The Baby Bequest

Kurt helped Miss Thurston down. She moved so gracefully as a shaft of sunset shone through the trees, gilding her hair. He forced himself not to stop and enjoy the sight. Instead, he accompanied her to greet the woman.

“Good evening,” Miss Thurston said, cradling the sleeping baby in her arms.

The other woman replied, “I am Mrs. Brawley. My husband and I are homesteading just north of town.”

“Yes?” Miss Thurston encouraged the woman.

“I have one child and I heard the preacher say this morning that you needed someone to care for the baby.” The woman gazed at the child, sleeping in the lady’s arms.

“I take it that you may be interested in doing that?” the schoolteacher asked.

“Yes, miss. I could take care of two as well as one.”

“May I visit your home tomorrow after supper and discuss it then?”

“Yes, yes, please come.” The woman gave directions to her homestead, which lay about a mile and a half north of town. They bid her good-night and she hurried away in the lowering light of day.

“Well, I hope this will solve the problem of William’s care during the schooldays.”

Her single-mindedness scraped Kurt’s calm veneer. “You think still they will let you keep the child?”

She had mounted the step and now turned toward him. “Perhaps you are one of those who think a woman who does not wish to marry cannot love a child, and is unnatural. That is the common wisdom.”

Her cold words, especially the final ones, startled him. “No. That is foolish.”

Her face softened. “Thank you, Mr. Lang.”

He tried to figure out why anybody would think that. Then her words played again in his head. “You do not wish to marry?”

“No, I don’t wish to marry.”

Her attitude left him dumbfounded. “I thought every woman wished to marry.”

She shook her head, one corner of her mouth lifting. “No, not every woman. Good night, Mr. Lang. I’ll see you Tuesday evening.”

“Guten nacht,” he said, lapsing into German without meaning to. He turned the pony cart around and headed toward the Stewards’ to return it. Thoughts about Miss Thurston and William chased each other around in his mind. Very simply, he hated the thought of seeing her disappointed. What if she became more deeply attached to William and the town forced her to give the child away in the end?

Why wouldn’t she face the fact that the town would not let her keep William? He wouldn’t press her about this, but in fact, the town shouldn’t let her keep him. The question wasn’t whether Miss Thurston was capable of rearing the child. But didn’t he know that raising a child alone was difficult, lonely, worrying? Didn’t he know it better than anyone here?

Chapter Six

On Monday morning, Ellen inhaled deeply, preparing to face teaching school with William in the room. With any luck, tomorrow he would be with Mrs. Brawley. But until then, she’d have to make do.

She entered the still-empty schoolroom and set William in his basket on her desk. She gazed down at him as he slept, his little fists clutching the blanket. Every time she looked at him or held him, the feelings she had for him deepened, coiling tighter around her heart.

She walked outside into the air that still held no fall crispness, and rang the bell. The children stopped playing and ran toward her, jostling for their spots in the line. They filed in, taking their seats row by row. When all were seated, she shut the door with satisfaction at their orderliness and returned to stand by her desk.

“You still have the baby,” Amanda said and then colored. “I’m sorry, Miss Thurston. I didn’t mean to talk out of turn.”

Ellen nodded her forgiveness. “It is an unusual situation but until his mother returns—” Ellen’s heart clamped tight “—or I find someone to care for William, he will have to come to school. Now, I will begin with our youngest grade. Slates out, please. The rest of you, please take out your readers and begin reading silently where we left off on Friday.”

All went well till in the midst of listening to the fifth graders recite their times tables, William woke with a whimper and then a full-scale cry. The sound raced up her spine. But she reminded herself that she already had a plan for this situation.

Every child stopped and turned their attention to the basket on her desk.

Johann popped up. “Miss Thurston, the baby is crying.”

The other students laughed, and Johann looked abashed and sat down with a plump.

Ellen smiled at him. “I think you may be right, Johann.” She lifted the child and checked his diaper. “Amanda, would you be kind enough to take William to my room and change his diaper? I left everything on the table for you. And mix him another bottle of Horlick’s. That’s all laid out, too.”

Amanda beamed and hurried forward to carry William’s basket through the door behind Ellen. Ellen motioned for the fifth grader, who had been interrupted, to begin his times tables again. She listened to the boy with one ear and to the sounds of Amanda crooning to William in the next room with the other.

Ellen could make this work—she knew she could. All she had to do now was prove it to everyone else.

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