Stone

Chapter 45 – School Opening

With the ship at sea again, Stone and Rayla concentrated on getting the new school completed. It seemed to drag on, once the main construction was completed. The heating system had to be finished, as well as the installation of all the desks and oil lamps. Rayla ordered some of the books that were being printed up in Greenstone, as well as searching all the shops in Westport for books for the room she had designated as a library. Books about whaling were extremely popular, and were constantly out on loan from the time they were bought, even if they were placed in the small one-shelf library of the schoolhouse.

Winter Solstice came, and the students got nearly two weeks of vacation from classes. But Stone and family took no time off, working long days at the new school. Two Kithren men, former whalers too old to row, were hired as caretakers, and got the boilers going to supply heat to the classrooms, as well as maintaining all the whale oil lamps that lit the rooms. The heat to the main assembly area was kept cooler than the rest of the school, since it would usually be used as a phys. ed. room, other than lunch and pre-school meals. Body heat from the students would make up for the lower boiler heat.

Finally, on the Saturday before classes were due to resume, everything was deemed ready, even to Rayla’s demanding eyes. It was announced that Kalosun would hold a blessing service on Sunday, and all parents were invited to attend the new building their children would attend. The kitchen was to use the blessing as a way of testing their equipment, now that there were five cooks: Cass was retired from the school and would only go in as a replacement. Her main job was Stone’s family. A Kithren supper would be served after the blessing.

On the blessing day, after Kalo had said his prayers, Stone and Rayla noticed several white families had popped in to view the new facilities, often with looks of amazement on their faces at the sleek and modern building. Rayla noticed that one of these people was the principal of the white school, and Stone was approaching him. She hurried to his side.

“So what do you think of the new school,” Stone asked jovially.

“It is very nice,” the man said. “Too nice for Kithrens. I will move my school in here. Can I have the keys?”

Stone stared at the man in amazement: “No you cannot have keys, and you are certainly not moving your school here. I paid a great deal of money to build this school, and I am not turning it over to you.”

“Of course you are,” the principal said. “It is far too good for Kithrens. They can use the old school.”

“You mean the school that would not accept my children because of their color?” an irate Rayla said. “Now it is suddenly good enough for them?”

“Yes, of course,” the man said bluntly, not understanding why these people were not acquiescing with his request: they were white, after all.

“Stone, I think this man needs to leave,” Rayla said.

“I agree,” Stone said, and grabbed the man’s collar with one hand and lifted until his legs were two feet off the ground, and carried the man out of the building, tossing him on the walkway in. “And don’t come around here again. If you do, you are trespassing on private property and may not enjoy the consequences I dish out.” Stone then turned and left the confused man sitting on the walkway.

The next morning was heavenly to Stone. The house was quiet for the first time in months, and he was able to relieve himself without going to the other building. Cass had a huge breakfast ready, with bread still hot out of the oven, now that she no longer had to supervise the feeding of 140 students.

Once breakfast was over, the family of four headed to the school. As they walked (it was only four blocks away) she saw a crowd of white people walking towards it as well. Stone’s family arrived while the others were a half block away, and Rayla darted into the school to make sure that breakfast was proceeding well. Stone stood outside and waited for the others, seeing the principal and four mounted men leading over 100 young people. There were three other adults near the rear of the group: teachers, he guessed.

“There he is,” the principal shouted. “Arrest that man and make him give me the keys.” He gestured to the mounted men, who moved out into a line, looking confused. “Can you explain this, Captain?” one of them asked.

“I hope so,” Stone said, recognizing all four of the men as soldiers he had sent to Westport a few years back to prevent the old Duke from collecting his onerous taxes. Three of the four had fought with him against Kona. “This man came to the school at our ceremonies last night and caused a disturbance, so I booted him out, none too gently. He seems to think that this is his school.”

“Of course it is,” the principal said. “It is too nice for Kithrens. The best of everything goes to the whites. I told them they can have the old school building. We will take over this one.”

“This one, which I had built, with no financial assistance from the town or any white people. It was built on a Kithren design, and will be used to teach Kithren students.”

“Any students,” Rayla corrected from behind Stone. She had just left the school hall, were students were eating breakfast. “No one, white or Kithren, will ever be excluded by us. If any of you children want, there is plenty of oatmeal for breakfast left, and as you can tell by the aromas, it is pretty tasty.”

Many of the students had been tittering at their principal making a fool of himself, and started to move towards the entrance. The principal looked up in alarm, and shouted: “Stop! Any student who enters that building will be expelled from school.”

The students paused, but then ten or so continued in, and this emboldened others to try. Soon about 40 of the 100 students filed past Rayla, who went with them to see that they were fed.

The principal was livid. He was hopping from one leg to another. “Now he is stealing my students. Arrest him.”

“You don’t own the students,” the soldier said. “They went in under their own free will. And I think it is pretty clear that Stone owns this school, and can do what he wants. Besides, I fought with him once, and know that if we tried to arrest him, even if the entire force was with us, it would wind up with all eight of us dead and in pieces in the street.”

“What is the use of soldiers if they won’t fight? I will make sure that the town council hears about this.”

“Tell them that if they want to arrest the Captain, they better sharpen their swords, because all of us will resign rather than go after him.”

The little man hummed and hawed a bit, and then started to herd his much smaller group of students back to their school. One of the teachers smirked silently, but he saw that and fired the man on the spot. Another objected, and the principal said: “You are fired too. I don’t need four teachers for 60 students. Find another job.”

The two teachers stood in shock, then looked back at Stone. The giant gestured for them to come to him.

“Rayla may need more teachers,” he said. “She runs the school, and does the hiring, and she might be interested in interviewing you.”

Breakfast was over, and the Kithren students went into the circular hall to find their classrooms. The white students were gathered around Rayla, and she was asking them questions to ascertain their knowledge level. She was not impressed. The other school was quite lax.

When Stone entered with the two white teachers, Rayla immediately hired them. She found that they knew their material, but the principal had forced them to ‘dumb down’ the work so all students got good marks, whether they knew the material or not.

Rayla took about 12 of the oldest students, all boys, to join a classroom, while Stone and the new teachers tended the other students.

The class they went to was one of the smaller ones, mainly with students four or five years younger than the whites. When Rayla told them this is the class they would be in, one boy objected.

“But they are little kids. We can’t go to school with them,”

“Listen to their lesson,” Rayla said. “Do you know how to do that?” The teacher was explaining money values and adding the various types of coin.

“No. I don’t. We don’t cover that in school.”

“Well, you do here. If you kids can learn all this, we will move you up to a higher level.”

“But the teacher is black,” the boy persisted. “Everyone knows that Kithrens are not smart enough to learn.”

“Well she is smart enough to teach money to younger students than you. Perhaps that makes her smarter than your old teachers. Now take a seat and pay attention. I will see that the caretakers bring in five more desks. Until then some of you will have to stand.”

Rayla went back to the hall, and broke off another group of students, and then some more, taking them to them to various classes. There were only five girls in the group, and they went into the second lowest class. Apparently the other school seldom accepted females, and then only taught them rudimentary reading and numbers. The group they joined was taking a cooking class that morning, making bread in the kitchens, and the girls were thrilled to be learning from doing, rather than just listening to lectures.

Finally the two teachers were assigned to classrooms as aides, with the understanding that they would get classes of their own once they got the feel for how the school worked.

The next day another five students joined the new school, and by the end of the week it was up to 30, leaving only 30 students at the old school.

Not all of the students fit in though. Some of the white students complained that the work was harder, and the marks lower. Some wanted to shirk and drift through like they had before. After several weeks Rayla laid down the law: if they wanted to stay in the new school they would have to work.

After two months, Rayla found about half of the shirkers had pulled up their socks and were working hard. Some were still getting low marks, but they were working hard, and learning. They were allowed to stay.

But another 10 had refused to do more than the minimum: less in fact. Rayla called them all into the hall on Friday and told them they were expelled, and that they should go to the old school on the next Monday.

That weekend several parents came to Rayla to complain, and beg or threaten to have their children in the new school, which was getting a reputation as a better school. Some parents wondered if a diploma from the old school would be of much value.

Rayla accepted two students back, when their parents promised to motivate their sons in the future. The other parents, including those who hadn’t even cared enough to come and find out why their boys were expelled, were of the opinion that the better schooling was a right, not a privilege and their sons were not accepted back.

As the school was shaking down, Rayla noticed that Jason was not taking classes, and had pretty much become the geography teacher, while assisting in other subjects. He had a knack for teaching, Rayla noticed, and was especially capable in one-on-one instruction, getting students to understand difficult problems in many subjects.

As the third month came to an end, Rayla also noted that Kithren and white children were melding together, and the racial prejudice of their parents was no longer apparent in them. The most racist parents sent their children to the old school, but the lowering of tensions was also affecting the other parents, who started interacting with the other race in a fair and hospitable manner.

And at the same time Jason was slowly counting the voyages of the trade ship, and realized that his time to join was fast approaching.