The Hired Man. Lynna Banning
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at the door behind him, and all at once he heard singing.
Twenty or so students, ranging in age from about six or seven to a strapping blond boy of maybe fourteen, marched in two by two, singing “My Country ’tis of Thee.” A chill went up Cord’s spine.
Danny was the seventh in the line, walking next to a small blonde girl in a pink gingham dress. The boy looked like he wanted to sink through the floor.
The teacher, Mrs. Christina Panovsky, arranged them in rows against the front wall and turned to the audience. “Welcome, everyone. This is an extraordinary class of extraordinary young people—your sons and daughters. We want to share with you what we have been learning this school year.”
What followed was impressive. Four students acted out a scene from a play about Robin Hood they had written themselves. Then a small choir sang “Comin’ Through the Rye” in three-part harmony and a larger choir presented a “spoken word” song, a clever recitation of geographical names chanted in complicated rhythms. “Ar-gen-tin-a. Smoke Riv-er. Clacka-mas Coun-ty. Mex-i-co Ci-ty.”
Molly loved it; she bounced up and down on his lap in time with the words.
Finally Danny stepped forward to deliver his speech.
Molly sat up straight and craned her neck to see. Eleanor clutched Cord’s arm. He felt a tightening in his chest.
“Ladies and gentlemen...” The boy’s voice shook slightly, but as he progressed through his speech it grew stronger, and when he finished with, “We are one people, one nation... We are Americans,” his words rang with assurance. He stepped back to spirited applause.
Eleanor still clutched his arm, and now she was crying. Cord pried her fingers off his bicep and pressed his handkerchief into her hand.
“Th-thank you,” she wept.
It made him chuckle deep down inside. Molly twisted around and flung her small arms about his neck. “Wasn’t Danny wunnerful? I wanna go to school, too!”
Following Danny’s speech there were more songs and recitations, ending with the little blonde girl in the pink dress, who sang a haunting folk song, first in French and then in English. Something about yellow daisies in a meadow.
“That’s Manette Nicolet,” Eleanor whispered. “Her mother is French, from New Orleans. Her father is Colonel Wash Halliday, over there.” She tipped her head to the right, where a small, very attractive woman sat holding the hand of a well-muscled gent with a bushy gray-peppered mustache. His eyes were so shiny Cord could see the moisture from here.
“Colonel, huh?” he murmured. “Blue or gray?”
“Blue, I think. Union. His full name is George Washington Halliday. It’s her second marriage. Her first husband was killed in the War.”
“The daughter, Manette, doesn’t look much older than Molly. Looks like she does well in, uh, school.”
Eleanor let the remark lie.
When the presentations and recitations drew to a close, Mrs. Panovsky invited them all to stay for cookies and lemonade.
“Oh, boy, lemonade!” Molly sang. She scooted off Cord’s lap and bobbed excitedly at her mother’s side until Eleanor rose and moved toward the refreshment table in the far corner. Cord was about to follow when a feminine voice called his name.
“Why, Cordell Winterman, is that really you?” A ruffle-bedecked Fanny Moreland made a beeline across the room toward him. “Y’all remember me, don’t you? Carl Ness introduced us at the mercantile? You were buying coffee and lemon drops and—”
“Chicken mash,” Eleanor said from beside him.
“Oh, hello, Mrs. Malloy. I haven’t seen you in town for such a long time I thought you might be...well...you know, expecting. Are you?”
“Expecting what?” Eleanor inquired with a perfectly straight face.
“Um...well, you know,” Fanny said, lowering her voice. “Expecting a...baby.” She whispered the last word.
“I am not, thank you,” Eleanor replied, her voice cool. “My husband, you may recall, has been away for some years.”
Fanny looked nonplussed for just an instant. “Oh, that’s right, I remember now. Why, you’re practically a widow!”
Molly reached up and gave Fanny’s flounced skirt a sharp tug. “That’s not very nice! My mama is not a widow.”
Cord lifted Molly into his arms and started to move away, but Fanny wasn’t finished yet.
“Oh, Cordell, I am so terribly thirsty. Would you be so kind as to fetch me some lemonade?”
Cord gave her a level look. “Sorry, Miss Moreland. As you can see, I have my hands full.” He shifted Molly’s weight to emphasize his point.
“Why, who is this darling little girl?” Fanny gushed. “Surely you are not the father? You’re not married, are you, Cordell?”
“No, he’s not!” Molly blurted out. “I’m Molly, and he’s not married. He lives with us!”
Fanny’s expression changed. “Oh, you mean with Mrs. Malloy?”
Molly nodded. “Yes, with my mama.”
Cord cleared his throat. “I work for Mrs. Malloy. I’m her hired man.”
“Well, isn’t that interesting! I was just about to pay a call on Mrs.—”
“No, you weren’t,” Cord interjected.
“Well, why ever not? I only want to extend a friendly gesture.”
“You want a helluva lot more than that, Miss Moreland. And I’m not interested.”
The smile on the young woman’s face never wavered. “Oh, come now. I’m sure you don’t really mean that, do you, Cordell?”
Molly squirmed. “Oh, yes he does!” she shouted.
Cord could have kissed her. He spotted Danny across the room. “Excuse us, Miss Moreland.”
He met the boy halfway across the room. “Didja see me, Cord? Was I all right?”
Cord dipped to extend his hand to Danny without dislodging Molly. “You were very all right, Dan. Congratulations.”
He took the boy’s small hand in his and gave him a firm, manly handshake. Danny grinned up at him and Cord thought the boy was going to float up off the floor.
After cups of watery lemonade and too many chocolate cookies, Cord herded his little entourage out the door and across the schoolyard to their waiting wagon. He tightened the cinch on the gray horse, lifted Molly into the back and watched Danny climb in beside her. Then he walked around to the other side, where Eleanor stood.
He didn’t even ask, just slipped both hands around her waist and lifted her onto the wooden seat. She said nothing until he drove out of the schoolyard and started on the road out of town.
“It must be wonderful to be young and pretty,” Eleanor said at last. She kept her voice down so Molly and Danny in the back of the wagon couldn’t hear.
“It’s wonderful to be young, for sure,” Cord said. “Don’t know about being ‘pretty.’”
“Men don’t worry about ‘pretty.’ Women do.”
“Are you jealous of Fanny Moreland?”
Eleanor jerked. Oh, Cord could be so maddeningly blunt! No, she wasn’t jealous of Fanny. She did envy her boldness, though. She was jealous of Fanny’s youth. She acknowledged that she had squandered her own, trying to be a good mother to Danny and Molly