Free Wind Song by Margaret Brownley Page A

asked.
    "You see here?" Mr. Boxer drew her attention to the carefully drawn squares that ran up and down the center of the chart. "Every business and civic building has been carefully placed. Most towns, as you must know, are built haphazardly. Buildings are placed at random like so many thrown dice. Show her, Hortie."
    The mayor, showing remarkable dignity despite his name and appearance, picked up a long stick. "It would be my pleasure." He pointed to the various little squares that represented buildings. "The dentist will be next to the mortuary. That way, should any patients wish to show discomfort, no one else's day need be sacrificed."
    The man named Cobb rolled back on his heels. "He means you can scream your fool head off and no one would hear you."
    "Thank you for clarifying that," the mayor said, frowning. He turned to Maddie. "And we've moved the blacksmith away from the church."
    "Is that significant?" Maddie asked, curious.
    "Of course it's significant!" the mayor declared. "The blacksmith subscribes to, shall we say, unorthodox beliefs?"
    Cobb coughed. "The blacksmith is a damned atheist and insists upon working on Sundays."
    Mr. Boxer sniffed with indignation and pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. "Couldn't hear a word the pastor said for the sound of the anvil."
    The man named Max Weedler spit a stream of brown tobacco juice in the general direction of a brass spittoon. "If you ask me, that ain't such a bad thing."
    Maddie bit back the urge to suggest that Mr. Weedler either give up chewing tobacco or improve his aim. "Where's the school?"
    "Right here." Mr. Boxer pointed to the bottom of the chart.
    Maddie leaned closer. "Next to the jailhouse?"
    Mr. Boxer's spectacles slid to the tip of his nose. "My word! She's right. The school is right next to the jailhouse."
    The Sheriff heaved an impatient sigh. "Now, calm yourself down, Elliot. There's nowhere else to put the school."
    "Then find a place!" Mr. Boxer insisted. "I refuse to let the school be built next to the jail."
    "Do you have something against the jail?" Sheriff Beckleworth looked positively offended.
    "Don't take this personal, Mac," Mr. Boxer said.
    "I do take it personal," the Sheriff argued. "I'll have you know that only the best of the best stay in my jail. You won't find more mannerly prisoners anywhere than the ones you'll find in my jailhouse."
    Cobb studied the chart. "We could put the school next to the general store."
    "That won't do," Mayor Mettle said. "You know how Mr. Green closes his store every afternoon for a time of…refreshment and reflection."
    Cobb rubbed his unshaven chin. "He closes his store for whisky and a romp with that--"
    "As I was saying…" the mayor continued, "Mr. Green gets downright cranky without his daily nap."
    Sheriff Beckleworth concurred. "I'm always having to go over to the general store on the afternoons that old Archie misses his nap to break up a fight. He charges twice as much when he's tired, and that makes his customers madder than blazes."
    The mayor nodded. "As you yourself must know, Miss Percy, it's not possible to have an uninterrupted thought next to a schoolhouse."
    "We could put the buggy works next to the school," Mr. Boxer interjected.
    Maddie decided that if the likes of Mr. Weedler and Mr. Cobb were permitted to put in their two cents' worth, she was certainly entitled to add her opinion.
    "You don't want to put anything next to the school that would be distracting. Carriages and buggies could be driving in and out all day long."
    "She's right," Mayor Mettle grumbled.
    Mr. Boxer sniffed. "That means we have to start all over again."
    Never one to let an opportunity pass her by, Maddie decided to try out an idea that had occurred to her on the train en route to Kansas. "As long as you have to start over, perhaps you might consider dividing the schoolhouse into two rooms."
    Mr. Boxer looked startled by the suggestion. "But we only have enough funds for one teacher."
    "I propose