The Winds of Autumn Read online

  I was dumbfounded. I stared at her, my mouth open and my heart pounding wildly. I wanted to ask “why?” again but I didn’t dare. Camellia would expect me to know the answer, and I didn’t—not yet at least. It might take a good deal of sorting out.

  I swallowed hard and turned back to the book, thumbing through the pages.

  “Well—well—“ I began, “guess we can talk and study, too.”

  She rewarded me with a flashing smile and slid over so we could both share my geometry text. Hers lay on the table, unopened.

  We started through the text page by page, and I found there was little if any help needed by Camellia. She understood the concepts most as good as I did.

  It was nearly time for me to be hurrying off home when she looked up from the text. “Do you have any brothers or sisters, Joshua?” she surprised me by asking.

  I shook my head.

  “Me neither.” There was silence for a minute. I guess we were both thinking some on that.

  “Does it make you angry?” she asked in a quiet voice.

  “Angry?” Though I missed having a brother or a sister, I had never thought of being angry about it.

  “Yes. Angry.”

  “Guess not. Why?”

  Her brow furrowed in deep thought or consternation, I wasn’t sure which. “Sometimes it makes me angry,” she confided. “It used to make me terribly angry. I didn’t think it was fair at all. Everyone should have more family than just a mother and a father. Don’t you think?”

  I shrugged my shoulders carelessly. I wasn’t sure I was ready to tell Camellia the fact that I didn’t even have that much family.

  “But I don’t get as angry anymore,” went on Camellia. “In fact, I guess there are some good things about being an only child.”

  “Like?” I asked.

  “Well—“ she said slowly. “Like you.”

  “Me?”

  “Sure. If I was not an only child, then I probably wouldn’t get my own way all the time, and Mama and Papa might not have agreed to let you tutor me.”

  I felt my mouth drop open again.

  “It wasn’t hard to convince Papa. He gives me anything I want,” said Camellia, “but Mama can be awfully stubborn sometimes.”

  I had never heard a person talk like that about their own parents before, and I must confess I was a bit shocked. But Camellia said it so innocently, so frankly, that I found myself excusing her.

  “Do you always get your own way, Joshua?” she asked me.

  “I—I don’t know,” I said truthfully. “I’ve never thought on it before. I guess I’d never thought to even try.”

  “You haven’t?” The idea seemed preposterous to her.

  “Well—ah—well, they let me have my dog, Pixie, an’—”

  “You have a dog?”

  I nodded.

  “Oh, you’re so lucky. I’ve always wanted a dog, but Mama says, ‘Positively not.’ She has allergies. And she is so—so—”

  “Stubborn,” I whispered, and we both burst into laughter.

  The laughing must have jerked me back to reality, for my eyes traveled to the clock on the mantel.

  “I’ve got to get,” I said, jumping to my feet. “I’ll never get my chores done if I don’t hurry.”

  She looked like she wanted to ask me to stay longer, but she bit her lip and didn’t say anything.

  “Thank you, Joshua, for your help,” she said instead. “I’ll see you next Thursday.”

  Her comment brought me up short. I hardly knew what to say or how to say it.

  “Camellia,” I began, “you know the geometry as good as I do. I really didn’t help you none.”

  “But you did!” she insisted. “Please, Joshua. You promised. Please say you’ll come again.”

  That part was right, I had promised. The whole thing didn’t make much sense. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to come. And maybe—maybe I had helped her some.

  I smiled.

  “Sure,” I agreed. “I promised. I’ll see you next Thursday.”

  “Joshua,” she said with a big smile, “could you show me your little dog sometime?”

  “I’d love to. She can do all kinds of tricks and everything.”

  “But you can’t bring her here,” she frowned, “on account of Mama’s allergies.”

  “Then you can come home with me and see her. Ask your folks. Aunt Lou would love to meet you.”

  She smiled again—and I took that smile all the way home with me.

  CHAPTER 13

  Good Old-Fashioned School Days?

  WHEN I GOT TO SCHOOL the next morning, the word had already gotten around that I had been seen carrying Camellia’s books home. I never did find out who saw me and passed the news along, but it seemed to have done a bit of growing with its travels.

  Avery met me by the path that leads up to the school, just below the bare, gnarled branches of the old maple tree the town fathers had planted there so many years before our time.

  His first words were, “Is it true?”

  “Is what true?” I responded innocently.

  “ ’Bout you and Camellia?”

  My face started to redden. I had no idea what Avery had heard, but I had me a sinking feeling that some of it might be based on facts.

  “I dunno,” I said slowly, moving past Avery to continue up the path. “What’ve ya heard?”

  “That you went home with Camellia.”

  I nodded, agreeing that I had. “Her pa asked me to help her some with her geometry.” That sounded reasonable enough to me, but it didn’t to Avery.

  “Camellia?” he snorted. “Camellia? Camellia don’t need help with nothin’.”

  Just then Willie and Jack sauntered up.

  “Hey, listen to this, fellas,” Avery called out before they even joined us. “Josh here went home with Camellia to help her with her geometry.” He emphasized the words “help” and “geometry,” and just as he had expected, the other two fellas stopped short and howled.

  “Camellia?”

  “Help with geometry?”

  “Very funny, Josh!”

  “Honest!” I argued as I was slapped on the back and punched on the arm, my face getting redder by the minute. “Her pa asked me to.”

  “Oh, come on, Josh,” said Jack scornfully. “We’re not dumb enough to believe that story.”

  “What really happened?” demanded Avery.

  But before I could even answer, Jack was continuing. “I s’pose that’s why you carried her books and held her hand, too.”

  “I did not,” I denied hotly.

  “An’ I s’pose that’s why you stayed at her house till almost dark,” went on Tom Foster, who had just joined the inquisition.

  “An’ here you were pretendin’ to not even be interested in her,” went on Jack. “Whenever we’d talk about her or somethin’, you’d hush us up, or move away from us, or change the subject or somethin’. ‘We shouldn’t talk about people behind their back,’ you said. All you really wanted was to have her all to yourself.” Jack’s tone was so sarcastic, all I could do was stare at him.

  But Willie was laughing. He was in the mood for doing a little teasing.

  “An’ I s’pose you had ‘tea’ with her mother,” he said, and he held his fingers in a ridiculous pose and pretended to sip from a dainty cup.

  “I did not,” I denied, and then remembered the small cups and the flimsy pastries. Well, it hadn’t been with her mother.

  “An’ her pa said, ‘Josh-u-a, my boy, are your in-tentions hon-or-able?’ ” went on Tom, exaggerating every word and mannerism.

  He somehow managed to catch the look of Mr. Foggelson and I suppose even I would have laughed had not the joke been on me. Willie and Avery howled. Then I noticed that Jack didn’t join the laughter. His face looked about as red as mine felt. It took me a moment to realize why.

  Jack was sore. I knew he had been making quite a fuss over Camellia, but I sure hadn’t expected him to carry on in this fashion.<
br />
  My face was getting redder too, a lot of it from the anger churning away on my insides. I didn’t know where to start with my denying; so much of what was being said was the truth that it was hard to sort it out from the errors. I knew then why Gramps had tried to explain to me how dangerous half-truths are. A downright lie you can dismiss in a hurry, but when it gets all tangled up with a smattering of truth, it is awfully hard to untangle.

  I was genuinely saved by the bell. I had never been so glad to hear it ring in all my life.

  We ran toward the schoolhouse, but even as we tore over the schoolhouse yard, I was aware of Jack’s angry glances my way. When we jostled our way out of the boys’ cloakroom and Camellia was just leaving the girls’, her bright hair tossing about her shoulders and her cheeks flushed pink from the chill morning air, Jack gave me another black look. And then, to make matters even worse, Camellia flashed me one of her dazzling smiles and said, “Good morning, Joshua,” very softly, but it wasn’t soft enough for the other boys not to hear.

  Willie and Avery were fit to be tied. They jabbed me with their elbows and sniggered behind their wind-cold hands. Tom stuck out his foot to trip me and almost succeeded. But it was Jack that bothered me the most. He glared at me like I was suddenly his worst enemy. My face flushed red and my head clouded with confusion. What was all of this about anyway?

  The day didn’t improve much. The boys teased me every chance they got. Camellia flashed little smiles and fluttered her long eyelashes. Her silent signals made shivery feelings go slithering up my spine, but I hoped with all my heart that no one else was catching her at it.

  By noon it was not only the boys but the girls as well who were teasing me. They weren’t as bold about it, but the glances, the giggles, the laughter, all made me most uncomfortable. I was beginning to wish I had never seen or heard of Camellia Foggelson.

  But, no, that wasn’t fair—nor true. I knew that deep inside me, every time I stole a brief look at Camellia.

  Near the end of the class, Mr. Foggelson caught my eye and gave me a bit of a nod, which I had come to recognize as his signal that he wanted me to remain behind after class. Of all days to be doing that! The fellas would really make a case of it.

  At last the room seemed to be empty. I was still shuffling books around and pretending to look for something I couldn’t find. Mr. Foggelson moved from the chalkboards back toward my desk. I knew I had to look up. But, boy, it was hard to raise my eyes.

  “How’s the tutoring going, Josh-u-a?”

  He really did say my name that way. I hadn’t noticed it before.

  “Fine, sir,” I responded as clearly as my dry mouth would allow me.

  He nodded. “Camellia seems to understand the concept much better now.”

  I let the words settle about us, wondering just what to say next. We were both silent. It seemed like hours.

  “Then she won’t need any more help?” I asked, wondering if that made me sorrowful or relieved.

  “Oh yes,” he cut in quickly. “I’m sure she would appreciate a little more of your time—if you can spare it.”

  I wondered if he could hear my heart pounding, and then blushed at the thoughts of my classmates’ taunts. I swallowed again, then slowly nodded my assent.

  Mr. Foggelson sat down on the desk in front of me, a place we students were forbidden to sit. Slowly he brushed the chalk dust from his fingers. Then he pulled a white handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his hands clean. He had a strange look on his face—like disdain or disgust or something.

  “Fool dust,” he muttered. “Gets on everything. Your hands, your clothes—even up your nose.”

  I didn’t know how to respond so I didn’t say anything.

  “Don’t ever be a teacher, Joshua,” he said, still pronouncing my name like each syllable stood alone. He surprised me with the intensity in his voice as he stared over my head at some spot in the back of the room. “Poor pay, long hours, and a tough job. Day after day trying to pound a few facts into dense, uncaring little heads.”

  I wondered if he remembered I was still in the room. He seemed to be talking to himself—and he sounded bitter and depressed.

  I still did not make any comment.

  Suddenly he swung back to me, carefully tucking the handkerchief back into his trouser pocket. His expression changed and his eyes looked alive again.

  “You have a good mind, Joshua. The best I’ve ever had the privilege of working with. I can see your face light up with understanding and appreciation. You can go far, Joshua. Be anything you want to be.”

  I knew that somehow my ability to learn had brought some strange joy to Mr. Foggelson. I couldn’t understand just why, but it was enough to know that I had pleased him. I knew he was paying me a high compliment, yet I didn’t know what to say in response.

  “How would you feel about some special tutoring, Joshua?”

  I licked my lips and swallowed again. I wasn’t sure just what he meant by his question. Was he proposing now that Camellia tutor me? Boy, that would really make me the laughingstock of the school.

  “I have a good library of sorts, Joshua. Oh, it’s not big or grand, but it has some good basic books—books that would provide you with a great deal of information. I would no more consider bringing my books into the classroom for all of the students to paw over and mutilate and soil than—than throwing my daughter to the lions. But I would be happy to allow you the privilege of studying them—in my home—and of discussing the contents with me if you desire. What do you think?”

  I’m sure my mouth, as usual these days, hung open. I didn’t know what to think. I did love books, I did love learning new things—but Mr. Foggelson’s private collection? Would I be careful enough? Would I understand them? Would I find the time? It all made my head spin. And what about the fellas? If I spent even more time at the Foggelsons’, it was bound to mean more jokes.

  I knew Mr. Foggelson was waiting for my answer, but I still wasn’t sure what it should be.

  I swallowed nervously and forced myself to begin, even though I still wasn’t sure what words my voice would form.

  “That’s very kind, sir. I’m much obliged. I don’t really know what to say. I mean—well, I—I . . .”

  I stammered to a halt and Mr. Foggelson took over.

  “You do enjoy books?”

  “Oh yes, sir.” That was not hard to answer.

  “Then why the hesitation?”

  “Well, I—I,” I stumbled on, “I never thought of having so many books at one time—to learn from—an’ these are your own special books. I’d hate to mess ’em up or anything.”

  “I wouldn’t be afraid of you soiling my books, Joshua,” said the teacher. “I know you will give them your full respect.”

  “Yes, sir,” I hurriedly assured him.

  “Well—?”

  “I’ll need to check at home. I mean—I have . . .” I fumbled for words again.

  “Your chores. I know. But I’m sure we can work out something. Perhaps you would have some free time on Sunday afternoons.”

  I must have blinked. Studying was not done on Sundays at our house—not even studying for enjoyment.

  “Not on the Lord’s Day, sir,” I blurted out before I could even think about my selection of words.

  Mr. Foggelson’s eyes darkened. “I see,” he said, but I wondered if he really did.

  “Saturday?”

  “I always go home to the farm after school on Friday night or else early Saturday mornin’. Grandpa comes for me. I stay all day Saturday and most of Sunday with the menfolk.”

  “And chores every night?” questioned Mr. Foggelson.

  I nodded.

  Mr. Foggelson stood up, still brushing imaginary chalk dust from his hands.

  “So we have a problem?”

  “I’ll ask,” I cut in quickly. “I’ll talk to Aunt Lou—it’s gonna be hard to work it in. But I’ll ask.”

  “It’s not that I want to be pushy, Joshua. It’s jus
t that in my years of teaching I have never found a mind like yours. It would be—it would be a shame to waste it. Both for your sake—and for mine.”

  I didn’t know exactly what Mr. Foggelson was trying to say, but I nodded anyway. I did appreciate the fact that he was going out of his way to be kind to me and to encourage me to use the mind that God had given me. I smiled my thanks and began to gather up my books, but Mr. Foggelson was not done yet.

  “Have you given consideration to what you’d like to do with your life, Joshua? A lawyer? A surgeon? An architect?”

  I hadn’t given much thought to any of those things. But I had thought about what I might like to do with my life, all right.

  I smiled confidently at my teacher as I answered, “Yes, sir. A minister.”

  “A minister?” Mr. Foggelson shook his head slightly as if to clear cobwebs. I thought perhaps he had not understood me.

  “A minister—like my uncle Nat,” I explained to him.

  “Nat? Oh, yes. Nathaniel Crawford is your uncle, isn’t he? I had forgotten.”

  “Yep,” I said with a great deal of pride, “he’s my uncle.”

  I guess I had expected Mr. Foggelson to greet my announcement with a great deal of enthusiasm. He didn’t. He didn’t seem pleased at all. I couldn’t understand it. But then, I remembered, Mr. Foggelson did not attend church. He most likely did not understand much about being a pastor. Maybe I could bring a few of Uncle Nat’s precious books with me when I came to read from Mr. Foggelson’s library.

  I looked up. Mr. Foggelson was clearing his throat. Then he said a very unusual thing—more to himself than to me. “We’ll see,” he said. “We’ll wait and see.”

  CHAPTER 14

  Revenge

  I WAS STILL GETTING a great deal of ribbing at school. The fellas got a lot of laughs from it but they meant no harm. It wasn’t that way with Jack Berry. He had been my friend, a close friend. Now he rarely even spoke to me, just about me—and everything he had to say was mean and cutting.

  I was really sorry about this. I didn’t like having an enemy. I’d never had one before. Was he sore, too, about not getting to go on the camping trip? I just didn’t know what to do.