She looked up, surprised. Major Randolph stood in the door in a buffalo overcoat and leather gloves, his muskrat cap pulled low.
“There’s a lot of ignorance to stamp out,” she said. Then she clasped her hands together on her desk. “Nick Martin told me he could not read or write, but he had no trouble copying the spelling words. Was he injured when you found him?”
Major Randolph started to shake his head, but stopped. “There was evidence of an old injury on the side of his head.”
“I wonder who he really is.”
“Welcome to the mystery.”
The next day was even better. Shy at first to read aloud, the older students read their compositions about life at Fort Laramie, impressing Susanna with their knowledge of the area and the Indians. The young pupils contributed their mite, which made it easy to move into a discussion of local flora and fauna. Bobby Dunklin showed a real flair for drawing animals on the blackboard.
When they came back from luncheon, the air was charged with excitement that Susanna could almost feel through the floorboards. The little ones could barely sit still.
“What has happened?” she asked. “One at a time,” she said with a laugh as every hand went up.
She called on a lieutenant’s daughter, who stood up to answer, as Susanna had already taught them. “Mrs. Hopkins, it’s the most wonderful thing!” she began, practically dancing. “A supply wagon came through with boxes and barrels from back East. Christmas is finally here!”
The story came out in an excited jumble. Apparently a boxcar had been uncoupled at a Nebraska siding and then forgotten as the snow rose higher. A high wind uncovered it and the boxcar arrived in Cheyenne, where the U. S. Army unpacked it and sent belated presents in large crates to Fort Laramie and Fort Fetterman.
“Tonight everyone will unpack what should have arrived weeks ago?” Susanna asked.
It was simple to turn these good tidings of great joy into a composition, with older children to speculate on what might be in the boxes, and the younger ones to draw possible gifts. She let them out twenty minutes early; to have kept them would have been inhumane, in her mind.
“When you come back tomorrow, be prepared to tell me whether you were right or not,” Susanna called after them. She corrected the morning’s work, humming to herself. When she finished, it was still early enough to hurry to Private Benedict’s classroom in the commissary storehouse.
He was doing what she had just finished, if the stack of slates on his desk was any indication. He looked up, his smile genuine.
“I sent mine home early, too,” he told her. “Who can think about adding and subtracting when there is greater game afoot?” He sighed. “You never know about the army. One day it’s a ten-year supply of raisins or foot wash, and another it’s Christmas presents only a month late.”
“I sent my students home early after they wrote a quick composition on what they are hoping to receive, with the challenge to share it, in writing again, in the morning,” Susanna told him.
He nodded. “I did something similar, but don’t quite know what to do with the young ones who don’t read or write.”
“They can draw. Tomorrow, while the older ones are writing their compositions, you sit with your little ones and put together one composition, with all of them contributing something to the writing.”
“I should have thought of that,” he replied, shaking his head.
“You’ll learn.”
She stayed in the storehouse a few minutes more, but the private was obviously eager to return to his own quarters and see what might wait for him there. She knew there was nothing coming for her, so she walked up the hill to the hospital, where Major Randolph stood in his office, reaching deep into a crate filled with wood shavings. As she watched, he pulled out a black box.
“From your relatives?” she asked.
“Oh, no. They disowned me after I decided to stay with the Union,” he reminded her. “I bought myself a present.”
He set the box down carefully on his desk and unhooked the latches. He lifted up the sides to reveal a microscope. Susanna gasped and clapped her hands.
“Would you even consider letting me bring my older students up here to look through the microscope at something disgusting?”
He laughed out loud. “With pleasure. I’ll find a pair of my old socks. Maybe what I had for breakfast.”