Posted: 3:17 am
October 3, 2008
STORY SO FAR: Ida, aged fourteen, has been attending a one-room schoolhouse. Now, just before Ida finishes eighth grade, the teacher must leave, causing the school to close.
CHAPTER THREE
What to Do
During recess, Ida and Tom sat against the west side of the building. Tom, eyes closed, tilted his face up toward the warm spring sun. Ida, by his side, braided bits of grass.
"Tom," Ida said sadly, "I won't ever get to be a teacher without going to high school." She flung away the grass. "Course, my folks probably won't have the money to board me in town anyway. You have any idea how much Miss Fletcher earns?"
"Nope," Tom said.
"Forty dollars each month, that's what."
"Banana Oil!" Tom cried. "How'd you know?"
"Start of the year, I saw her contract on her desk."
"Sneak-peek!"
"Suppose I was. But, if I had all that money . . . ."
"What would you do?"
"Teach in a big city. Denver, maybe. Have books. Own my own car. Travel around the world."
"Come on, you're no flapper. Girls don't do that."
"I was planning to!" Ida snapped. "And what about your electricity and radio? Not likely you'll do much of that unless you get high school learning."
"I know," a dejected Tom agreed. He gazed up at the high, snow-capped mountains that ringed Elk Valley. The peaks felt like a cage. "I guess I can learn what I need from a correspondence course. Saw an ad in a copy of Popular Mechanics."
"I'd already started studying for the exams," Ida confided. "Miss Fletcher said they were hard."
"Guess you can have yourself some fun instead."
Angry, Ida jumped up. "Tom Kohl," she yelled, hands on hips, braids almost flying off her head with fury, "you're such a sponge cake!" She stormed away.
"For crying out loud, Ida!" Tom called after her. "I was just kidding!"
Frustrated, Ida watched the little kids on the teeter- totter. "Just up and down," she thought to herself. "Going nowhere. Suppose if I'm not going to graduate, I won't go anywhere either."
Still angry, she pumped up some cold water and drank from the tin cup that hung from a string.
Just then Miss Fletcher opened the schoolhouse door, bell in hand. She was about to ring it, calling an end to recess, when she saw Ida standing at the pump.
"Ida," she called, "please come in. I'd like to talk to you."
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