For as long as Helen could remember, the Stephenses had been boarding young women who came to town to interview for teaching positions with the district, and as the economy worsened, these boarding arrangements took on a new significance since every penny added to the household was appreciated. When they had taken in boarders while Helen attended Middle River School, she would sleep on the trundle bed in her room while the teachers slept in her bed. Helen always loved the arrangement. It was with great pride that she would escort the women back to her house to spend the night after a day at school. It gave her a special sense of ownership to host the visitors, a sense of claim and importance. It also made her a figure of interest with the other students, especially the girls. They wanted to know all sorts of things about these visiting teachers. Did the women tell Helen of any beaus? (Never.) Did they wear curlers at night? (Often, yes.) Did they snore? (Sometimes.) Did they smoke? (Rarely.) One evening after supper, a certain Miss Fecklemore had pushed open the curtains in Helen’s room and gestured her to follow her outside to sit on the shingled roof and join her in smoking a pipe. Truth be told, Helen had thought the pipe to be horrid, but she enjoyed the illicit thrill of smoking outside with an adult. Miss Fecklemore was never heard from again, which was probably just as well.
Since Helen had moved to town, she was rarely around when one of the boarders came to stay, but late that spring, Ma asked Helen to stop by Middle River School to walk one of these visiting teachers home with her. The following Friday, Helen trudged up the stairs to the schoolhouse, and the sharp scrape of a desk being moved across the floor’s rough planks made her cringe. Voices just out of range rose and fell. She paused and tilted her head to listen.
“No, Mr. Waddington, you don’t need to sit so close to me,” a woman’s voice said.
“But I wanted to show you something in this book,” Superintendent Waddington’s deep voice pleaded.
“No,” the woman said loudly, and then the sound of something crashing to the floor punctuated her protest.
Helen took the final step and entered the schoolhouse to find a woman hunched behind a desk as if using it as a blockade and Superintendent Waddington hovering across from her, red-faced, expectant, and out of breath. A globe rolled in lazy circles around the floor between them.
“Ah yes, Helen, here you are.” He cleared his throat. “Our visiting teacher, Miss Albright, had an idea for how to rearrange the desks.” A parenthesis of graying hair had fallen across his forehead and he pushed it back before straightening and smoothing the lapels of his jacket.
Miss Albright turned, an expression of relief crossing her face. She stepped back from the desk, away from Superintendent Waddington, and Helen gaped. Green eyes the color of pine needles, a slender figure, wavy honey-colored hair. Her skin, eyes, hair—everything seemed to glow.
“So, Miss Albright, as I was saying: I’d be more than happy to spend time with you this evening to explain more aspects of the job to you. Let me take you to dinner and give you more information about what to expect here.”
“Oh, you’ve given a very clear idea of what to expect. No, thank you,” the woman said, glancing at Helen.
Helen had never particularly liked Mr. Waddington. It had always struck her as odd that he ran the school district though he never showed much interest in its children. Whenever he visited Middle River School, he inspected the desks, the supply closet, and the building itself, but his gaze traveled over the students as if they were obscuring his view of the furniture. She rarely saw him at the high school and when she did, he was always counting the number of students in each room and tallying them on a clipboard the way a grocer would take inventory of the goods on his shelves. “Oh, Mr. Waddington, my ma has made a special supper in honor of our guest. I’m sure she’d be disappointed to not have Miss Albright join us.”
“Is that so, Helen? Thanks for piping in,” he said in an irritated voice. “That being the case, Miss Albright, I’d be happy to drive you to the Stephens farm. I’m sure you don’t want to carry your suitcase all that way.”
“I’d be happy to carry it,” Helen said, smiling sweetly while enjoying the murderous look that darkened the superintendent’s face.
“I’ll bet. You could probably carry her on your back and heft the suitcase as well,” he grumbled.
“Now, now. I’m sure we’ll manage just fine.” Miss Albright lifted her suitcase and beckoned Helen to join her.
“I’ll be in touch about when you can start,” Superintendent Waddington said.
“If I decide to take the job. I already have another offer,” Miss Albright called over her shoulder.
“If?” he echoed, taken aback. “Well, I just assumed—”
But Miss Albright didn’t linger to continue the conversation. She yanked Helen out the door, and as they hurried from the building, Helen stole a glimpse of Miss Albright out of the corner of her eye; the woman appeared to be weeping. “Are you going to make it? Our house is about a mile away. Want me to carry that for you?” She pointed at the teacher’s valise.
“No need.” Miss Albright wiped her eyes, and when she turned to Helen, she was laughing. “Oh my goodness, I thought he was going to throw a fit back there. I would carry this all the way to New York City if I needed to. Anything to get away from that man. His views on educating young people struck me as very outdated and showed a real lack of imagination. I also didn’t appreciate how rudely he treated you—or me, for that matter.”
Helen liked how the woman seemed to stick up for her. “So, you don’t plan to teach here?”
“No.”
“Where’s the other school that already offered you a job?”
“There is no other school.” When she saw Helen’s confusion, she chuckled. “I just said that because I can’t work for him.”
“Yeah, Waddington’s a real drip. All of the kids have been making fun of him for years. He comes and gives an opening address to the school every year and rambles on forever. I think some of the speech is in Latin. None of us can quite figure it out. Back when I first started at that school, there was an older teacher and she fell asleep in the back row and we could all hear her snoring. That’s the only year that I can remember when he kept his speech relatively short.”
Miss Albright laughed. “He certainly does seem like the type who enjoys the sound of his own voice.”
Helen nodded. “But isn’t it hard to find jobs these days?”
“It is, but something will come along. I like to think I’m the kind of gal who can land on her feet. I’m from somewhere like here, and this is exactly what I’m trying to get away from.”
Helen’s gaze swept the farmland surrounding them before turning back to Miss Albright. “You’re from Missouri?”
“No, South Dakota. But trust me, small-mindedness can be found everywhere.”
AFTER DINNER THAT evening Helen led the way to her small room at the end of the hall and stood back to let Miss Albright go in first and settle her suitcase on the ground under the window. Before Helen followed her, she went to the washroom and wriggled out of her skirt and blouse before pulling on her plain light blue cotton pajama pants and top. All the girls at Miss Humphries’s teased her for wearing men’s pajamas, but she didn’t like how nightgowns bunched around her waist when she was in bed so she insisted on getting her sleepwear from the men’s section of the Sears catalog. As she finished buttoning the pajama top, she paused and peered into the tiny mirror over the sink. She frowned at a couple of the pimples scattered across her forehead. Miss Albright’s complexion was perfect. Helen imagined running her hand across the woman’s smooth cheek, and even in the gray light of the washroom, she could see her face flush a dark red.