Chapter Text
1847
It was Bertha’s first day of school and she had been excitedly waiting for weeks.
She had begged, pleaded with her father to let her go to school with her older brother. Bertha needed to go to school, she wanted nothing more in the world.
“Please Father. I’ll be able to help around the farm better if I can read. I’ll be able to read things for mother, I can learn to do maths to help with groceries. Please please please let me father”
All of her begging and convincing had paid off. Here she was, sitting at one of the small desks at the front of the schoolhouse with all the other six year olds, and it was going very well. Her brother had shown where to put her hat and coat. She had sat next to a blond girl, who was shorter than her, named Josephine. They had eaten lunch together and everything.
And now she was very excited for the afternoon lesson about the alphabet.
Bertha had forced her brother to teach her the alphabet a couple months ago, after he had come home boasting about being able to spell and read. She felt very smug about being ahead of the rest of the children her age, especially the boys.
All in all, she had been on track to have a perfect first day of school.
That was, until one of the stupid boys got up to the blackboard and wrote the alphabet wrong. What confused Bertha the most was that the teacher didn’t seem to mind that he got it wrong.
“Excellent try, Mr. Coombs!” Miss Warner said enthusiastically, as he went back to his seat. “Now children, does anyone know—”
“But he got it wrong!” she shouted out, feeling very confused.
“Now Miss Mulligan—”
“He got it wrong, the order of his letters isn’t right! He shouldn't be rewarded for getting it wrong.” Bertha really didn’t understand why this wasn’t making sense to her teacher. “I know the alphabet and if I had been picked I—”
“Miss Mulligan!” she yelled, slamming the pointer stick against the blackboard with bang.
The whole room fell silent. Even the older children who were working in the back. Bertha felt her stomach sink.
“Miss Mulligan, will you please come up to the front of the room.”
She stood up and walked over, standing next to the teacher’s desk. She could feel Miss Warner looking down at her. She didn’t dare look up. Miss Warner was a rather scary looking woman and Bertha was scared enough already.
She stood stalk still, not even daring to shake. The only thing worse than being scared was showing people that you were scared.
“Put your hand out on my desk please. Palm up.”
She did as she was told. She could feel the whole classroom looking at her. This had not been a part of her plan for a perfect first day of school.
“Now I want you to repeat what I say after every lash…”
She nodded, clenching her jaw. She prayed the pointer stick was old and flimsy. Bertha braced herself for the lashes, wishing that she had just shut her mouth and let the stupid boy be wrong about the alphabet.
—
Soon Bertha found herself sitting on the steps of the school house, staring blankly across the open field. After 5 lashes Miss Warner had decided that Bertha had sufficiently paid for her crimes and she had been told to sit outside and think about how she will behave differently tomorrow.
Josephine had sympathetically handed her a handkerchief on her way out, so at least she had that. However, the thin piece of cotton was doing little to stop her palm from bleeding.
She hears the creak of the hinges as the door to the school house opens. She turned around, expecting to find Josephine, but instead she finds herself looking up at one of the older boys that she didn’t know the name of.
“Sorry, I just came out to see if you were alright…” he said. He was using the same voice her mother used when her little sister threw a tantrum.
Great.
She looked him up and down. He was kind of short and spindly looking, with dark wavy hair and ears that looked a little too big for his head. Bertha decided he looked nice enough. Also it was probably best if she didn’t make any more enemies today.
“It’s alright.” she replied, shuffling her feet. “Didn’t hurt that much.”
It was a lie, and he could probably tell from the tears in her eyes, but she didn’t care. He just nodded in response and stood awkwardly in the doorway for a minute before sitting down next to her on the steps.
“I, um, have a bandage…” he said, digging into the pocket of her trousers for a moment before pulling out a rolled up bandage. “If you want I can, you know” he pointed at her bleeding hand that was poorly wrapped in a handkerchief that was getting progressively redder by the minute.
She nodded silently and offered him her hand.
Bertha didn’t really know what to say to the boy. She hadn’t even really ever talked to a boy that wasn’t her father or brother. He looked about the same age as her older brother, which means he couldn’t have been more than two or three years older than her. She could examine him more closely now that he was sitting right next to her.
He had tanned skin, “Probably a farm boy” she thought to herself. His nose and ears looked too big for his face, but her brother looked like that too so maybe that was just how boys looked. His clothes were worn, but clean. What caught her attention the most was his hands. They were rough, but gentle. And the way he was wrapping her hand up with such focus and care made a funny tingly feeling, that she wasn’t quite sure about, erupt in her stomach.
It felt like she had swallowed a butterfly.
“There…” he mumbled, as he tied off the loose ends of the bandage. He looked up smiling. “All better.”
“Thank you.” she said, returning his smile. He’s a nice boy, she decided. Not mean or annoying like her brother. Maybe they could be friends. Friends did things like lend each other bandages, right?
“My father is going to throw a fit when he sees that I got punished.” she mumbled, more in the direction of her feet, than at the boy.
“Why?” he asked.
She just shrugged and said “He just gets angry sometimes. Especially when my sister and I do bad things.” She fiddled with the end of her braid. “Why didn’t Miss Warner just pick me to write the alphabet? I would have gotten it right, you know.”
“I know…” he said, nodding his head sympathetically. “It’s really hard to do class when it seems like you are way far ahead of everyone else.”
“Yes!” she said excitedly, forgetting herself for a moment. “Why do I have to learn about things I already know? I already know them!”
He was smiling really big now. “Excellent.” she thought to herself. Bertha was so excited to have a friend who seemed to understand what she was talking about.
“Well don’t worry. It gets easier. Because everyone starts learning things, right? And then Miss Warner figures out who’s smart and she always picks them.”
“Really?” she asked excitedly. He seemed fairly confident in what he was talking about. So there was hope for her after all. She just had to be patient and show Miss Warner she was smart. Bertha smiled. That sounded easy enough.
“I hope I get to be one of the smart people” she said, her tone reflecting the seriousness of the situation. “It would be really bad if Miss Warner didn’t think I was smart.”
“I think you’ll be fine.” the boy said with another grin. “I mean, we’ve only been talking for 5 minutes and I think you’re really smart.”
That sent another surge of the strange tingly feelings in her stomach.
Bertha vaguely wondered if she had eaten something strange at lunch by accident.
Before she could think of something to say in return, the boy started asking “You’re Bertha Mulligan, right? Ted Mulligan’s little sister?” Bertha couldn’t help but roll her eyes at the mention of her brother.
“Yes.” she answered, picking at a loose string on her skirt. “But Teddy’s a really annoying brother so sometimes I pretend he doesn’t exist.”
That only made him laugh.
“I’m the same age as Ted, we started school together.” he chuckled, holding out his hand for a handshake. “I’m George Russell.”
She took his hand and shook it, exactly like she had seen her father do it. She hoped that George thought she was a good hand-shaker.
“It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance.” Bertha replied, exactly like she had rehearsed in her head. She always watched the old merchant’s wives talk to each other at the market. They always said funny things like ‘pleasure to make your acquaintance’. She hoped it made her sound fancy.
“You too.” he said with a smirk.
They were then interrupted by the ringing of the bell from inside. Suddenly the door burst open and all their classmates began filling out. They both jumped up from their places and stood to the side as a crowd began forming in the front yard of the school.
Bertha stood on her tiptoes and began searching for the head of her brother. Why did everyone else have to be so tall?
“Listen, I would be more than happy to, um that is if you don’t have anyone else to do it, I mean, I would be much obliged to escort you home, B-Bertha…”
“Hm? Oh, um…” she stammered, looking back and forth between George, who was standing rather strangely with his hands in his pockets, and the crowd, where her brother was making his way towards them.
“My mother said I was to walk home with my brother, I’m really—”
“Bertha!”
She stumbled slightly as her brother clapped her on the back.
“You really know how to make a scene, huh? Couldn’t have just let the little kid write the alphabet wrong? What about you Russell, was she talking you to the grave about how she already knows the alphabet?” Teddy said, with a maniacal grin that looked exactly like their father.
“No.” said George, with a small shrug. “We were just talking.”
“Mhm.” replied Teddy, immediately disinterested. “Anyway, I got your coat and your hat” he said, as he shoved her things into her hand. “Let’s get a move on, we have chores to do before sundown. Later Russell!” he said, giving a nod in George’s direction before swinging his books over his shoulder and starting on the path home.
“Looks like I will see you tomorrow then” George said, shuffling his feet from side to side. Bertha wondered why he suddenly looked so sad. He had seemed perfectly happy when it had just been the two of them talking. Maybe he was sad school was over.
“See you tomorrow!” she smiled and ran off to catch up with her brother.
“Hurry up Bertha!” Teddy yelled over his shoulder.
“I’m hurrying, you know your legs are just longer than mine Teddy!” she yelled.
She ran off in such a hurry, so busy trying to catch up to her brother, that she didn’t get a chance to catch the smile on George Russell’s face as he watched her run down the path.
She spent the whole walk home letting Teddy ramble on, not listening to a word he was saying. She was too busy thinking about George Russell. He was nice and he was smart, which was an added bonus. He seemed like he would be a really nice friend. Bertha decided she would try and talk to him again tomorrow and smiled to herself.
In spite of the stinging of her hand, her first day of school had turned out pretty good after all.