A Charm Against the Pain
edited by Georgina Olivere Queller, Roberta Buchanan and Geraldine Chafe Rubia

I’m Here to Teach
Fran Baird Innes 

As soon as I jumped off the rig I saw her. She was perched on top of a big steamer trunk in front of the railway station and not another creature in sight. Course I didn’t know who she was right away. What with her stocking cap pulled down around her ears and a long, red wool scarf wound up to her chin, I could hardly see her face.

“Hello, boy,” she said without moving an inch. “I hope you’ve come to get me? I told the stationmaster I was expected, so he went on home. I’m nearly perished, waiting here this past hour.”

“No, Miss, I came for the mail. That’s the mailbag you’re resting your feet on. Do you want to go to Arnot Cove then?”

“Well, I’m certainly not sitting here for my health,” she snapped. “Of course I want to go to Arnot Cove. I’m Miss Matthews, your new teacher.”

“Well blessie lard! Oh pardon me, Miss, but we didn’t know you was coming today.”

“What do you mean, you didn’t know? I’ll be staying with Mrs. Saunders and I sent her a telegram.”

“Well, she’s my mother, Miss, and she didn’t get no message. Mom’s the postmistress and she only sent me in for the mail. Course, I’ll take you back with me, Miss, except for that trunk. The catamaran isn’t big enough for you, me and that trunk.” She pushed her cap back and gave me such an angry look.

“I’ll sit on it, that way it won’t take up extra space,” she snapped.

“I think, Miss, you’ll have to sit on the mailbag if you don’t mind.”

“But what if it’s stolen? All my things are in it.”

“Don’t worry, it will be safe here. The stationmaster will send it in tomorrow.”

“Isn’t this the limit,” she grumbled. “No one here to meet me, I’m not even expected and now I have to leave my trunk behind.”

She slid to the ground and did I ever get a surprise. So help me, I never saw a teacher so short! She stood no taller than me, and for sure I’m no fourteen-year-old giant. She picked up a black cane and lurching from side to side, made her way to the catamaran. Cripes, I thought, she’s a cripple. See, I only came to the station for the mail, and here I was with the new teacher and she a cripple and mad as a hornet over her old trunk. I figured she should have been darn glad I showed up at all.

As Miss Matthews lumbered towards me, a picture of a waddling duck popped into my head. I had to smother a laugh.

“What’s your name boy?” Her eyes were blazing.

“Tommy Saunders, Miss.”

“Well, Tommy, I promise you, someone is going to hear about this.”

I threw the mailbag on the catamaran and offered Teacher a hand up.

“I can manage better on my own, thank you.” She caught hold of the post and hauled herself up.

It was jeezly cold and I was anxious to get home to supper and a warm fire. Patch, my pony, was restless too. He snorted and pawed the frozen ground when I jumped aboard the rig. The strong smell rising from the pony’s steaming flanks made me haul my scarf over my nose. I looked back to make sure Teacher was settled on the mailbag.

“How far to the Cove?” she asked.

“About a mile, Miss, and you better hold on to them posts.”

With a flick of the reins, old Patch started off with a jerk. The trail was rough and real slippery in places from the sea spray. The worst thing was swerving to miss the snow-covered tuckamore that stuck up like ghosts along the way. When I glanced back, Teacher was holding on to them posts for dear life. Once Patch hit his stride, the clop, clop of hooves, the crunch of runners on frozen snow and the tinkling of harness bells were the only sounds, the air was that still.

When we reached home, I jumped off and ran to tell Mom I had the new teacher aboard.

“The new teacher. What do you mean, the new teacher? I’m not expecting no new teacher today.”

“Miss Matthews says she sent you a telegram. But that’s not the worst of it, Mom, she’s a funny-looking cripple.”

“A cripple. You mean her leg is broke?”

“No, it’s not that. She’s real short and walks funny.”

“Good Lord, Tommy, why didn’t you help her in for heaven’s sake?”

Mom bolted out the door and me right behind her. Teacher was leaning kinda stiff-like against the sleigh. Mom took hold of her.

“You poor thing. I expects you’re nearly gone with the cold. Tommy, quick, give me a hand. We got to get her into the house before she perishes altogether.”

I felt some embarrassed helping Mom carry her into the kitchen, but she was so cold she couldn’t speak or move her legs. Dad was at the kitchen table waiting for his supper, and the smell of rabbit soup and bread, fresh from the oven, made my stomach growl.

“Gus, Miss Matthews is the new teacher and she’s fair froze because we wasn’t expecting her today. Lucky, Tommy went for the mail. Fetch me that big enamel basin in the pantry and fill it with warm water. We got to get her thawed out.”

Mom sat Teacher on a chair in front of the wood stove, pulled off her boots and black stockings and eased her feet into the water. Dad wrapped a heavy wool blanket around her shoulders. “Don’t you worry, Miss,” he said. “Daisy will have you thawed out in no time. There’s no heat upstairs, so you sleep on the settle in here by the kitchen fire tonight. When you feel like it, a good bowl of rabbit soup will warm your insides.”

All this time, Teacher didn’t say a word. She just sat huddled in the quilt with her feet to the stove. She looked more like an elf than a teacher.

Next morning, I got my first good look at Miss Matthews. She wasn’t so white anymore but her cheeks weren’t exactly rosy either. Her hair was pulled back except for a few frizzy bits that escaped the elastic and curled around her face. She didn’t look much older than some of the girls at school.

“Good morning, Tommy.” Her voice was low and hoarse. “I want to thank you for all your help yesterday even though I nearly perished. Anyway, there’s no point dwelling on that, because now I have to see to my school. I need to get started as soon as possible.”

“Why don’t you take it easy today and get your bones warmed through? You still looks a little pale,” Mom remarked.

“I’m all right now, thanks to your expert care. It’s best if I keep on the move, else I’ll stiffen right up. Once things are in order at school we can let everyone know I’m here. It’s already two weeks into 1934, and with their teacher leaving before Christmas, the children have missed enough school already.”

“You’ll never get to that school on your own, me maid. All the lower land hereabouts was built up or taken for fish stages and such, so the school had to go on top of the hill back of here.”

“Well, it can’t be far away, then.”

“It’s not the distance,” Mom explained, “there’s no road up the hill, just a lot of steps.”

“If that’s the only way to get to school, I may as well go now and see what I’m up against.”

“I don’t know what that St. John’s crowd is thinking about sending a young girl like yourself out here. It’s hard enough for the men and they don’t stay long.”

“I came because I finished my teacher training before Christmas, and since you have no teacher, this school was available. Now, Mrs. Saunders, if you don’t mind showing me the way, I want to see my school.”

“Then I’ll get my coat and come with you and Tommy will give us a hand, won’t you, son?”

I hate it when Mom corners me like that but what could I say? Anyway, I figured once she saw them steep steps, it would be the last straw and she would hightail it back to St. John’s.

“I guess so,” I mumbled, “and I’ll take a few splits and birch junks to light the fire. School’s been closed so long it will be colder than death in there.”

So off the three of us went, teacher lurching along with her walking stick, which wasn’t much help in the snow, and Mom hitched tight to her other arm. When we reached the steps, I figured she would take one look and give up then and there. We could kiss school goodbye for the rest of the year. Well, sir, she was stopped right in her tracks when she saw them forty steps.

“Glory be,” she said, “they are steep, aren’t they?”

“There’s no way you can climb them steps. No one in their right mind would expect you to. Come on, we’ll go home and . . . ” That’s as far as Mom got.

“Go home? Indeed we won’t go home. You go on ahead, Tommy. These aren’t the first steps I’ve managed and they won’t be the last.”

Lucky thing the wind had blown away the snow, so the steps were bare at least. I went on up aways, and when I glanced back, she was down on her hands and knees, working herself up, step by step. Mom stayed close behind in case she fell. Teacher’s face was all red from the effort, but I have to admit, she was some determined. No way would she quit.

The school was freezing. I found some dry strips of birch bark in the woodbox, lit them under the splits and in jigtime the old pot-belly stove was throwing off a good heat. As soon as she came in the door, Teacher flopped down on a bench in front of the stove. Mom, all out of puff, was right behind her. The two of them just sat there until, finally, the heat began to revive them. Teacher stood up and looked around. This was the only school I had ever been in, and I guess until that minute I hadn’t paid much heed to how it looked. My eyes followed hers up the dingy walls to the windows where peeling paint, covered in cobwebs, fluttered in the draft. Some windowpanes were bust out and the holes covered with cardboard. “This can’t possibly be my school. Where’s the new school Dr. Blackall promised me? He said you built a new school here. That’s where I’m supposed to teach. Where is it?” She was livid.

“So we did build a new one, Miss,” Mom explained, “but when the men got her finished, they decided it was too good for a school, so they made her into a church. Now the poor children are back in this old barn.”

I figured that would be the end of it. Sure as anything she would be on the next train to St. John’s.

“Well, I certainly didn’t expect anything like this.”

Here it comes, I thought.

“But I guess we’ll have to make the best of it. Now let’s see what needs to be done. First thing is to replace those broken windowpanes, and a lick of paint will do wonders.”

Mom was as surprised as I was. “You mean you’re willing to stay?”

“I told you, I’m here to teach. Now, can you persuade your husband to round up enough men to get this place in shape?”

By Saturday the inside looked pretty good. Teacher sent me off to tell everyone school would open on Monday.

I was in a dead sleep on Monday morning when Mom’s whisper finally got through to me.

“Tommy, come on you young ’angashore, get up out of that bed.”

Drifting out of the fog, it took a few minutes to get my wits about me. “What’s the matter? Is the house on fire?”

“No, but keep your voice down. We have to take Miss Matthews to school early, to get herself sorted out before the youngsters get there.”

That woke me up in a hurry.

“Ah, Mom, you don’t expect me to take her to school every day do you? I won’t have a dog’s life once it gets around. Bram and his crowd will say I’m sucking up to the new teacher.”

“Now listen here, Tommy,” Mom said. “That spit of a girl is a cripple and look how determined she is to get you young ones back to school. If I was her I’d head right back home on the next train.”

I almost said I hoped she’d go, but instead I told Mom she’d likely leave once she came up against Bram’s bunch.

“All the more reason to help her all we can,” Mom replied. “Some things, son, are worth fighting for.”

Fighting is right, I thought, but I held my tongue. Once Mom’s mind was made up, there was no use arguing.

We must have been a comical sight, the three of us trudging through the snow. I prayed no one would see me, but just my luck, Will Barnes was in his yard chopping splits. When we came to the steps, I couldn’t get free of Teacher’s arm fast enough.

“Now me maid, hitch up your coat and I’ll see ya safe to the top. I’ll be here to give ya a hand getting back this afternoon.”

When I saw my mother off she whispered to me, “Tommy, mind you stay around to walk Miss Matthews home.”

I felt a knot form in my stomach. “ Ah Mom,” I pleaded, “do I have to?”

“As long as the snow is around you will.”

“I feel sorry for her being a cripple and all, Mom,” I said, “but I don’t want to be stuck to her like paper to a glue pot. The boys will never let up, ‘teacher’s pet . . . sooky baby.’ There’ll be no end to it.”

The very first day it started. Teacher was hanging a map of Newfoundland on the blackboard, and while her back was turned, Bram, who sat behind me, grabbed my arm and twisted it behind my back.

“Teacher’s pet,” he hissed. He tightened his grip and it hurt so bad I let out a yell. As teacher turned around and headed towards us, he let go of my arm.

“What is going on here?”

“Nothing, Miss.” Bram looked as if he was about to sprout a halo.

“Really?” she said.

I started to sweat. I knew if she asked was it me who yelled, I’d have to tell the truth, and if I told, Bram, who is older and bigger than me, would skin me.

She looked right at me but she didn’t ask.

“Now you boys might as well know I will not tolerate any nonsense in my school. You are here to learn and you, Bramwell, had better apply yourself to your work. Didn’t you fail last year?” Bram nodded. “Well then, you surely want to pass your grade and move on, don’t you?”

“Oh yes, I wants to move on all right—right out of here,” he muttered.

His seatmate, Lal, and his buddies Will and Harv who sat next to him smothered their laughs. Everyone knew that, more than anything, Bram wanted to be at the fishing with his father.

“What did you say, Bramwell?” Her eyes were blazing.

“Oh yes, Miss, that’s what I wants, Miss, to move on.”

“All right then. Now get busy with your work.” With that, she headed back to her desk.

“There goes ducky,” Lal whispered. That brought a fit of coughing to cover the laughs. She really did waddle like a duck.

To avoid trouble, I tried to stay out of Bram’s way. By Thursday I guess I got careless, and during recess the boys were laying for me in the playground behind the school.

“Well, if it ain’t teacher’s pet,” Lal said. I tried to run, but Harv blocked me.

“How’s Duckie’s little ducky today? Not in cleaning the blackboard?” Bram said. He grabbed me and slapped me against the wall. I lashed out with my boot and tried to break away.

“Where do you think yer going, sooky baby. Inside to complain to Miss Ducky? Ain’t nothing a cripple teacher can do to me and the boys.”

I pounded him as hard as I could but Bram, the big lug, had me on the ground real quick. Then we heard the clang-clang of the bell. You never saw anyone move so fast. Bram was off me and at the door just as teacher stepped outside. I lagged behind him.

“I’ll take a turn around the playground with the bell for you, Miss. Save you standing here in the cold.” Bram could look so darn innocent.

“Thank you, Bramwell. That’s very thoughtful of you.”

When everyone was back in school, Bram strolled in, put the bell on teacher’s desk, and grinning from ear to ear, took his seat behind me.

Then I got the jab in the back.

“Hey sooky baby, ain’t Teach the soft touch though?”

I wasn’t sure what he meant until lunchtime. Miss Matthews picked up the brass bell and gave it a shake. Dead silence, nothing, not a tinkle. She shook it again. Not a sound. She turned it up and looked inside.

“Bramwell, come here at once.” Bram rushed to her desk.

“What is it, Miss?”

“I expect you know very well what it is. You were the last one to touch this bell. What happened to the clapper?”

“The clapper, Miss?”

“Yes, the clapper. You know, the little metal ball that hits the sides to make it ring?”

“Oh I know what the clapper is, Miss. Is something wrong with it?”

“It isn’t there, Bramwell, that’s what’s wrong with it. Where is it?”

“I don’t know, Miss. I suppose it must have fallen out. I’ll go look for it.” He bolted out the door.

Teacher clapped her hands for attention. “Now children, eat your lunch and stay inside until Bramwell returns with the clapper.”

Of course Bram didn’t find the clapper, and it was a week before Teacher got another school bell. In the meantime, everything was thrown off schedule. No matter who Teacher sent to round us up, we took our own sweet time getting back to work.

Each day, Teacher’s temper got worse. I thought she would have a fit the day one of the girls spotted the mouse. Harv brought it to school in a box. I saw him showing it to Bram, but I never thought he would let it loose. It was during morning prayers, and in no time the place was in an uproar. Us boys were running around trying to corner the mouse. Most of the girls were sitting on their desks, skirts hugged tight around their legs, screaming their heads off. No one paid any attention to Teacher. Suddenly she banged the desk several times with her cane. That got our attention.

“Well I never. Such a commotion over a little mouse. All of you sit down at once.” No one moved. “Sit down, I said. At once, do you hear me?” We scurried back to our seats. Teacher looked ready to explode.

Someone shouted. “There it goes. Look, over there.”

“Don’t anyone move,” she yelled. “What nonsense, as if a mouse could hurt you. Girls, get down off your desks this instant. Sit properly in your seats. I don’t want to see any more of this foolishness.”

Teacher was still agitated when we left for home that afternoon. Mom was waiting at the steps as usual.

“How are ya doing, me maid? You looks as if ya had a rough day.”

“A rough day. It’s been rough ever since I got here. No new school as I was promised, the clapper mysteriously gone out of the school bell and today . . . ” she started to sob, “today, the place was bedlam.”

Mom put her arms around her. “There, there now. It’s too much for ya, ya poor young thing. No one could blame ya if ya got on the next train and went home out of it.”

This is it, I thought, she’ll quit now for sure.

Teacher stopped sniffling and faced Mom. “No, they will not drive me out. Not as long as I can still crawl up those steps, they won’t.” She blew her nose and dried her eyes. “I’m sure Bramwell and his friends are behind all this, but, Tommy, I know you are having your own problems with them, so it’s not fair to ask you to tell. Somehow I have to gain their respect on my own.”

Right then, I had to admit she was one spunky lady.

She took hold of Mom’s arm, I offered her my arm and the three of us walked home. But, for the life of me, I couldn’t see how she would get the better of Bram and his buddies.

The rest of the week was pretty quiet in school. The mouse was caught, Teacher had her new bell, and except for the usual spitballs and paper planes flying about, things had returned to normal.

Monday was a different story. It was a cold, windy day and Teacher told us older boys to keep the wood to the fire. After recess, Bram left his seat and went to add more birch junks to the stove. Suddenly there were three loud bangs.

“Bramwell, what on earth are you doing?”

“This junk is stuck, Miss. I’m trying to knock it in.” Using another junk as a hammer, he hit it again and again.

“Stop that at once, you’ll shake the stovepipe apart.”

“Just one more crack, Miss, that should do the trick.” We all started to giggle as Bram gave it one more whack. The pipe broke open. Giggles turned into coughs, sneezes and runny eyes, as smoke and soot poured into the classroom. Bram coughed so hard you would swear he was choking. When he saw Teacher coming he went into his angel act.

“Gee, Miss, I got the junk in, see. Too bad the pipe broke. Guess there’s nothing for it but for all hands to go home.”

“Go home. Indeed you won’t go home. You young devil, you did that on purpose.” Holding a handkerchief over her nose, she slammed the stove door shut. “Some of you boys open the windows to help clear the air.”

“Hurrah, a holiday,” the children shouted.

“Oh no, there will be no holiday. Get into your coats, then return to your seats. Now Bramwell, since you caused this problem, you can jolly well put it right.”

“You want me to go for Mr. Ray, Miss? He usually fixes the stove.”

“No you won’t go for Mr. Ray or anyone else. You, Bramwell, are going to fix it.”

“Me, Miss? I don’t know nothing about fixing stovepipes.”

“Well since you are so good at knocking them apart, let’s see how good you are at knocking them together again. Get the stepladder, roll up your sleeves and get started. It’s getting cold in here. Wear your mitts so you don’t burn yourself. Lal, you can give him a hand.”

“Why me, Miss? I didn’t do nothin.”

“Surely, Lal, you would like to help your best friend. Get to it and no more fooling around. Now children we’ll continue with our lessons.”

There were loud groans of “Oh heck” and “Ah Miss, have a heart.”

“Put on your coats and try to keep warm because there will be no holiday today. We will carry on as usual. Primary, get out your copybooks and practice your letters. Preliminary, continue with your sums and brush up on your multiplication tables. Intermediates, go over the poem I assigned yesterday. Who can tell me which poem it is?”

Emily, who was always smart in English literature, jumped to her feet. “‘The Charge of the Light Brigade,’ Miss. By Tennyson.”

“Absolutely right, Emily. Now, everyone get to work, and in a while we will do some marching and singing to warm us up.”

It took a long, cold hour for Bram and Lal to fit the pieces of stove-pipe back together. Bram, soot from head to toe, stood before Teacher.

“It’s all fixed, Miss, so I’ll run on home now. I needs to get a wash.”

“You’ll get a wash, but I’m afraid you will have to make do with the soap and water here. And when you finish washing, take your seat with the others.”

Now everyone knows cold water is next to useless against soot. A laugh went up when Bram, still looking like someone just come up out of a coal mine, flopped down in his seat. Teacher clapped her hands for attention.

“Now then, Bramwell, open your Royal Reader to the poem you have to memorize before next lesson. Bram shuffled the pages and found the poem. He started reading to himself.

“No, no, stand up Bramwell and read it out loud to the class.” Snickers came from all around the room as Bram, his face streaked with soot and looking very sheepish, got slowly to his feet and started to read. “‘Half a league, half a league/Half a league onward/All in the valley of Death/Rode the six hundred . . .’”