The contract was three pages long. Norabas had read it twice before signing it, something Mr. Aldrich, representative of the Harlen Cek, Texas School Board, clearly did not expect. I had seen it on her face when she turned the first page and started on the second. An expression somewhere between surprise and something akin to discomfort, as if reading an entire contract before signing it were a sign of distrust and not simply common sense.
She had signed it anyway. Classroom, salary of $22 per month. Accommodation included with a local family. Transportation from Cincinnati paid for by the council. Everything is in order. Everything is clear. What the contract didn’t say was whose house. Nora was 29 years old and had been teaching in Ohio for six years.
First in a city school with 40 students per classroom. Then, in a smaller one on the outskirts, where children arrived with mud on their boots and hungry from early in the morning , she knew what it was to work. She knew what it was like to be looked at strangely for not being married yet, for speaking directly, for not lowering her eyes when someone said something that didn’t make sense. In Cincinnati that was tolerated.
In Harlen Cek, Texas, in the summer of 1878, it was yet to be discovered what it was. He got off the train with two suitcases, one with clothes and personal belongings, the other with books and teaching materials. and a Spanish dictionary that she had bought three weeks earlier because someone in Cincinnati had told her that there were children in Texas who spoke both languages and that she had better be prepared.
Mrs. Aldrich was waiting for her on the platform. She was a woman in her fifties wearing a dark dress, with a smile that came a second earlier than it should have and lasted a second longer than necessary. Welcome to Harlen Creek, Miss Bas. ” Thank you,” Nora said. The school is far away. Mrs. Aldrich blinked.
Two blocks away, he said, “but first I’ll take her to where she’s staying so she can leave her things and rest from the trip.” “I’m fine,” Nora said. “I’d rather see about school first. Another blink.” Another smile that lasted a moment too long. “Of course,” said Mrs. Aldrich. The school was a rectangular wooden room with 12 desks, a blackboard at the front, and two windows facing north.
It wasn’t big, but it was enough. Nora walked between the desks, ran her hand over the blackboard, and looked at the ceiling where there was a damp patch in the right corner. “How many students?” he asked. Between 16 and 20. It depends on the season. Truths of 6 to 14 materials. The council has a budget. We explained it to you this week.
Nora nodded. He mentally noted down budgets without a specified amount. Damp stain on ceiling. Enough desks. Startable. ” Okay,” he said. Now then, take me to where I’m staying. They walked three blocks north. outside the town center, along a dirt road that wound between increasingly separated houses. Nora noticed that Mrs.
Aldrich wasn’t speaking. She also noticed that two women on the sidewalk stopped to watch them pass by with an expression that wasn’t exactly curiosity, it was expectation, like someone waiting to see someone’s face when they open a gift they didn’t ask for. The house was large by the village standards.
Dark wood, a porch with two chairs, a corral to the left and further back, what looked like a small lake where four or five white ducks were swimming for no apparent reason. Nora stopped here. ” Mr. Reyes has the most comfortable guest room in town,” Mrs. Aldrich said with the same smile as before. “And he’s been alone ever since his mother went to live with her sister in San Antonio.” It’s the most convenient thing to do.
Mr. Reyes knows she arrived today.” Of course. And he agreed. A pause. “It was the council’s idea,” Mrs. Aldrich said. He didn’t object. Nora looked at the house, looked at the ducks, looked at Mrs. Aldrich, who held her gaze with that smile that was beginning to seem like a kind of shield. She didn’t object.
It wasn’t the same as agreeing, but it wasn’t the same as refusing either. They went up the porch steps. Mrs. Aldrich knocked twice. There were footsteps inside. The door opened. Cayón Reyes was younger than Nora had imagined. In his early thirties, with dark hair tinged with red that betrayed his Irish heritage, large hands with dirt still clinging to his knuckles, even though it was mid- afternoon, he looked directly at her, just as she looked at him, with an expression Nora could easily read because it was the same one she wore. “
This wasn’t my idea, Miss Bas,” he said. ” Welcome, Mr. Reyes,” she replied. “I hope I’m not causing you any inconvenience.” ” No,” he said He did. And then, after a second, no more than usual. It was a joke. He didn’t say it as a joke, but it was one. Nora entered the house with her two suitcases. Mrs.
Aldrich said goodbye with another smile and walked off toward town with the gait of someone who has just completed a mission and can’t wait to tell about it. The guest room was clean and had a window facing east. On the dresser sat a pitcher of fresh water and a folded towel. Someone had swept recently. The floor still smelled of damp wood. Cayum Reyes left the suitcases by the door and stood in the doorway.
” Dinner is at 6,” he said. “If you get hungry first, there’s bread in the kitchen.” “Thank you,” Nora said. He nodded and left . Nora sat on the edge of the bed and looked out the window. Outside, the Texas sun beat down on the corral and the ducks swam leisurely in their lake , as if everything were in perfect order.
He thought about the contract, the three pages, everything in order, everything clear, except for this. If there is one thing these stories have in common, it is that, what is not said on paper, what the people decided before she arrived. If this story resonated with you, subscribe. The next one is coming soon. The first week of classes was exactly what Nora expected and nothing like what the town expected.
The children arrived on the first day with the usual shyness and evaluated her as children evaluate new adults, silently, with their eyes, gauging whether they should be afraid of her or if they could relax. Nora was aware of that assessment. I had gone through it 12 times in 6 years. He spoke directly to them from the first day, told them what they were going to learn and why, asked them their names and repeated them until they pronounced them correctly.
When an 8-year-old girl named Lupita told her that they spoke Spanish at her house, Nora took out the dictionary she had bought in Cincinnati and put it on the desk. “Then you’re going to help me,” he said. Lupita looked at her as if no one had ever told her that before. By the end of the first week, 19 students were arriving on time.
The town was another matter. The women on the council invited her to join them on Wednesday. They were kind in that particular way that kindness has when it’s actually an inspection. They asked her about her family in Ohio, why she wasn’t married, if she planned to stay for a long time, and if she found Mr. Reyes’ house comfortable.
Nora answered everything accurately and without giving more than what was asked. I had no family in the west. She wasn’t married because she hadn’t found a good enough reason. His continued employment depended on the contract. The house was adequate. There was silence after that last answer. Kayum is a good man, said one of the women in a tone that wasn’t exactly information, but more like a suggestion.
“I don’t doubt it,” Nora said. And he changed the subject. Things at home were simpler than the town seemed to imagine. Cay Reyes would get up before dawn, have breakfast alone, and go out to the ranch. When Nora came down at 6:30, there was coffee made and sometimes bread. They ate dinner together because the house only had one table and doing it any other way would have been absurd.
They talked, not much, but they talked. On the second night, he asked her how the first day of classes had gone. She answered. He asked her about the ducks because it was the obvious question and he had n’t asked it yet. Kayun placed the cup on the table. “My mother brought them here 4 years ago,” she said.
He said that a ranch without something useless and beautiful wasn’t a home. He paused. When he went to San Antonio, he didn’t take them with him. Nora looked towards the window where outside the small lake still shone with the last light. Do you take care of them? Someone has to do it. It wasn’t a complaint, it was simply a fact stated with the same neutrality with which he seemed to say everything.
Like someone who does what needs to be done without needing it to seem important. Nora thought that was quite strange. The weeks passed. The people continued to watch with that particular expectation of someone who has started something and is waiting to see the result. The women on the council greeted her with beaming smiles.
Mr. Aldrich asked her twice unnecessarily if everything was alright in the house. Everything was fine at home. What Nora hadn’t considered was that it could very well become something more than good without there being an exact moment when that would happen. It was a Tuesday afternoon. She was grading exams at the kitchen table when Kayum came in with a duck under his arm, something that under any other circumstances would have seemed strange, but at that point it no longer surprised her.
” His leg is injured,” he said. I don’t know if it’s serious. Nora looked at him. He looked at the duck. He looked at Kayun. I know nothing about ducks. ” Me neither,” he said. But you look like you know how to find solutions. It was, in his manner of speaking, a considerable compliment. They looked in the only veterinary medicine book in the house, which was actually a livestock manual with two pages on poultry.
It didn’t say anything useful about ducks. Specifically, Cayumentablilló splinted the leg anyway, with a piece of wood and a strip of cloth, with a concentration and care that Nora observed without saying anything. The duck survived. That night at dinner, neither of them mentioned what had happened, but something had changed in the way the silence between them filled the space.
It was no longer the silence of two people sharing a house for convenience. It was a different kind of silence, more comfortable, more honest. He was the one who said it first. One Friday night, as summer began to recede and the Texas air had its first breath of fresh air, the council thought that if you stayed here, things might just work themselves out.
Nora put the cup down on the table. “I know,” he said. Since when? From Mrs. Aldrich’s smile on the platform, Kayom nodded and looked out the window. ” I didn’t ask for it,” he said. I know. But I didn’t think the idea was bad either, he said more slowly. Nora didn’t respond immediately after I saw her at the door . Outside the wind stirred the grasses and the invisible ducks on the dark lake.
They made that low noise that ducks make when they are calm. “About the duck,” she finally said. That was what he decided. Kayun looked at her. The duck. “You splinted a duck’s leg with a piece of wood and a piece of cloth,” Nora said. With that care. That says more about a person than anything the council could have told me. He didn’t say anything for a moment.
” The duck is fine,” he finally said. I know . Nora said. And that was enough between them . Nora Bas’s contract with the Harlen Creek, Texas, School Board was for one year. At the end of that year, the board offered to renew it. She asked for three days to think about it, which Mr.
Aldrich did not expect, although he should have learned that by now. He signed it. There were things that the contract didn’t say. It said nothing about the ducks. It said nothing about dinners at the table with only one chair free. He said nothing about a man who splinted injured birds at 4 in the afternoon with the same care he put into everything he did without announcing it.
But there were things that didn’t need to be written down to be real. In the 1870s and 1880s, hundreds of women traveled to the American West, hired as teachers by towns that needed schools. Many came from the east with education but no family in that direction. The contract offered them a salary, a classroom, and accommodation.
What wasn’t in the contract was almost always the most important thing. Norabas arrived in Harlen Creek with two suitcases and a Spanish dictionary. She ended up with something she hadn’t come looking for, which is sometimes exactly how it has to be. M.
Disclaimer : This content may be created by AI for entertainment purposes. Any resemblance to real persons, events, or places is coincidental.
