Read Online Brightest and Best by Olivia Newport - Free Book Online Page A

superintendent asked of her. School would begin in just over three weeks, and she had looked forward to pleasantly preparing her classroom, refreshing the lesson plans she had used successfully for the last four years to teach six-year-olds to read, and closing out the summer by canning the vegetables from her garden and the bushels of fruit the mercantile sold at irresistible prices this time of year.
    Making sure the Amish children turned up where the state expected them to be on September 9 was not something she knew how to do. Nor did she know what the consequences would be if she failed.
    On Friday morning, she once again checked the fuel gauge in her Model T. Armed with a list from the superintendent’s office of names and addresses of students they believed should enroll, she cranked the engine of her car and began to roll through the spidery miles of farms, hoping a strategy would take form in her mind as she drove.
    Gideon Wittmer came to mind again and again. The only two Amish fathers Margaret had met were Gideon and Mr. King, and between the two of them, Gideon seemed the clear choice for reasonable alliance.
    Not
alliance.
Margaret shivered against the word again. It sounded too much like the alliance of nations fighting the war in Europe. She did not want war, not in Europe and not in Seabury.
    Conversation.
That was a better word.
    Margaret turned her car toward the Wittmer farm. If she was going to please Mr. Brownley, she would have to start somewhere.
    “He isn’t home,” an elderly woman said when Margaret knocked on the Wittmer front door.
    Peeking around a corner was a pair of bright green eyes in a suntanned face framed by blond hair under a gossamer headpiece, the sort all the Amish women wore. Margaret could not remember what they called them.
    Margaret smiled at the little girl and said to the woman, “Do you know where I might find Mr. Wittmer?”
    The woman waved a hand first one direction and then the other. “He had some errands to do, some people to see.”
    “Maybe I could visit another day—soon,” Margaret said. “It is rather important that I speak to him.”
    The little girl came out from around the corner and tugged on the woman’s sleeve. “
Aunti
Miriam,
Daed
told me he was going to visit Mr. King, but he would be home for lunch.”
    Margaret glanced at her watch. It was nearly noon now. She had the Kings’ address on her list, showing several grade school children and a high school student.
    “Thank you.” Margaret beamed at the child. “You look like you’re old enough to start school.”
    “First grade!”
    “That’s just the grade I teach. Perhaps I’ll be your teacher.”
    The woman put a hand on the girl’s shoulder. “Gertie, please go set the table.”
    “I’m not trying to cause trouble,” Margaret said once Gertie went into the kitchen.
    “I’m sure you mean no harm,” the woman said. “I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you where Gideon is. You know these roads. He could be anywhere.”
    “I understand. If you would tell him that Miss Simpson was here, I would be grateful. I’ll try again another day.”
    Margaret drove toward the King farm, and her intuition was rewarded with an approaching Amish buggy. She pulled to the side of the road and waved. The buggy slowed, and she could see the driver was Gideon Wittmer. Margaret got out of her car and waved again.
    “Miss Simpson,” Gideon said from the seat at the front of the boxy buggy.
    “How fortunate to run into you,” she said. “I was hoping we could speak for a few minutes.”
    “What can I help you with?”
    “I’m considering forming a Parents Committee for United Schools.” The idea had sprung to her mind only moments before. “You’ve seen for yourself the quality of our school. Perhaps you would be so kind to serve on the committee and help other parents on the outlying farms to feel comfortable with the consolidated schools.”
    Gideon’s fingers twisted in the reins while his