Brightest and Best Read online

  © 2015 by Olivia Newport

  Print ISBN 978-1-62836-633-4

  eBook Editions:

  Adobe Digital Edition (.epub) 978-1-63409-559-4

  Kindle and MobiPocket Edition (.prc) 978-1-63409-560-0

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted for commercial purposes, except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without written permission of the publisher.

  All scripture quotations are taken from the King James Version of the Bible.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any similarity to actual people, organizations, and/or events is purely coincidental.

  Cover design: Faceout Studio, www.faceoutstudio.com

  Published in association with the Books & Such Literary Agency, 52 Mission Circle, Suite 122, PMB 170, Santa Rosa, CA 95409-5370, www.booksandsuch.com

  Published by Shiloh Run Press, an imprint of Barbour Publishing, Inc., P.O. Box 719, Uhrichsville, Ohio 44683, www.shilohrunpress.com

  Our mission is to publish and distribute inspirational products offering exceptional value and biblical encouragement to the masses.

  Printed in the United States of America.

  CHARACTERS

  Ella Hilty

  Jed Hilty—Ella’s father

  Rachel Hilty—Jed’s wife, Ella’s stepmother

  David Kaufman—Rachel’s son from her first marriage, Ella’s stepbrother

  Seth Kaufman—Rachel’s son from her first marriage, Ella’s stepbrother

  Gideon Wittmer

  Betsy (Lehman) Wittmer—Gideon’s wife, who died five years ago

  Tobias Wittmer—Gideon’s son

  Savilla Wittmer—Gideon’s daughter

  Gertrude “Gertie” Wittmer—Gideon’s daughter

  Lindy Lehman—sister of Betsy Lehman, best friend of Rachel Hilty

  James and Miriam Lehman—uncle and aunt of Betsy and Lindy

  Margaret Simpson—first-grade teacher at Seabury Consolidated Grade School

  Gray Truesdale—Margaret Simpson’s beau

  Braden Truesdale—Gray’s brother

  Percival T. Eggar, Esquire, Attorney at Law

  Ulysses R. Brownley—superintendent of Seabury schools

  Deputy Fremont—deputy sheriff

  Mr. Tarkington—principal of Seabury Consolidated Grade School

  Amish Families:

  Isaiah Borntrager Family

  Cristof Byler Family

  Bishop Leroy Garber Family

  Joshua Glick Family

  John and Joanna Hershberger Family

  Aaron and Alma King Family

  Chester Mast Family

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  CHAPTER 1

  Geauga County, Ohio, 1918

  Don’t take another step!”

  Ella froze. Her eyes flashed between the red rug on the floor in front of her and Nora Coates at the blackboard.

  The schoolteacher’s calico skirt swished softly as she came around the desk.

  Ella relaxed her muscles but did not move her feet. “What’s the matter?”

  “You haven’t been here in a long time, have you?” Nora stood six feet in front of Ella.

  Ella Hilty was twenty-six, at least three years older than Nora. She left school after the eighth grade, half a lifetime ago, and had only occasional reason to be inside the one-room schoolhouse since then.

  “The children all know how soft the floor is right there,” Nora said. “The red rug reminds them, and they walk around the other way.”

  “Soft?” Ella echoed.

  Nora grimaced. “Rotted is a more precise word.”

  Ella wasn’t sure whether she felt the spongy floor yield beneath her weight or only imagined it.

  “Nellie Watson put her foot through it a few months ago,” Nora said. “I never heard such shrieking from a child of school age.”

  “I will step carefully if you would kindly advise me,” Ella said.

  “Take a long step to your left and you should be on solid ground again.”

  Ella turned her gaze to an open space under a window and lifted her skirt just enough to accommodate the movement. Safely out of the danger zone, she squatted and lifted one corner of the red rug. Beneath it, the dank wood floor had caved in, splintered edges ringing the spot where Nellie Watson’s foot must have sunk through.

  “It’s been wet from underneath,” Ella said.

  Nora nodded. “Three winters ago, during my first year teaching, Mr. King patched it, but it didn’t hold.”

  Ella straightened the rug and stood. She understood now why Nora had asked for representatives of the parents committee to inspect the schoolhouse in the middle of July. There was time for repairs before the children returned to school in September.

  “Did you attend school here?” Nora asked.

  Ella nodded. She had lived in Geauga County, Ohio, all her life.

  “The blackboard was new when I started,” Ella said. Twenty years ago the new chalk had flashed white under the teacher’s firm, quick strokes against the board. Ella had never seen anything like it. But she was six, had seen little of anything beyond the Amish farms, and only learned to speak English after she started school.

  “The blackboard is still serviceable,” Nora said, “but I wish one of the men would be sure it is properly secured. Sometimes the children lean on the chalk ledge when I ask them to come to the board to show their work. The creaks I hear are unnerving.”

  Gertie would do that. Gideon’s daughter was newly six and due to begin school in a few weeks.

  “I loved school.” Ella moved cautiously toward the front of the room. She examined the strained wooden slats of the chalk ledge.

  “Did you ever think of staying in school?” Nora’s eyes brightened with curiosity.

  Ella shook her head. Her parents never kept her from her books. She borrowed whatever she wanted to read from the small library in town. Besides, her eighth-grade year was also the year of her mother’s death, and Ella took on housekeeping for her father. The youngest of eight children, she was the only one unmarried and living at home.

  That was twelve years ago, and Ella was still the only sibling unmarried and living at home. Now, though, there was Rachel. Jed Hilty had a new wife.

  Gertie Wittmer jumped unassisted out of her father’s wagon. Gideon’s impulse was to reach out and catch her, but she wouldn’t want him to. She never did. Of his three
children, the youngest was the most independent. Tobias was obedient, Savilla was sensible, and Gertie was independent. Perhaps this was because Gertie didn’t remember what it was like to have a mother and the others did.

  Gertie’s small form hit the ground in a solid leap, and she grinned at him before running toward the schoolhouse. Perhaps he ought to warn Miss Coates to exercise extra firmness in helping Gertie adjust to the decorum of a classroom.

  “Ella’s here!” Gertie disappeared into the building.

  His daughter’s exuberance at the prospect of seeing Ella pleased Gideon. His own exceeded Gertie’s, and for a moment he envied her freedom to express herself unconstrained. For obvious reasons, Ella was not part of the parents committee, which consisted of two Amish fathers and two English fathers. Both groups of children shared the schoolhouse, as they had for decades. Gideon had asked Ella to come, believing that a woman might see flaws in the schoolhouse that men would not.

  Gideon looped the reins over a low branch of a flowering dogwood tree and followed his daughter into the school.

  In the doorway, he held his pose. It was a long time after Betsy’s death, when Gertie was a baby, before he saw Ella’s loveliness. With an arm around his daughter, Ella raised her dark eyes toward Gideon, testing the softness at his core. Surely it was God’s will that they should be together. Why else would a woman like Ella not have married years ago?

  “Oh good, you’re here,” Miss Coates said.

  Gideon’s head turned toward the rattle of wagons behind him, bringing Aaron King and the two English fathers. They had six weeks to ready the building. Aaron’s eyes would see the small flaws that could be remedied easily, but Miss Coates had already impressed on Gideon that the building needed more than fresh paint and polished desks.

  The three fathers thumped in, their boots seeming heavy against the floor.

  Walter Hicks rapped his knuckles against a vertical beam. “My boy warned me that things might be worse than we thought.”

  “Theodore is an astute young man,” Miss Coates said.

  Gertie ran a finger down the chalkboard and studied the resulting smudge.

  Gideon glanced around. “Since we’re all here, Miss Coates, perhaps you can point out to us particular matters of concern.”

  The teacher pointed up, above Walter’s head. “I keep an extra bucket under my desk because every time it rains, that spot leaks. It got a lot worse in the spring.”

  “I’ve got a few spare shingles,” Aaron King said.

  Gideon watched as Gertie ducked under the teacher’s desk and rattled the metal bucket.

  “Gertie,” he said, and the girl emerged and moved to one of the two-seater desks in ragged rows. She looked small sitting there, and the thought that his youngest child was beginning school knotted him.

  Ella pointed at the red rug. “Did you know there’s a gaping hole in the floor?”

  Gideon was not surprised about the roof, but he had not heard about the floor.

  “The windows need sealing,” Miss Coates said.

  Gideon crossed to a window and ran a finger along its edges. “They need a lot more than sealing.” Even his slight touch broke off bits of the crumbling frame. It was likely the other five windows were just as dilapidated.

  “When the wind blows in the winter, the entire building creaks,” Miss Coates said.

  “All buildings settle and creak,” Gideon said, glancing at Gertie, who mimicked his movements on another window beside Ella.

  “It’s not that kind of noise,” the teacher retorted. “It’s the sort that makes one think the ceiling might come down. The students become quite distracted.”

  “How did it get to be so bad?” Walter Hicks wanted to know.

  Aaron King shrugged. “One day at a time.”

  Robert Haney, the second English father, spoke for the first time. “We get busy with the summer harvest and then planting and then the fall harvest.”

  “And then the children are back in school,” Miss Coates said. “You’re all busy with your farms, but I do feel that for the safety of the children, this is the time for a concerted effort.”

  Gideon tilted his head back to inspect the ceiling beams. “Perhaps we should ask the school district for funds to build a new structure entirely. If we had the supplies we need, I’m sure the Amish families would be happy to build.”

  “One of your frolics?” Walter said.

  Gideon nodded. With proper planning, the Amish erected barns in only a couple of days. A one-room school should not be difficult to organize.

  “I doubt the district would underwrite the construction,” Robert said. “I see in the newspaper all the time how the schools lack proper funding. And the process of requesting funds and awaiting a decision would take longer than we have before school begins again.”

  “Perhaps we just need to impress upon the authorities the extent of the need,” Ella said.

  “I’ve been trying and trying,” Miss Coates said. “It’s as if the superintendent turns and walks the other way when he sees me coming.”

  “Gertie,” Gideon said, “come stand with your daed.”

  Walter Hicks leaned against a beam, as if to test its strength.

  The cracking sound pulled Gideon’s heart out of his chest.

  “Watch out!” Gideon’s voice boomed.

  Ella lurched toward Gertie and snatched her up.

  “No!” Gertie writhed in protest.

  Ella held tight.

  “Gertie!” The edge in Gideon’s voice startled his daughter into compliance.

  Ella held the girl in a viselike grip and stumbled through a maze of desks toward the back of the schoolhouse. Above her, the ceiling split open.

  “I see the sky!” Gertie said.

  Ella squeezed tighter, wishing she had a third hand for raising the hem of her skirt so she could see her feet and move faster.

  “Ella! Gertie!”

  Ella turned toward Gideon’s frantic voice, a tone she had never heard from him before. She stumbled where two desks narrowed the aisle and shoved at one of them with her hip.

  “I’ve got her,” Ella shouted. “Everybody get out!”

  Nora moved quickly. Mr. Hicks and Mr. Haney hesitated but headed for the door. Ella had her eye on the opening. Behind her, the front wall of the classroom groaned. In reflex, Ella turned her head toward the sound. The blackboard snapped off the wall on one end, rent down the center, and dangled.

  Ella gave the obstructive furniture one last shove as the structure heaved. A fracture traveled above her head. Half the ceiling crashed down, strewing debris. Ella did not see the origin of the board that smacked the back of her head.

  CHAPTER 2

  Gideon shouldered past Aaron King and back into the schoolhouse.

  “Ella!”

  “Here!”

  Her voice led Gideon to the shelter Ella had found under a desk, her arms still clasping his daughter.

  “Has it stopped?” Anxiety threaded Ella’s voice.

  “For now.” Gideon squatted and reached to take Gertie from Ella. “Come quickly.”

  With his daughter over his shoulder, Gideon reached for Ella’s hand, not caring who might see the affection between them. Only when they were safely out in the sunlight did he realize Gertie was limp against his neck.

  “Gertie!”

  The child made no sound. Gideon knelt to lay her on the ground and rubbed a hand over her face. “Gertie!”

  “She was fine when I went under the desk.” Ella knelt beside Gideon.

  Gertie’s intake of air came before she opened her eyes. Gideon exhaled his own breath.

  “Daed.”

  “I’m right here.”

  “I don’t want to go to that school.”

  “Does anything hurt?” Gideon put a thumb under Gertie’s chin and looked into her eyes, satisfied that all he saw was shock.

  “No. Ella wouldn’t let go.”

  “She wanted to keep you safe.” Gideon turned
grateful eyes to Ella. “Thank you. I would never have reached her in time.”

  “As far as it is within my power, I would never let anything happen to Gertie,” Ella said.

  Gideon looked carefully at Ella now. She was noticeably more scraped up than Gertie. Bits of wood stuck to her bonnet, and gray dust spattered her blue dress. “What about you? Are you hurt?”

  She put a hand to the back of her head. “Something took a whack at me. I may have a bit of a headache tonight.”

  “Promise me you’ll rest.”

  She nodded, and Gideon allowed himself to meet and hold her gaze.

  “I want to go home,” Gertie said. “Carry me.”

  “Of course,” Gideon said. “First show me that you can move your arms and legs.”

  Gertie responded by moving all four limbs at once. “Now can we go home?”

  Gideon slid his arms under Gertie’s shoulders and knees and unfolded his stocky form as if she weighed nothing more than the wind.

  Miss Coates stepped toward them. “I’m sorry. Even I did not realize the true condition of the schoolhouse.”

  “You’re not to blame,” Gideon said.

  “If I’d had any idea, I would never have suggested that we meet inside.”

  “This will certainly make our case with the school district. It’s time for a new building.”

  “It’s definitely the strongest argument we could hope for,” Miss Coates said.

  Walter Hicks fell into step beside Gideon. “I will draft a detailed account of today’s event and deliver it personally to the school superintendent first thing in the morning.”

  “Thank you, Walter.” Gideon glanced at Ella again, looking for reassurance that she was unscathed.

  Gideon carried Gertie to his wagon with everyone else following as if no one wanted to be left behind. “Can you sit up?”

  Gertie nodded. “I just want to go home.”

  Gideon settled her on the bench of the wagon. If she got tired, she could lay her head in his lap as they drove home.

  “Shall I take you home?” he said to Ella.

  Miss Coates spoke. “I have my cart. I’ll take Ella. You just look after Gertie.”

  “Yes,” Ella agreed. “Take her home. Watch her closely.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “I’m fine.” She brushed debris off her dress and straightened her bonnet.