Into the Wilderness by Sara Donati Read Free Book Online Page A

muttered his
name. He was about sixty years old, his face crackled and roughened to the
consistency of bark. The cold weather had turned his already substantial nose
into a great red radish, and when she smiled at him he flushed a deeper shade.
    Elizabeth
turned to the children.
    "And
who have we here?"
    "My
two youngest!" said Anna."Henrietta and Ephraim, they might tell you
if they could find their tongues. Children! Come forward. A curtsy, please,
Miss Henrietta. Ephraim, have you forgot your bow?"
    "Have
you had any schooling?"
Elizabeth
asked them in a kindly tone as she took their hands in turn. The children, both
with sleek brown hair and placid eyes in pale faces, shook their heads, and
then turned as one toward their mother.
    "Nope,
never had the opportunity," Anna answered for them. She laughed. "Too
bad, ain't it, that you didn't bring a schoolmarm along with you from
England
."
    "But
I did,"
Elizabeth
said, and smiled."I am a teacher."
    One
of the farmers cleared his throat loudly, but had nothing to say in response to
Elizabeth
's
statement. Even Anna Hauptmann seemed struck speechless.
    "I
am a teacher," she repeated, glancing around at them. "I plan to
start a school as soon as space can be made ready."
    "Well!"
Anna said, her surprise ebbing to make room for enthusiasm."Well, I never.
The judge's daughter. A school in
Paradise
!"
    "I
suppose you expect folks to pay tuition," Moses Southern rumbled, not
meeting her eye.
    "I
hadn't thought about that yet,"
Elizabeth
said."But of course the fee would be very small, and payable in
goods—"
    One
of the men looked relieved at this, and
Elizabeth
went on, encouraged.
    "I
was hoping," she said, glancing at each of the farmers as she did."I
was hoping to get together a list of all the children who are of school age, so
I have an idea of the supplies I'll need, and if I have enough books."
    "Books!"
Mr. Smythe exclaimed. "Did you bring books all the way from
England
?"
    "I
did."
Elizabeth
confirmed. "Or at least, they are coming with my trunks—as soon as Galileo
has time to fetch them; they came after by ice—boat. Primers and readers and
arithmetic, some geometry and algebra, history—" She saw the faces around
her begin to cloud and she continued, less sure of herself."Geography,
maps of course, literature, and Latin."
    "Latin!"
Anna snapped the word.
    "What
use would these children have for Latin?"
    "Why,
Latin is—" began
Elizabeth
,
but she was interrupted.
    "
Reading
and writing is
fine," Mr. Cameron said."Arithmetic and geometry are useful things.
But Latin? And history, I don't know. My boys won't have much use for Romans
and Greeks while they are trying to run a farm."
    "Latin—"
tried
Elizabeth
again.
    "Latin
will bring nothing but discontent! These are frontier children, they don't need
ideas about philosophy! Next thing you'll want to send them off to university
where their heads will be filled with poetry!" Moses Southern was working
himself up to a high pitch, and Anna stepped in with a calmer tone.
    "Our
young folk don't need to know about lords and ladies and suchlike."
    But
Moses wasn't to be calmed.
    "Royalty!"
he fairly spat."It took long enough to roust the redcoats. Why would we
want to study on them?" He seemed not to realize, or perhaps care, that
Elizabeth
was English.
    "The
girls will never look at another honest, hardworking farmer, if you fill their
heads with royalty," Anna pointed out to
Elizabeth
, clearly torn between the wish to
be an ally and the obvious truth of the situation.
    Distraught,
Elizabeth
saw
that she had taken the wrong strategy with the very people she needed to win
over; without their support and the support of others just like them, she would
never be able to start her school. She searched madly for an argument which
would save her plans. They stood around her, their faces expectant, waiting for
her to counter the logic they had served up. The bible, thought
Elizabeth
, something from
the bible, but nothing came to