From the kitchen door, a scurrying sound that might have been mice, but was, no doubt, Jason’s attempt at eavesdropping, caught Jake’s attention. It was just as well, he decided, that the boy hear what his teacher had to say.
“He broke the windows in the schoolhouse today,” she said quietly. Her eyes offered a mute appeal, glancing up at him, shining with a film of tears, unless he was mighty mistaken. “Not all of them,” she was hasty to add. “But the two closest to my desk.”
“Where were you when it happened?” he asked, his gaze focused upon her person.
“Sitting at the desk, going over my pupils’ work. I’d just let school out for the day.” She looked at him directly. “Before you ask, I have to tell you that Jason did not attempt to hide his mischief. He stood not more than ten or twelve feet from the building, and when I looked out through the first broken window, he lifted another rock and threw it at the one closer to where I normally sit.”
“You’re telling me you saw him break the windows?” His heart sank within him. Jason was belligerent at times, hard to handle for the past year or so, but his actions today went beyond mischief.
The woman only looked at him, as if she would not further verify the story she’d told. It was no doubt true. She had no reason to lie, or even stretch the truth. “What do you want me to do?” he asked.
She shook her head. “I don’t know. The boy needs help, and he won’t accept it from my hand. He resents authority.”
“I’ll talk to him,” Jake said. “I’ll find some appropriate punishment to deal out, and settle the matter.”
“At least he’ll know you’re paying attention, won’t he?” she asked quietly.
Jake’s head came up abruptly, and his glare dissolved any small amount of amity he’d projected. “And what is that supposed to mean?”
“He seems to be asking for you to notice him, and he doesn’t care how he accomplishes it, Mr. McPherson. This isn’t the first time he’s been in trouble.”
Jake winced inwardly. She was right. He’d received a note from the sheriff, asking for reparations when Jason had ruined the flower bed in front of the bank. The boy had come home with a black eye more than once, and his trousers were continually needing repair, where he’d fallen in the dirt, tussling with several boys in town. But then, fighting was something all boys indulged in, Jake had told himself.
Now he viewed the signs he’d ignored—and didn’t relish the picture they drew.
“Do you have another idea, Miss…” His voice trailed off, wondering for the first time just who this woman was.
“I’m Alicia Merriweather,” she said. “I teach the first six grades at the schoolhouse. Jason has been a student in my classroom for almost two years.”
“You’ve been in town that long?”
Her smile was cool. “You don’t get out and around much, Mr. McPherson. I’ve lived here for a bit over two years.”
“My social life has nothing to do with you,” he said harshly.
“I’ve had articles in the weekly newspaper,” she said. “I’d have thought you read the Green Rapids Gazette, and might even have recognized that there was a new teacher at the school.”
She was smart-mouthed, he decided. A woman who spoke her mind. He could just imagine the sort of articles she wrote. A smile begged for existence on his lips as he considered her. Her writing was no doubt aimed at cleaning up the saloons and driving the women who worked there out of business.
“Get to the point, Miss Merriweather.”
She inhaled and her ample bosom rose in response. He’d never been overly fond of women so well endowed, but she was well-formed, if a bit too full-figured for his taste. Even so, the dress she wore concealed a shape beneath its folds that would bear further study. And suddenly that idea appealed.
“I think Jason should be made to come to the schoolhouse, and at least sweep up the mess he made, and then help me board up the windows until I can get Ben from the hardware to replace the glass.”
“You’re going to board up the windows?” he asked. “And you want Jason to clear up the broken glass?”
She shot him a level glance. “He broke it, didn’t he? He needs to learn that there are responsibilities that go along with his actions.”
“And if he cuts himself in the process?” Deliberately, he was making this difficult, but the woman was persistent and he was rising to the challenge.
“What if he burns himself cooking on your stove, Mr. McPherson?” She pursed her lips and then lifted a brow as if she awaited a reply.
“Well, you have me there, ma’am,” Jake answered. “The difference is in who takes the blame for his injury.”
“In the case of the windows, he takes the blame, sir. Both for the damage he wrought on the school, and for any harm he comes to in the resolution of the problem.”
“He’s only nine years old,” Jake said, intent on continuing the argument, the best one he’d had in a month of Sundays. This woman knew how to hold her own.
“He may never reach his tenth birthday if he doesn’t learn some rules of decent behavior,” she said firmly. “He has half the parents in town out for his hide. There isn’t a boy in school safe from his fists, and the little girls have suffered ink splattered on their dresses and skinned knees from being pushed down in the schoolyard.”
Jake was silent, absorbing her words. If it was indeed as bad as all that, the boy had to be taken in hand.
“I’ll agree to him cleaning up the mess,” he said grudgingly. “As soon as he’s eaten his supper, I’ll send him on over.”
She gritted her teeth. He saw her jaw clench and noted the militant gleam in her eyes as she defied him again. “He’ll do it now. I won’t be eating my supper until the windows are boarded up and the school is back in shape for tomorrow. He can just do without his meal until that’s been accomplished.”
“Do you always get your way, Miss Merriweather?” Jake asked, fuming inwardly, yet aware that the woman had a point.
“Only when I’m right.” The words were a taunt, delivered with a smug smile. Then she clutched her reticule and stiffened her spine. “Now, will you tell him to come along with me? Or shall I go out into your kitchen and drag him out the back door?”
“It’s against the law to manhandle a child who is not your own,” Jake told her.
“I have the right to discipline the children in my classroom,” she reminded him. “The school board has put that into my contract.”
He might as well let the creature have her way. She was going to go over his head if he didn’t give in gracefully. Or at least without a fuss.
He raised his hand from the arm of his chair and waved toward the closed kitchen door. “He’s on the other side of that, ma’am,” he told her. “I’ll warrant his ear is glued to it, in fact.”
“Call him in here,” she said, moving to plant herself halfway down the hallway. “He needs to know that you’re aware of what he’s done.”
“Oh, I doubt there’s any question he hasn’t already heard every blessed word you’ve spoken, ma’am,” Jake said harshly. Then he raised his voice a bit. “Jason, come on out here.”
The door opened after a few seconds and the boy sidled into the hallway. His face was pale now, and Jake felt a moment’s pain at the look of confusion his son wore.
“You’ll go with Miss Merriweather and clean up the mess you made, Jason. You’ll help her board up the windows, and then you’ll