Samuel Peterson's Arc

Chapter 2 of 4

The phone call ended with a promise Samuel couldn't yet keep. The father wanted a start date. Samuel gave him Monday. Then he walked out to the porch and thought about the church down the road. Pews bolted to the floor. An altar at the front. No desks. No board. Eleven kids arriving in five days with nowhere to sit and nothing to look at. He drove out at first light. The country church sat quiet in the fog. He walked the aisle and measured with his boots. The pews faced the wrong way for a classroom, but they were solid. Kids could turn sideways. That wasn't the problem. The problem was a surface to write on and a place to set a book. He drove three miles further and stopped at an old schoolhouse he hadn't looked at in years. Shutters closed. Bell still in the tower. He tried the door. Locked. He walked around back and found a window with a broken latch. Inside, dust sat thick on the floor. A chalkboard hung on the far wall, framed in scarred wood. He lifted it down. It weighed less than he expected. He carried it to the truck. He drove to the McAdams ranch next. Ben was in the barn oiling a saw. Samuel had known Ben a decade as a neighbor. Ben's wife was already teaching the school. Samuel felt the weight of asking twice. "I need desks," Samuel said. "Eleven. By Monday." Ben set the saw down. "Monday." "I know." "Wood?" "I've got pine stacked at the farm. Enough for tops. Legs I don't know." Ben wiped his hands on a rag. "I've got legs. Old bed frames in the loft." "You'll do it?" "Casey's teaching them." Ben looked at the saw. "I'll do it." Samuel drove home and loaded the pine into Ben's flatbed that afternoon. Then he pulled the two folding camp chairs off the porch — the ones he and Katherine used at Kyle's ball games — and set them in the truck bed. Two chairs for two kids who wouldn't have a desk on the first morning. It was the best he could do. He drove back to the church and mounted the chalkboard on the wall behind the altar. He drilled through the plaster and set two long screws. It hung crooked. He adjusted it and stepped back. Straight enough. Katherine met him in the driveway when he came home. She looked at the empty porch where the chairs had been. "Ben's building the rest," he said. "By Monday?" "By Monday." She nodded. Then she said, "A woman called for you. From the county. She wants to know what curriculum we're using." Samuel stood a long moment with his hand on the truck door. He had a board on the wall and a man building desks. He did not have a curriculum. He did not have an answer for the county. "I'll call her tomorrow," he said.