SOMEONE CAME KNOCKING
A short story by Fern Jo Rogers
The twenty-six children in Prairie Flower rural school had settled down to their afternoon routine. The stove in the corner with its rusty black jacket had at last got underway. The room had been chilly during the morning, but now the air was warm and stuffy from so many pairs of lungs emptying their moist contents into it. Digestive systems were taking their toll of energy as they coped with the cold lunches, which had recently been bolted.
Twenty-six minds were as near passive as many young minds ever become. The smaller children were halfheartedly coloring, cutting, or writing, pensively gnawing the ends of the scissors and crayons. I was striving to incite some interest in a geography lesson in the upper grades.

Suddenly there was a sharp rap at the door! Heads jerked up, eyes glistened, ears alerted. A visitor in Prairie Flower rural school was an event. For the children, it was a welcome diversion from humdrum. For me, it was a diversion of another variety. Nine chances out of ten it would be the County Superintendent of whom I stood in mortal fear. Or, what might be worse, perhaps it was a Director coming to lay down the law about something. The boys had been cracking whips yesterday and one of the girls had been popped. Perhaps the director would be requesting me to issue a ruling against whip cracking, and I already had. Maybe it was a Parent coming to find fault about something, and staying all afternoon to find other causes for complaint. My appearance would be criticized. Was my shirtwaist tucked in? Was my hair tidy? Why hadn't I taken time during the lunch period to glance in the cracked mirror hanging behind the door! Why hadn't I stayed after school last evening and put up fresh penmanship specimens and map drawings? Why hadn't I sat up last night and prepared an interesting geography exercise instead of depending upon reading the text-book a few sentences ahead of the pupils as I was doing?

All this was rushing through my panicky mind as I made my way to the back of the room and across the narrow vestibule. Mixed with the panic was the vaguely comforting thought that the visitor's ears would not be offended by clamor, for the room was quiet. Pin drop quiet. The children were afraid the caller might not come in, and they wanted to overhear what was said at the door. I reached the door and opened it. Nobody was there.

"It must have been the wind," I said brightly as I returned to the geography book. Gradually the children forgot their disappointment and were beginning to pay some attention to the subject in hand when there was a sharp knock at the door.

Quickly I scanned the room to see who was out. Maybe Leo was trying to play another prank, as he was wont to do. Nobody was out. Twenty-six pairs of saucer-like eyes met mine.

Again I went to the door, and again, I found no one.
"Maybe it was Ronald," I said upon returning.

Ronald was too little to come to school but lived close enough to ride his pony over and play with the others at noon and recess. Somebody pointed out that it could not be Ronald, because he was at home riding his pony. I looked across the field and sure enough, the spotted pony was walking around the orchard with a tiny stocking-capped figure on top.

"Well, if the knocking comes again," I instructed, "we'll not pay any attention to it. If we ignore it, whoever is bothering us will go away."

But when the knocking came again, we could not ignore it. It began with a polite tapping at irregular intervals and then became a pounding which threatened to break the weather-beaten old door off it's hinges.
I went and opened the door and an unshaven man dressed in rough clothing was standing there. He had ridden a black horse and was holding the bridle in the crook of his arm. His face was clouded in anger or impatience at having been kept waiting so long, but he spoke politely as he asked to speak to Elvin, one of the older pupils.

I was half afraid to let Elvin go out, so I went back and asked Elvin in a whisper if he knew the man.

"Yessum, he's my cousin, " answered Elvin, halfway to the door.

Elvin was back in a jiffy, explaining, "He wants me to help him drive sheep tomorrow."

"But Elvin, " I said, "why did your cousin spend all that time knocking and hiding, as if playing April Fool jokes when it's only February?

ÿ "Oh, no Mo'oa, Miss Fern, he didn't so all that first knocking. He just now came up the road on a black horse. I seen him."

Heads all over the room began to nod affirmation. It was in the era when children were seen and not heard. In another age they might have chorused, "Yeah, teacher, we seen him, too."

I sensed what they were thinking and decided that the time was ripe for a grammar lesson even though it were geography period. So, I carefully explained that SEEN is a past participle and must be used with an auxiliary verb such as HAVE or WAS, and that SAW was plain past tense and the correct form to be used in Elvin's statement. Then I nodded my head to child after child in row after row, whereupon each rose and delivered a correct example such as;

"I saw the man on the black horse."
"I saw Elvin's cousin come up the road on a black horse."

Until, one stalwart little citizen shook his head vigorously and declared, "No mo'om Miss Fern, I never seen him!"

I sighed and reflected that I might as well have stuck to geography. So I tried to lead the children back into the regular routine and had almost succeeded when there was a knock at the door.

Not wanting to offend somebody's else's cousin, I went to the door. I found no one.

The next time the knocking came, I decided to make a joke of it to ease the tension.

"Who wants to answer the door for me?" I asked. "Do you, Stanley? How about you, Dorothy?"

They didn't see the twinkle in my eye. Maybe it wasn't there. But nobody volunteered to go to the door. They cowered in their seats as if they were afraid that I would drag one of them out and make him go. So, I went myself, and if I expected to find anyone, I was disappointed.

The afternoon wore away and dismissal time neared. In the commotion of getting away, the mysterious visitor was forgotten. Monitors collected library books and two tall girls put them away on the shelves. A little pupil passed the waste basket. Susan and Martha erased the blackboard and wanted to dust the erasers, but a mamma had sent a note requesting that her daughter not be asked to dust erasers lest it chap her hands, so I said I would dust the erasers the next morning and warm my hands with the motion while waiting for the fire to get started. Coat monitors passed the wraps and dinner-boxes. Nancy and Jean helped the small children with buttons and buckles and offered advice about which overshoe to put on which foot. Jack and Bill brought in big lumps of coal and banked the fire. DeLand and Tom went to the horse shed to saddle my horse, and stayed to help those who rode manage impatient ponies. Somebody emptied the wobbly tin water pail lest it freeze solid again and bulge the bottom even worse.

Gone was the lethargy and drowsiness. Everybody hurried and in no time the clatter had subsided, the shouted good-byes had died away and the room was as quiet as a calm after a storm. I hurried about my evening chores, stuffing a sheaf of lesson papers into a book sack, along with grading pencil and record book. I tried to make some order of my desk which had been a catch-all during the day. Here were scribblings and scratchings that first-graders had lovingly laid there. I was tempted to chuck them into the wastebasket, but I must return them and comment upon their efforts. Poor dears, I neglected them terribly now that it was near examination time, and I must coach the eigth-graders for State examinations. That reminded me, I ought to take the Courses of Study home and make out some more review questions. I began to rummage for the thick book, half hoping that I wouldn't find it, for the fine print on rough paper was hard to read by the kerosene lamp at my boarding place.

Suddenly, someone knocked at the door!

For a minute sheer terror seized me. I had heard about teachers staying after school, in isolated areas, being molested, even murdered. Then I reasoned that nothing of the kind was likely to happen with a farm house within sight. I decided I would solve the mystery if possible, so I snatched up my wraps and hurried out the door without encountering anyone.

I found a place behind the coal shed where I could see the school house door and see the road in either direction, and not easily be seen myself, I thought. I waited. The sun was rapidly reaching the western horizon. Old Ben, my horse, was stomping and pulling at the fence where the boys had tied him. Partly-melted patches of snow were giving off a chill fog. I had forgotten to put on my overshoes and my feet were getting clammy. I shivered. I hoped that whatever was going to happen would happen, soon.

IT DID!

A red head poked itself out of a jagged hole beneath the eaves; a bright eye scanned the landscape in each direction; a whir of wings brought a speckled body to the schoolhouse door where a pair of sharp claws held the body bolt upright and a sharp bill beat a tap-tap-tap. Another whir and the woodpecker was gone.

THE ENDÿ

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