The Dowry of Miss Lydia Clark by Lawana Blackwell Read Free Book Online

her a worthy reason to get out of bed every morning.
    Sounds in the lane interrupted her reverie. She peered out of the window to the left. Three women in Sunday dresses and bonnets were being driven in a landau toward Church Lane. Behind followed a parade of other horses, carriages, and wagons. Her mother had mentioned a meeting at the manor house this morning, so she would be passing by as well. Lydia turned to look at her students—most were twisted in their chairs in an effort to observe the scene behind them.
    “There was a meeting of the Women’s Charity Society at the manor house,” she explained, for it was unfair that she enjoyed the privilege of investigating from the window when they did not. “And may I assume that you’ve finished your assignment?”
    Only Helen Johnson nodded proudly while pencils started moving furiously against papers again. Lydia walked behind the last row, glancing over shoulders to see how her students were progressing. At Ben Mayhew’s desk she stopped, her eye having caught a familiar name. She kept reading:
When I sit at my desk to start the day
I pray that Laurel Phelps won’t look my way
It’s not because I think that she is plain
But her brown eyes are harmful to my brain
I suddenly cannot add three plus three
Who went to war with Prussia? Don’t ask me!
I think if I’m to ever finish school
I should wear blinders like my father’s…
     
    She waited until the boy had put the period behind the final word, mule , then tapped him on the shoulder. He started and gaped up at her in horror.
    “The cloakroom,” Lydia whispered.
    With a worried expression he turned his paper facedown, left his desk, and accompanied her as if on the way to his own funeral. When they were alone, she asked, “Are you aware that we’ll be reading the compositions aloud?”
    Color seeped from the roots of his carrot-red hair down to his chin, blending his mass of freckles into one rosy glow. “We will?”
    “Wouldn’t another topic be more appropriate?”
    “I’m sorry, Miss Clark. I just got carried away.”
    “Well, you’d best get started on something else now. You haven’t much time.”
    “Yes, ma’am!”
    She had to linger in the cloakroom for a second longer, for the struggle to keep from smiling had been intense. Fifteen minutes later, all pencils in the class had stopped moving. “And now, who would care to read first?” Lydia asked, leaving her desk again for the back of the classroom.
    Of course Helen Johnson’s hand stabbed the air first, but since none of the five male hands were raised, there wasn’t as much competition. This time Lydia granted her permission to proceed. Hurrying to the front of the classroom to stand next to Lydia’s empty desk, the girl arranged both dark brown braids to fall over her shoulders, cleared her throat delicately, and read in a dramatic voice:
On Saturday I penned a page of prose
So beautiful the angels quit their horns
to listen. Then arose a wondrous sound;
The flutterrings of a thousand mighty wings!
As they paid tribute to my humble words
I smote my quill upon my chest and cried,
It was not I who stirred your heartstrings so!
For talent is a gift from God, you see.
     
    “Thank you, Helen,” Lydia said as the baker’s daughter lowered the page. And because she always attempted to find something to compliment whenever a student put some effort into an assignment, she added, “You maintained the iambic pentameter perfectly through every line.”
    “Thank you, Miss Clark,” Helen said, beaming all the way back to her desk.
    Lydia could only pray that one day the girl would recognize the pride behind such a declaration of humility. It was one thing to give God credit for assigning talent, and quite another to suggest He had authored the poem himself. That was a lesson each of her students would have to learn for themselves—as it would have to come from a heart closely attuned to the Father and eyes that sought out