Staggerford by Jon Hassler

to chuckle. Tonight they won, which was no more than right; Mrs. Stevenson and Miles were stupid at cards, and Miles was bored besides.
    After cards Mrs. Stevenson served raspberry sundaes and butter cookies (the ice cream brought a keen pain to the left side of Miles’s jaw) and after that she took Imogene into the next room for a tour of her china closet. Stevenson and Miles returned to the fire.
    “My contract called for me to be in Staggerford on the first of August,” said Stevenson. “That’s twenty years ago last August. Viola and I were scheduled for coffee at Bartholomew Druppers’ house that afternoon. Bartholomew Druppers was chairman of the school board then. He’s still on the board, you know, and he’s mayor now besides. Quite a public servant, Bartholomew Druppers. The coffeeparty was going to be an exclusive affair with the school board and their wives and some of the older faculty and
their
wives and a few selected old-time businessmen and
their
wives. It was set to start at three o’clock at the Drupperses’ house.
    “So on the first of August Viola and I arrived in town at ten in the morning. The moving van was to follow the next day. I went straight to Bartholomew Droppers’ law office and I said, ‘Mr. Druppers, I don’t know how this is going to set with your wife, but my wife and I will have to take a raincheck on that coffee party this afternoon. This is a working day and I have to be about my business. School begins in one month and it’s none too soon for me to set off on my reservation visits, and my wife has elected to come along with me.’
    “Blazes, what a hot-shot I must have been, Miles. I remember the look on Bartholomew’s face.
    “ ‘Come with me,’ he said, and he led me across the street to Sy Larson’s grocery store. Sy Larson was also on the board in those days. Bartholomew told Sy that the coffee party was off because I wanted to get started with my work. I remember Sy was behind the meat counter tying a package with a string when he heard the news. He stared at me for a moment, then he went to the phone and got in touch with two more board members and they rushed right over to the store and stood with Bartholomew and Sy in front of the meat counter. I stood a little apart from them as they held a conference. Miles, do you know how I interpreted the serious expressions on their faces? It shows you how innocent I was at the age of forty. I thought their expressions were the expressions of four men who had found themselves a determined leader who would see them through whatever troubles lay ahead—four men who were at last coming to grips with their old, old attendance problem. I imagined the expressions I saw in Larson’s Grocery that day were the same ones you might have seen at the Continental Congress when Jefferson walked in and said, ‘All right, boys, I’ve got a little document here I’d like you to sign; we’ll call it the Declaration of Independence.’But, Miles my friend, I have since figured out what those expressions really meant. They were not the expressions of courage and determination. Hell, those were the expressions of men who were afraid to tell their wives the coffee party was off. But what did I know? I spoke up and said once more that I had to be about my business, and I left the store and drove with Viola out to the Sandhill Reservation. It was our first look at Sandhill.”
    Stevenson shook his head. Miles searched with his tongue for the source of pain on the left side of his jaw.
    “Bleak. Blazes, Miles, it’s bleak out there. You know what I mean. You’ve been out there.”
    Miles nodded.
    “We drove to the village of Sandhill and stopped at the Sandhill General Store. Viola and I went inside and introduced ourselves to Bennie Bird, who’s been running the store since the year one. It was dark in there, and Bennie was sitting behind the bar at the back of the store where he serves beer. That was twenty years ago last August,