First School

The small, white, almost square building shone brightly in the rays of the early morning prairie sun, its windows glazed with reflected light. The flag on the flagpole was unfurling as the ever present Nebraska wind began to pick up. Children were playing in the small surrounding field bordered by tall cornfields, seemingly watched by tall green sentinels. The stalks were just beginning to lose their brilliant summer green to the dryness of early fall and were rustling in the wind. A metal swing set stood in the middle of the field with four wooden swings dangling from chains; and a wooden teeter totter bounced off the ground as children laughed gleefully bobbing up and down. All four swings were occupied by legs pumping the air in piston-like rhythm. 

At the door to the building, under the sign that said District 66, stood a slender woman in a simple shirtwaist dress with light curly bobbed hair and wire rimmed glasses sliding down on her nose. It had been an early morning for her as she got up before dawn to help her husband birth a calf from their prize young Hereford. He had found the pregnant, rust colored heifer lowing and struggling in the field with what was apparently a breech birth. The vet had to be called, and came in time to help free the calf and relieve the animal of her suffering, still wearing his pajama tops under a well-worn denim jacket. Luckily, all seemed to be well with the calf and the young cow. 

She watched and smiled as the little girl and her mother got out of the big black car along with the five Ferguson children who waved at their dad as he drove off, the tires kicking up dry dust on the gravel road. The mother and her child walked up to the building their feet slowly crunching in the loose pebbles. She had heard they were coming – the whole community knew about the Polish war refugees, the couple with two small children that Mr.  Schneider had sponsored to work on his farm two years ago. Who knows what they had gone through in their own country? The father spoke a little English but was difficult to understand with his strong Polish accent. She had heard that the man was a hard, quick worker willing to help in the fields, fix tractors or machinery, and butcher hares in the slaughter house where Schneider raised domestic rabbits. She, herself, did not care for rabbit meat, but there were plenty of people in the county who ate it during the war when other meat was scarce. Didn’t she read somewhere that the Germans and French had eaten rabbit for centuries? Maybe that’s where Schneider got the idea – his grandparents had come over from the old country and settled in this rich flat farmland with its winding prostrate river that reminded them of their homeland, land that was at the mercy of the weather and surrounded by open skies so that storms could be seen approaching for miles, long before they arrived, usually giving people time to seek shelter. Not everyone was always so lucky; she had known more than one farmer hit by lightning while working his field on his tractor. And the destruction of tornados was unpredictable and devastating. Farming the prairie was an occupation not suited to everyone. 

The teacher wondered how much English this child would know if any? There were some German immigrant children at the school who had arrived the previous year and they had learned quickly. Her own great grandparents had been Swedish settlers who farmed a homestead south of town near the Blue River. They belonged to the founders of that community and now lay buried in the town cemetery under the giant Cottonwood trees. But these were the first Poles that she was to meet. She wondered how they would do here in this small town with no one around that spoke their language. And how would they feel about being surrounded by people with German ancestry after being displaced from their homes by the tanks and artillery of German soldiers.

Now they stood in front of her, the tall pretty woman in her blue floral cotton dress and the little dark curly haired girl clinging to her mother’s hand, dressed in what appeared to be boy’s pants but wearing a blouse speckled with tiny pink and blue flowers. Her brown leather shoes looked a little big for her feet, maybe to give her growing room. The little girl kept her eyes down but would sneak quick glances at the playground where the children were playing. She had a determined look about her as though she knew this was something in her destiny, yet her face betrayed a vulnerability, a caution, perhaps a bit of worry? Her mother’s forehead was also furrowed but her eyes smiling as she extended the hand of her child to the teacher as though transferring her somehow to a safe person, a keeper of a safe place. She said the child’s name which sounded like it was Zo-shaa.

Zosia looked up into the teacher’s face and shyly returned the smile. This was the day she had been waiting for.  She would learn to read.  And this was the teacher her mother had told her about. Mother knew all about teachers as she had been a school teacher in Poland.  To Zosia, school was a fantastical place. She would be the only one going this year. Her brother was still too little, and the baby had four more years at home with Mama.  Zosia had overheard her parents talking with the neighbor weeks ago and the three of them kept looking at her as they spoke. They called the neighbor “Singer” in Polish because he would burst into song without any visible provocation. He even taught her mother an American song. Her father later told her Mr. Singer said there was a schoolhouse for all children two miles away. It would open in September and she would go. Zosia’s father had to be at the farm where he worked before dawn to milk cows and clean the barn so he was not able to take her, but Mr. Singer would be glad to give Zosia a ride to school in the mornings along with his five children. That first morning, Mr. Singer’s wife had offered to watch Zosia’s two younger brothers so that Mama could go to school with her and meet the teacher.

The teacher took the little girl’s hand in her own and gently patted it. She called out to one of the older Ferguson girls to come show Zosia around.  Susan, the blond, freckle- faced, 10 year old daughter of Mr. Singer came running and grabbed Zosia’s arm pulling her over to the playground. She showed her to some of the other children and told them her name. Several children gathered around to look at her and asked her questions but Zosia had no idea what they were saying. She was afraid to say the English word “Hello” even though she had been practicing it for days. She could feel herself shrinking inside like the turtle she and her brother had found last summer in the creek near their house. When one of the older girls pointed to an empty swing and motioned for her to sit down, Zosia did so. The girl pushed her from behind and Zosia went flying up in the air like a balloon. What an amazing free feeling! The swing went higher than she had ever gone. She could see way over the corn stalks to a barn and farmhouse far away. She could see her mother and the teacher standing outside the schoolhouse watching her.

The teacher took Zosia’s mother by the arm and led her into the one room schoolhouse. She touched  the desk where Zosia would sit, showed the mother where her child would hang her coat in the winter, and pointed at the children’s lunch boxes lined up on a shelf. She said many things but the mother did not understand the words, only the kindness and hope behind them.  Mama saw the wood stove in the corner and the water jug with the tin cup everyone could share. The stove was not unlike the stove in the village classroom where she had taught. The teacher’s desk stood on a little platform in front of the room and a blackboard spanned the wall behind the desk. Rows of desks of varying sizes filled the room as children from kindergarten to 12^th grade came here to learn.  Each desk was stuffed with books and there were books on shelves around the room, so many books that Zosia would learn to read.  And then maybe Mama would also learn to read in English. Children’s voices echoed in her head as she reached out and touched one of the books, but the voices Mama heard were Polish not English. She had to glance away so that the sudden moisture in her eyes did not betray her. 

The teacher mistook her tears for regret about leaving her child and put an arm around Mama’s shoulder speaking in reassuring tones about how Zo-shaa would be fine, she seemed to be a smart little girl and would do well. Mama nodded in response to the kind tone and the mention of her child’s name. It was amazing how much one could understand even without knowing the words. She heard the children’s laughter outside, laughter that was the same in any language. 

The teacher invited Mama to sit in a chair in the back of the classroom and gave her some water in the tin cup. She gestured at the clock hanging on the wall, and pointed at the bell she had to ring to call the children inside. All the children came running and chattering as they did every morning, and Susan had Zo-shaa’s hand in hers leading her to where she would sit. When quiet had been restored, the teacher announced that they had a new student, Zo-shaa who was from Poland. She expected they would all help her to learn English and feel welcome in this country which was new to her. Mama watched and listened and remembered.