She left him there in her classroom, carefully copying the alphabet, while she hurried to the Reeses’ for lunch. She ate alone in the kitchen, because Emily was upstairs trying to coax Stanley into a nap not of his choosing. Even if her cousin was unsuccessful, Susanna knew she would remain upstairs, avoiding her.
Lunch soon over, Susanna pulled on her coat and hurried across the parade ground and the footbridge to visit Maeve, sure of a warmer welcome. Maeve opened the door, her eyes bright. She tugged Susanna inside, sat her down and brought tea.
Susanna told her of the pupils aligning themselves according to rank, and Maeve nodded. “When we change garrisons, the officers’ wives and children travel first in the ambulances, and leave us in the dust behind them.”
“It’s hardly fair. What about women or children with asthma or other ailments?”
“Too bad for them,” Maeve said. “It’s the army way. You made their little darlings move back this morning, so you might get a protest.”
“Too bad for them,” Susanna joked, and they laughed together.
She stayed another five minutes, happy to see the sergeant’s wife on her feet. “Maeve, when you feel up to it, ask your friends if they’d like to learn to read and write. There’s no reason why we can’t use my Old Bedlam classroom at night.”
“Some might protest that, too,” Maeve said.
“Then I will ask Private Benedict if we can use his classroom in the storehouse,” Susanna told her.
She strode back across the parade ground with real purpose, head down against the perpetual Wyoming wind. She mentally rehearsed her afternoon’s activities, then just stood still a moment, grateful for this chance to teach again.
No one objected to a composition on their favorite thing about Fort Laramie. She gave them ample time, and turned her attention to her littlest pupils, helping them sound out the letters they had copied that morning.
When she dismissed them after recall from fatigue, the older boys thundered out, while the girls followed more sedately, some stopping to help Susanna get the little pupils into their coats. One girl even whispered, “It’s good to have school, Mrs. Hopkins.”
“I agree,” Susanna whispered back, warmed at the shy admission.
She swept the floor and banked the fire, while Nick Martin continued to sound out the alphabet and write on his slate. When he finished, he put it on her desk and left. She looked at what he had written. “‘At, bat, cat,’” she read out loud. “Good for you, Nick.”
She thought about him that evening as she sat at the kitchen table and prepared the next day’s assignments, which would include recitation of the compositions and a preview of arithmetic. She half hoped Major Randolph would wander by to see how her day had gone, even going so far as to walk into the parlor and peer discreetly out the window, looking for him. Snow was falling and she doubted he would come.
But there was Emily, sitting in her rocking chair and staring at Susanna, while her husband snored on the settee. Susanna had felt her cousin’s eyes boring into her back as she stood at the window.
“Yes?” she asked finally, tired of the scrutiny.
Emily couldn’t look at her. “Several ladies have remarked about the time you are spending over on Suds Row.”
“I suppose they would,” Susanna said, her face warm at the criticism over something so minor. “Sergeant Rattigan’s wife had a miscarriage and Major Randolph thought she might like to have someone read to her and keep her company.”
From the shock on Emily’s face, Susanna doubted anyone had ever said the word miscarriage aloud to her before.
“Maeve Rattigan just needed a friend, and … and maybe I did, too. Maeve’s better now, but I’ll have to warn you, I am planning to start a night school to teach some of the sergeants’ and corporals’ wives to read.”
“Won’t teaching during the day keep you busy enough?” Emily said.
Susanna wondered at the desperation in her cousin’s voice, curious why the fort’s wives seemed to think she was worth gossiping over. “I’m an educator. I want to help others.”
“I think you shouldn’t” was Emily’s lame reply.
“It’s a kindness to teach people to read and write,” Susanna insisted. She left the room, angry, stood in the hallway a moment and decided to go to her classroom.
Her anger dissipated as she lit the lamp and sat at her desk, looking at the empty desks and mentally repeating the name of each student. Even though the room was cold, her