Most of the adults and all of the children in Nickerly turned out to see the new school pulled to its permanent site. People began arriving at the Chambers farm on foot and on horseback in the early afternoon, ready to help move the school, or just to see the team of horses hitched to the building. As the Chambers team of six horses began their strain against the harness, their haunches settling down to give their hind legs traction, the small building began to move on its foundation, a pair of sleigh-like runners. The timbers running down either side of the structure began to rise in the front, near the source of the pull, and drop in the back as the weight of the building shifted. Creaking sounds emanated from the freshly cut, green-wood joints, which slowly grasped each other in a wooden handshake that would never come apart. Then the new school started its forward motion, with Margaret’s father leading the team in a slow but steady pace. The entire community walked alongside, watching the dirt and sand on the road eat away at the runners, until they had lost their round shape, and then they were flat on the bottom, smooth as glass, and wearing themselves thinner by the mile. Children began to speculate on whether they would last for the three-mile trip to the school site.
The building reached its permanent home in Murphy’s pasture, a one-acre parcel donated by Sean Murphy, no doubt because he had six children about to reach school age, and because his pasture bordered the main county road from Nickerly to Lincoln. The school would be accessible to residents of Nickerly, as well as the dozens of small farms in the county. But there would be only seventeen students in the school, with at least one in every grade but sixth, which Margaret’s mother attributed to the drought twelve years earlier when everyone was too depressed or too sick to have babies.
With the building secured by stakes driven through the ends of the foundation runners and into the ground, the men collected stones and rocks from the pasture and placed them under either end of the building, forming a loose foundation to catch the building if it settled and closing the underside of the school to possums, coons, and small children. Lastly, Ed Garvey’s wagon arrived with the benches. Garvey operated the flour mill on the Saline River and was therefore the principal source of cash for Nickerly County crops. The mill was a congregation point for farmers, who pulled their wagons up to the bins, unloaded the wheat that had been gathered from the threshing machines, and received their pay in a small office behind the counting room. For many farmers, the mill was their major source of sustenance: flour. Every couple of weeks, most farmers would bring a load of corn or wheat from their storage bins and trade it at the mill for two 48-pound sacks of flour, which would supply bread, cakes, pies, and pancakes for several days. Ed Garvey held forth in the counting room of the mill every day, greeting the farmers as they came in, writing down their delivery, then walking outside for a visual inspection of the wagons, primarily to make sure the wheat wasn’t wet or diseased by fungus. Most of the time, Ed sat at a square table in the middle of the counting room. Twelve-foot benches known as Garvey Benches stretched along two walls. Fully loaded, the benches might hold six or eight farmers lingering after their payments long enough for a discussion of the weather or a neighbor’s decision to try growing oats, a seemingly foolish move when wheat had done just fine for the last thirty years. Whatever the discussion, everyone recognized the quality of Garvey’s benches, wider than most because they were half a tree trunk, flat on the sitting side with the bark still on the underside. When Ed Garvey pulled into the schoolyard with his donation to the school, four new benches for the students, a cheer went up from the crowd of mothers who recognized the organization and rectitude that benches brought to a school. The challenge, of course, would be to make the students sit on them.
Mrs. Garvey, Ed’s wife and the schoolteacher for as long as anyone could remember, beamed as the new benches were put in place. She had taught Nickerly students in the back of Tilden’s dry goods store for seven years, or as long as it took to get Ed Jr. through at least the ninth and tenth grades, and into his father’s business. She had intended to quit teaching after Ed Jr.’s schooling ended, but she stayed on a few more years. Now she stood at the front door of the new schoolhouse, arms crossed, overseeing every ounce of activity; directing the location of the benches; seeing that the shutters were level on the windows; and hanging the yellowed roll-down chart of the alphabet, the first building block of a Nickerly education.
Margaret, even at age eleven the tallest girl among her friends, stood in a circle of her schoolmates to watch these final touches being applied to a school that would be hers, with a name, Sunny-side, that she could call her own. The new school gave a feeling of independence to Margaret. It was a separate building, almost like a home, that she would share with other children away from the adult world. It was also the private domain of Margaret’s idol, Mrs. Garvey, a figure of fortress-like qualities. She was a strong woman who knew the strange world of adults and thrived in it. She was independent. Margaret could never imagine Mrs. Garvey crying, as her mother often did. Margaret wanted to be just like Mrs. Garvey, and at age eleven she knew that this school would be the ticket. And that’s what Margaret made of it. Often she walked home with Mrs. Garvey after school. They talked of distant places. After Margaret discovered that the Garveys had been to Wichita, she started asking her teacher about other cities. Her schoolbooks pictured a vastly different life in places like New York and Washington, where business, wealth and political power had created a class of people that Margaret’s father called, simply, “the rich.” Mrs. Garvey had also been to Kansas City, and she told Margaret about hospitals and schools where thousands of people lived in small areas. It was Mrs. Garvey who first mentioned college, and Margaret took to the idea immediately.
In all those years of dreaming about getting away from Nickerly, it never dawned on Margaret that after going away, she might want to come back. But now she was doing just that. Mrs. Garvey had written to Margaret at the College of Emporia, informing her of her plans to leave Sunnyside and stay home with Ed and Ed Jr., who was just taking over the mill. Mrs. Garvey suggested to Margaret that she might want to come home and teach at Sunnyside. After the school board wrote to formally offer Margaret Mrs. Garvey’s position, Margaret wrote her mother that she was coming home to teach. She had not seen the world, but she had met new friends from other towns in Kansas, and teaching would allow her to visit them in the summer and on holidays. She would actually have a job and earn her own money, money that could be used for all sorts of new plans. Going home seemed like the logical next step.
Jay Langston poked his brother, Ray, winked, jerked his thumb over his shoulder to signal a departure, then slid out of the last row of the Nickerly First Presbyterian Church with Ray following close behind. They knew their father could see them, but they also knew he was too wound up to stop his sermon. He would never disrupt the service to reprimand the boys.
It was spring and the front door of the church had been left wide open, an invitation to the fresh honeysuckle scents of the yard and the yellow splashes of forsythia along the side of the building. The boys slipped practically unnoticed out the front door as their father’s voice rose in anxious pleading: “Oh, Lord, stop us from our worldly sins. Let our eyes rise to the golden glow of the sun and recognize the warmth of God’s love. For while He forgives us, He will be a harsh judge of our sins. God will take his vengeance on those who dwell on worldly goods. He lifts our spirit and accepts our faith. He gives us hope and kindness. He leadeth us down the paths of righteousness. And I beseech you, do not turn away from these gifts. Do not seek pleasure in the here and now, but seek your rewards in heaven. Live according to the gospel, a life of work and sacrifice that is its own reward.”
Aaron’s voice was warming to the task, rising