Wicked Wyoming Nights by Leigh Greenwood Page B

child in the county needs to learn to read,” Eliza stated earnestly. “It will be doubly hard for them when they grow up. Aunt Sarah taught Uncle Ira, and she said teaching a grown person was the hardest thing she’d ever done.” She smiled ruefully. “It’s not easy for the children to concentrate on their work either when they know their friends are out in the hills having a delightful time.”
    “Miss Smallwood, Otis is pulling Sarah Jane’s pigtails.”
    Eliza felt trapped and rather irritated. It was hard enough to keep her wits about her in Cord’s presence without Melissa dropping trouble in her lap.
    “Tell him to stop, or I shall give him an extra page to copy out.”
    “I already did.”
    Eliza hesitated. She was too kindhearted to punish Otis in front of the others, but she couldn’t let his behavior go uncorrected.
    No such reluctance troubled Cord. “Otis Redding, if you touch Sarah Jane’s hair once more, I’ll tan your backside right here in the middle of the school yard.” The offender, in the process of possessing himself of the second pigtail of the shrieking Sarah Jane, stopped as if shot. He released his quarry, who ran away with shrill jeers and a promise to “sic my brother on your dirty hide.” The children resumed their activity, but at a subdued level.
    “You may go back and play, Melissa.”
    “I shall begin my reading.”
    Eliza wondered whether it was harder to endure Melissa’s help or Otis’s pranks.
    “You seem to have your hands full.”
    “They’re no problem really. They just kick up a fuss when they have free play. If Melissa could just learn to mind her own business …”
    Cord’s eyes seemed to laugh. “Content yourself with keeping Otis from cutting off Sarah Jane’s pigtails before the end of the summer.”
    “Do you think he would?”
    “Certainly. Think of what a trophy that would make.”
    “You’re teasing me again,” she said, feeling unaccountably shy. “I know I’ve got a lot to learn, but they are good children and they work so hard.”
    “Are you enjoying it?”
    “Yes, and no,” she confessed after a pause. “I love to see their faces when they learn something they didn’t know before and are so proud of themselves, but it’s an awful lot of work. I hardly have enough time to get everything done for the next day. And if all the students came who should, I never would catch up.”
    “Those missing students really disturb you, don’t they?”
    “Of course. Now that we’re a state, things are going to change quickly, and they’ll have to be properly educated or spend the rest of their lives regretting it.”
    “Don’t let them wear you down,” he said, moving toward his horse. “After all, you’re doing them a favor.” Eliza walked with him.
    “I’m being paid,” she said proudly. “Didn’t you know?”
    “No, but if you’re paid as much as a cowhand, I’d be surprised.”
    “I’m paid thirty-five dollars a month.”
    “Do you remember those two boys who stopped you at the creek, the ones who have trouble getting out of their own way? I pay them forty-five dollars a month, twelve months a year, not just four or five months in the summer. Go back and demand a raise.” He swung easily into the saddle. “Now I have to get back to my charges before some of them disappear.”
    Eliza was disappointed at his coolness and the briefness of his visit, but when she turned back to her students, she found several of them staring at her with open curiosity.
    “Was that Mr. Stedman?” asked one girl, agog with excitement.
    “Of course,” said one of her classmates. “Who else rides that big gelding and acts like he owns everything this side of Powder River?”
    “My dad says he’s a terrible fierce customer, and shoots people for the fun of it.”
    “That’s a lie. He just breaks their legs.”
    “You should not gossip,” Eliza admonished, horrified at the conception the children had of Cord. “Now it’s time to go