Love Is a Gentle Stranger by June Masters Bacher

Author:June Masters Bacher
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780736951531
Publisher: Harvest House Publishers

18

Holy Joe

Even with the few books she had brought along, Chris knew there were not enough to go around. And none of them were alike. She wondered aloud just how to manage. These pioneer children, she had seen right away, were good decision-makers.

“I bet everybody’s got one of these,” one of the older boys suggested. He raised a rumpled sheet of fine-print paper—too fine to see from where Chris Beth stood at the front of the classroom.

A ripple of excitement told her that what the boy said was true. All but the beginners (who would be in a “chart class”) pulled out a similar sheet of paper.

A single sheet! They were supposed to learn from that? And what on earth could it be, anyway?

“Can I read?” the boy asked eagerly.

Before she could say, “May I read?” the others had chimed in, each begging to read.

Chris Beth resisted the temptation to rap sharply on the box she called a desk. After all, she certainly did not want to dampen any enthusiasm that these students had for reading.

“I asked her first!” the older boy told the others.

“So he did,” Chris Beth agreed. “You’ll all get a turn, I promise. And then I’ll read you a story.”

As the boy stood, she checked the register to find his name. Beltran. Beltran? Oh, yes, he was one of the “Basque” children that Nate had introduced. Sheep-raisers, weren’t they? She checked the name again.

“Go ahead, Burton.”

Burton, pleased that Miss Chrissy had remembered his name, grinned and said, “Mine’s page 500.” Then, haltingly, he began to read as Chris Beth digested the news that no pages matched.

“The…Lord…is…my… shepherd!” The last word came out triumphantly. Then the strange, surprising singsong continued, “I… shall…. not… want!”

Later Chris Beth realized that she had allowed Burton to read too long. The other children were moving restlessly. But she had been so torn between pity for the children who wanted so desperately to learn and shock that they had nothing to read but a page from the Bible (though they liked reading it) that time meant nothing to her. Was this where they had left off last year?

Still trying to work her way through the maze of emotions, Chris Beth allowed the children to read one by one. But she did remember to call time so that each would get a turn. When the last reader finished, she announced that they would take an early recess.

But the children were having no part of it. “Story story!” they all cried. “You promised!”

Well, so she had. Chris Beth reached for a copy of Grimm’s Fairy Tales.

But again the children changed her plans. “Wait till we’re ready to go home for that one! We want to hear ‘Noah Zark’…No, ‘Daniel and the Lion’s Den’…Ump-uh, ‘David ‘n Goldilocks’!”

It was impossible for Chris Beth to keep a straight face at the titles. Taking her smile as consent, they leaned forward on the rough-board tables. “She’s gonna!” whispered the “Baby Sister” Ma hadn’t “learnt.” There was pin-drop quiet.

Chris Beth fumbled through her literature books.

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