“‘I bet it was Joe,’ Betty Bard whispered to me.
“Now that the superintendent was there and couldn’t get away until the storm let up, he made a speech. Then he listened to our recitations and asked Belle a great many questions, such as how many pupils she had, where they lived, and whether she received any pay at all for teaching. She told him about her certificate and her failure to get a school, and he wrote it all down in a little notebook.
“The storm grew worse and worse. The wind whistled around the schoolhouse and rattled the windows, and the falling snow looked like a thick white blanket.
“Belle asked us to share our dinners with the superintendent, and we did. He sat on one of the desks and told us stories while he ate everything we gave him—bread and apple butter, hard-boiled eggs, ham sandwiches, pickles, doughnuts, mince and apple pies, and cup cakes. When he left we were all good friends and we filled his pockets with apples. He said he would eat them as he walked along to Cherry Flat school, but he didn’t have to walk. Truman took him in our sled, and we all stood in the door and waved until he was out of sight.
“No one could get Joe to say a word about the superintendent’s visit, but everybody thought he had brought him there on purpose, hoping in this way to help Belle. He was a great deal smarter than people gave him credit for, and Belle had helped him and he wanted to do something for her.
“But if sister Belle nourished any secret hopes that the unexpected visit would help her in any way, she gave them up as the weeks went by and she heard nothing from the superintendent.
“School went on just as usual, though. Christmas came, and Belle didn’t have money for the usual treat. But we had lots of sorghum molasses, and Mother let her have a taffy pulling in our kitchen and we had lots of fun.
“Everybody got along well in their books and we were going to have last day exercises, as we always did, with recitations and songs and games. Belle staid late at the schoolhouse the evening before and reached home just as Truman came in from the postoffice. He handed her a long, thin envelope and she tore it open and read the letter it contained. Before she got through she was dancing all around the kitchen, laughing and crying at the same time, and Mother took the letter from her hand and read it aloud.
“I can’t remember how that letter read, but it was from the board of education. They said they had decided to put our school back on the pay roll and that they understood that Belle had taught it in a very satisfactory manner since the opening of the term. She was to send her record of attendance and they would forward the five salary vouchers of thirty dollars each, which were due her. There was some more about its being unusual, but that they felt she deserved it. It was no wonder Belle was so happy, was it?”