Free Under the Same Blue Sky by Pamela Schoenewaldt

school, and gathering objects for nature drawing.
    “All the McGuffey Readers want is memorization,” I complained. So much time was spent in drills: names and dates of presidents; lists of states, capitals, and principal products; books of the Bible; spelling rules; rhetorical figures; kings of England; wars and battles.
    “Have them sing the lists,” my father suggested. Why hadn’t I thought of that? “It would be a long song, all the battles in Europe now.”
    “Isn’t Hazel’s house nice and clean, dear?” my mother prompted. “Nicer on the inside than the outside, though.”
    “It will be painted. Father, look how your tins catch the light.”
    “Did you know that Germany surrendered in South-West Africa? You hear young men talking about when America joins the war,” my father noted grimly. “They think it’s a party, or they want to be heroes. They don’t think they’ll be the ones with their legs blown off.”
    “Shh,” my mother said. “See, Hazel made a lovely meal.” I had worked hard. We had rolls, green beans and meat loaf with Ben’s mushrooms, sweet and sour cabbage, beer brewed in Galway, and peach pie for dessert.
    “How did you learn to cook?” my father asked.
    “Watching Mother. And Ben shows me where to find wild things and how to cook them.”
    “They’re eating roots at home, thanks to the British blockade.”Swerving the conversation, my mother asked if people here minded that I was German.
    “They think I’m strange because I’m from the city, but nobody talks about Germany.”
    “They gave you a cursed house. You told us the story.”
    “It’s not cursed. Something bad happened to the owners. That’s all.”
    “If they respect you, they should paint your house. And blue draws good spirits.”
    “Get it done before all the painters go to war,” my father added.
    “Stop! Just stop!” my mother ordered. “I want to see the waterfall Hazel wrote us about, and we’re not talking about the war.”
    We went to see the waterfall and said nothing else about “over there.”
    Three days of rain followed their visit. My house was a gray square in driving gray. The roof was tight, as I’d been promised, but in the ceaseless drumming overhead I heard my mother’s voice: “If they respect you, they should paint your house.” Did Galway respect me? If they wanted the house to last, why not paint it? Working up to indignation, I slogged through mud to see Henry. What other schoolteacher had walked miles to visit country families? Didn’t I deserve a little indulgence? “I haven’t forgotten,” he said impatiently. “You can’t paint in the rain, and my shoulder’s acting up.” His wife called for hot milk. “Just a minute, Agnes. Hazel’s here about the paint.”
    “It’s a small house,” I reminded him.
    “Is everyone in Pittsburgh so persistent?”
    “If we don’t want to be bamboozled.”
    “Fine, you win. I’ll speak to the school board.”
    “Please.” I walked home, drenched and discouraged.

CHAPTER 5
    Just a Fluke
    R ain followed for a week. Ben hadn’t been to his shack behind the grocery or to my house. Was he hurt and alone? Were his voices worse in the rain? Nobody knew where his camp was or cared to look, so all I could do was worry. Slogging into town, I found idle farmers sitting morosely around a Franklin stove in Jim’s store, smoking and talking of rain, its costs to the chickens and crops, the rising creek, and trees falling in soggy earth. They spoke of rheumatism and arthritis, broken bones, fingers lost but phantom pain remaining, and all the aches of pushing, pulling, and dragging heavy weights. “Would any of you fellas take a town job?” Jim asked.
    “Now why in blazes would we do that?”
    The eighth day brought a gauzy drizzle. After dinner, I was laying out the week’s lessons when a soft step sounded on my porch, followed by a gentle knock. Henry? Ben? A parent or child? I opened the door. A slightly built man jerked