Read Online Her Captain's Heart by Lyn Cote - Free Book Online Page B

the uncertainty she was feeling, and walked up the steps. Then she lifted her suddenly unusually heavy arm to knock on the door. It was opened by a black girl of about thirteen in a faded blue dress with tight braids in rows around her head. “Good morning,” Verity greeted her. “Is the vicar in?”
    â€œYes, ma’am.” The young girl eyed her as if wanting to say something, but unsure if she should.
    â€œMay I see him, please?” Verity smiled, her lips freezing in place.
    The girl stepped back and let her in. “Wait here, please, ma’am.”
    Verity waited just inside the front door.
    Within short order, the pastor emerged from the back of the house. He looked shocked to see her in his house—just what she’d expected. In everyday clothing, he appeared shorter and slighter than he had in his white vestments. He was rail-thin, like most everyone else in town, with gray in his curly brown hair.
    â€œGood morning,” she said, greeting him brightly with false courage. “I was wondering if I could have a few moments to discuss something with you.”
    The man looked caught off guard and puzzled. “I…I don’t know what we’d have to discuss.”
    She tried to speak with the boldness of the apostle Paul. “I have come with funds and the authority from the Bureau of Refugees, Freedman and Abandoned Lands to open a school in Fiddlers Grove.”
    He gaped at her.
    â€œAnd I need thy help.” Her frozen smile made it hard to speak.
    â€œMy help? I’ve read about that infernal bureau in the paper. I’m not helping them. Bunch of interfering…” He seemed at a loss for words to describe the Freedman’s Bureau in front of a lady.
    â€œI hope you will listen to what I have to say.” She swallowed to wet her dry throat.
    â€œYou are mistaken, ma’am. We lost the war, but that does not mean that we want Yankees telling us how to live our lives and taking our land.” He moved forward as if ready to show her the door.
    â€œI beg thy pardon, but how is having a school in Fiddlers Grove telling thee how to live thy life?” she asked, holding her ground.
    â€œIf it doesn’t affect me, then why discuss it with me?”
    â€œPlease let me at least explain what I propose. Does thee have an office where we might discuss this in private?” I will not be afraid.
    Maybe her calm persuaded him or the Lord had prepared her way, but he nodded and showed her to a den off the parlor. He left the door open and waved her to a chair. He took a seat behind a fine old desk. “Please be brief. I am studying for my next sermon.”
    Verity nodded, drew in air and said, “I did not realize that there was no free school here. I was a schoolteacher for two years before I married. It grieves me to see children growing up without education.”
    He glanced at the clock on the mantel. “I, too, wish there could be a free school in town, but there wasn’t one before the war and there won’t be one now that everyone is in such difficult financial straits.”
    She pressed her quivering lips together, knowing that her next words would shock him. “I have come to set up a school to teach black children and adults. But I think that it would be wrong to set up a school for only black children when the white children have no school. Doesn’t thee agree?”
    He stared at her. “Are you saying that you could set up two schools?”
    â€œNo. Why not one school for children of both races?” She forced out the words she knew would provoke a reaction.
    â€œYou are out of your mind. This town would never accept a school that mixed black and white children.”
    Praying, she looked at his bookshelves for a few moments and then turned back to him. “I don’t understand. Is the offer of free education something to be refused?”
    â€œThe kind of free education you are talking