasses, and Mother let her have a taffy pulling in our kitchen and we had lots of fun.
“Everybody got along well in their books and we were going to have last day exercises, as we always did, with recitations and songs and games. Belle staid late at the schoolhouse the evening before and reached home just as Truman came in from the postoffice. He handed her a long, thin envelope and she tore it open and read the letter it contained. Before she got through she was dancing all around the kitchen, laughing and crying at the same time, and Mother took the letter from her hand and read it aloud.
“I can’t remember how that letter read, but it was from the board of education. They said they had decided to put our school back on the pay roll and that they understood that Belle had taught it in a very satisfactory manner since the opening of the term. She was to send her record of attendance and they would forward the five salary vouchers of thirty dollars each, which were due her. There was some more about its being unusual, but that they felt she deserved it. It was no wonder Belle was so happy, was it?”