The Secret School: Chapters 6–11

Mr. Bidson looked up and gazed around at the somber faces.

Arms akimbo, he said, “That mean you’re gonna talk like a teacher, too?”

They were acting, Ida immediately realized, louder and more boisterous than when Miss Fletcher had been there.

By the time the song was finished, Ida had regained sufficient calm to say, “Thank you, Susie, for your lovely rendition. You may take your seat.”

“Today,” she said, “we shall begin as we always do. Mary and Felix will read to me from their primers. Tom—you’ll study your mathematics, then assist Susie with hers. Natasha, you need to work on your geography. Charley, you’ll parse the opening paragraph from The Way to Be Happy, page one-fifty-nine of your reader.”

“Guess I’ll do what I want, thank you, ma’am,” he replied, trying to sound flippant.

“Come only if I want,” Herbert retorted, but her unexpected question brought an edge of uncertainty to his voice.

“Everyone in this room is wanting to learn,” Ida said. “We all took a vote to keep this school open, so I guess we can pretty well vote you out if we want. Then the whole valley will know you for what you are, a skulking, low-down, lazy dud.”

Sheepishly, Herbert pulled out his old book, opened it, and bowed his head over the pages.

Ida blushed and nodded curtly, then returned to the teacher’s desk.

Each day she had everyone read and memorize from their fifteen-year-old set of McGuffey’s Eclectic Readers.

They did penmanship, bookkeeping, and grammar exercises—which meant parsing sentences or doing problems on the blackboard.

On Friday afternoon the weekly contests were held, with Natasha Golobin, as usual, setting down all others in spelling. Tom won in mathematics. Ida added HIGH MARKS for both in the school ledger.

Or even how Tom fiddled with his right earlobe whenever he read intently.

Proudly, Tom carried the apparatus to the teacher’s desk.

“The mountains make reception hard.”
“What’s reception?” Felix asked.
“What you hear from a radio.”

One by one the children listened raptly.

As she looked at Miss Sedgewick, Ida suddenly became aware of how shabby she must look in her simple polka-dot dress made over from one of her mother’s. And the others looked just as ragged: Felix in baggy trousers; Tom, his shirt torn at the elbow; Herbert in old overalls, ripped shirt, no shoes on his feet; the other children no better.

For a moment the children and the woman just scrutinized one another.

“No doubt the board will be forwarding your credentials to the county office.”

“Yes, ma’am. But we all”—Ida gestured to the others—“wanted to go on. Specially Tom. And me. So we can take our exit exams and go to the high school in Steamboat. We voted, ma’am—it was unanimous—to have me as teacher.”

“But school boards act independently. My office has the duty to oversee teacher certification, curriculum, and exit exams. So...I’ll have to look into this,” she said with sudden abruptness. “You’ll hear from me shortly.”

As for Felix, he was trying hard to succeed for his sister. Flourishing, too.

“Pa,” Ida said wretchedly when she went into the sheep barn to tell her father what had happened, “I’m no good at anything!”

Lord knows, living round here is a full-time job. Lambing. Spring shearing coming up. Culling. Fence work. Cooking. Cleaning. Fixing. Planning. It ain’t ever done.

At first no one raised a hand. Then, rather bashfully, Tom did.

“Susie Spool,” she asked tremulously, “will you lead us in a song?”

That Friday, because Herbert had been out of school for three successive days, Ida decided to visit him.

The road where she had parked ran along a slight bluff. The Bixler farm was below her, cradled by a curve in the road.

There was one small house, its wooden sides gray with weather and the remnants of red paint.

Not far from the dilapidated porch was a rusty truck.

It had no wheels and seemed to be permanently mired in the ground.

“Miss Ida, the truth is, schooling just hasn’t much to do with what’s here.” Mr. Bixler again touched his hat with his hand. “So I’d be much obliged if this was your last visit. Otherwise I just might have to visit Mr. Jordan and let him know what's going on.”

“Got me a little old printing press,” Tom said. “My dad found it in the junk shop in town. I made myself some ink out of old crankcase oil and solvent. Got most of the letters. Just not enough Os. And it only does one page at a time.”

“Come on, Felix,” she said brusquely. “We’ve got work at home.”