"Three Years In a Teacherage" is part of a 9 chapter serial fiction piece written by Wanda Molsberry Bates. To see all chapters, please select this link -
Three Years In a Teacherage .
Shortly after our return from Christmas vacation I had two surprises in quick succession. One Sunday evening two young men appeared at the teacherage door about 10 minutes apart, and each of them asked for me.
These unannounced arrivals were a bit startling, particularly since the first one to arrive was Joe, a fellow who had shown little interest in me up to that time. He asked if I would like to go to a movie with him. Since I had seen him at several of the parties I felt that I knew him, so I accepted his invitation and asked him to come inside and wait until I could get ready to go. When Tom arrived a few minutes later, he saw Joe's car and stayed at the door only long enough to ask me for a date for the next Sunday night.
Observing the arrival of the two cars, L.P. was greatly amused and he subjected me to quite a bit of teasing when he gave me his definition of a collision-when two men come together.
It seemed that at the start of the school year some of the young men were discussing dating the new teachers and Joe had said that he was going to be the one to date "the new young teacher." But it had taken a long time for him to get up the courage to ask me out. Tom appeared to be mildly interested, but his primary interest in me was, I believe, to give Joe some competition.
Joe and I began seeing each other regularly and Tom soon stopped coming around. I found Joe great fun to be with. He was quiet, but as we became better acquainted I found that he had a studious mind and a keen sense of humor. He liked to read, and we spent some evenings at the Library of the Junior College in a neighboring town. Above all, he was "tall, dark, and handsome" with deep brown eyes.
We went to dances and movies and on sleigh rides. We even spent some time listening to Strauss and Victor Herbert on the phonograph at the school house. And one winter night as we were driving home from a movie we spotted a frozen pond. Joe stopped the car and we climbed through a barbed-wire fence and went skating on the ice and threw snowballs.
Occasionally on a Saturday night we teachers, Arthur, the custodian, and Skip Sunderland crowded into Joe's big black DeSoto and drove to a neighboring town to go to a "Take a Chance" movie. We didn't know what movie would be shown, but the cost for admission was ten cents, so it was not a great loss if the movie was poor.
One day after winter had let go and there were promises of spring, Joe drove me past some land that he hoped to buy. Casually, he pointed to a spot which he thought would be a good site for a house and asked, off-handedly, if I thought it would be a good place, too.
Up to that time I had been thinking only of having fun, and I hadn't been willing to think about the direction in which Joe and I were heading. A good time was really all that I was looking for, but after that day I knew that I must start thinking beyond the plans for the next Saturday night. At times when we were at Sunderlands' I began noticing the things that Mrs.
Sunderland had to do. I saw her tending chickens, washing the separator, and carrying up jars of home canned foods from her large store in the cellar. I listened when she spoke of the heavy work of the threshing season in the summer. I learned that she even helped with milking on occasion. I wondered if I would be able to manage all those things-and bear children and tend a garden and get up before dawn every morning. I thought of Salena in "So Big" and wondered if Joe would tell me that I didn't need a girdle if I became a farmer's wife!
But even with my misgivings, my thoughts always came back to Joe with his strong arms and laughing ways and I felt that with youth and determination and lots of love I could manage to do the things I needed to do. I was even sure that I could learn not to mind plucking a chicken (though I still thought that Joe would have to kill them for me). So I kept on seeing Joe, and I thought that by the end of the school year he would ask me to marry him.
And then came the day when reality raised its head. I started admitting to myself that I was not ready for a serious relationship. I needed to go back for my last year of college and after that to find a better-paying teaching job and to pay off my college debts. After losing sleep and shedding some tears, I decided I needed to be fair to Joe and to tell him of my future plans. I told him that I had been thinking of our relationship and I thought it would be best if we would each date others part of the time. He appeared nonchalant in his reply, but I knew that he was hurting (and so was I), and as he drove away I wanted to run after him and tell him I didn't really mean it. But I knew that I had made the right decision. We did date others after that, and eventually Joe found a girl for whom he built the house he had planned. After I returned to college for my last year I met Charles in one of my classes.