The Star of Bailly School

By Roger M. Hart

The students at Bailly School were planning their Christmas program and everyone was looking forward to seeing Old Saint Nick before having a few days off from their school work. After decorating the schools Christmas tree Beverly Jean announced to everyone they needed a new star for their tree or a real live baby for Jesus.

Foremost on Olivias mind was the arrival of her baby due any day. She wondered if it would be a boy or a girl and if it would be a Christmas baby as Jesus was.

Patricks life took an unexpected turn no one could predict, especially not the men he worked with.

Can all of these events come together to reveal the real Star of Bailly School? Enjoy finding out.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jun 24, 2014
• ISBN: 9781499035612

Roger M. Hart

I am married to my wife Joan. We have two married sons, Warren and Christopher and six grandsons who all reside in Ohio. In my retirement I have time to reflect on my past, sleep late and write about a life that might have been.

Book preview

Copyright © 2014 by Roger M. Hart.

Library of Congress Control Number:          2014910504

ISBN:          Hardcover          978-1-4990-3562-9

                    Softcover            978-1-4990-3563-6

                    eBook                   978-1-4990-3561-2

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Rev. date: 09/23/2014

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Contents

Chapter 1.   Sneak Attack

Chapter 2.   The Braggart

Chapter 3.   The Arrangement

Chapter 4.   A Ride Home

Chapter 5.   The Folded Paper

Chapter 6.   Pat’s Promise

Chapter 7.   Martha’s Fear Realized

Chapter 8.   Everett Needs Privacy

Chapter 9.   Prayer In School

Chapter 10. Good News

Chapter 11. In A Hurry To Get Home

Chapter 12. Do Dogs Go To Heaven

Chapter 13. Will They Die In Jail

Chapter 14. A Pipe For A Bible

Chapter 15. Tomorrow

Chapter 16. The Breakfast Table

Chapter 17. Sheriff Wheeling Comes To Visit

Chapter 18. The Praying Corner

Chapter 19. What Is Going On At The Mine?

Chapter 20. Can God Come Into Our School

Chapter 21. A Child Is Born, A Son Is Given

Bailly School entrance

image_Page_005_Image_0001.jpg

Presley and Kathy saluting the flag, 1945

54142.png Author’s Note:

Although fictionalized this story was inspired by real people and events of my young childhood. The characters are representative of people who lived in our rural community. Everyone has been fictionalized so the truth of the story is in the mind of the writer, and reader.

This fourth book is actually the first book written for the series. At the time it was only a single book with no thought of it ever being a series. For that reason the story revolves around three main areas of the Harris family’s life; home, work and school.

Some readers may think I have gone beyond just telling the story and wandered off into some fantasy land. I hope not, I hope you will remember, it is a work of fiction, and enjoy reading and rereading the stories as I have told them.

It would be a great joy to me to have the people in the community where I grew up read this story and then with a smile, or tear, remember. However, that can never be for all of us have gone away from that simple country life.

My prayer to God is that whoever reads this story will come to know Jesus Christ, The Real Star of Bailly School.

Other Books Include:

Poems From The Heart

A book of inspirational poetry accompanied by an illustration, daily devotional reading and scripture readings for the week.

Joys And Tears

A book of inspirational poetry about family, friends, poems from the heart plus a devotional reading.

Little House By The Edge of The Woods series:

Book One:       Benjamin and The Fredrickson Girls

Book Two:       Roland and The Crankenbeal Family

Book Three:     Patrick and Olivia

Little House By The Edge Of The Woods series

Book Four

The Star of Bailly School

54148.png Prologue

A real star is what we need, to lead the Wise Men, or a real live baby for Jesus would be even better, Beverly said to Roberta.

But we don’t have a real star or a real live baby, Jim Bob is the nearest thing to a baby we have and he is two years old, Roberta replied.

The two girls were planning for the Bailly School Christmas program. The one room school had eleven students attending this year and all of them would be in the program.

There were Patrick and Olivia Harris’ three, Roberta, Melissa Fae and Presley along with Patrick’s youngest brother and sister, Mitchell and Beverly Jean Harris. Then Geoff and Goldie Ballard’s two girls, Martha and Lori, Jon and Joyce Martin’s two boys, Craig and Gregory, and then Kevin and Estelle Brown’s two kids, Brandon and Kathy.

All eight grades were taught at the Bailly School if there were students for all grades. But this year there were no first, third, or fifth graders. Mitchell and Brandon were in the eighth grade, Craig and Martha were seventh graders, Gregory, Roberta and Beverly Jean were in the sixth grade, Melissa Fae and Lori were fourth graders, while Presley and Kathy were in the second grade.

Victor Rayton had been the teacher at Bailly School six years now. He was a long time friend of the Harris family but he was liked by all of the neighborhood parents, especially those with boys. Mr. Rayton knew how to keep boys in line at school and they liked him for that reason.

He had taught at other schools before coming to Bailly School so he wasn’t a novice teacher. Other schools always offered him a teaching contract but he would turn them down, right now he was satisfied he was where he should be. It was almost as if God Himself told Mr. Rayton to keep teaching at Bailly School and this year he was going to find out why.

Oh, Roberta, Beverly Jean moaned. If only we knew someone who was going to have a baby soon maybe we could talk them into letting us use the baby for Jesus. Wouldn’t it be neat if the baby really was a boy, and wouldn’t it be neater if a baby could be born right here at school, the day of the Christmas program?

Oh, Beverly, Roberta said, come back to earth. We don’t even know anyone who is going to have a baby, let alone have it here at school.

It was Friday, December 5th, 1941 and Christmas was rapidly approaching. The girls had to finish planning the school Christmas program. Beverly suggested her brother Mitchell be Joseph and Roberta thought Martha should be Mary. After all she reasoned Martha had a crush on Mitchell so they would be the perfect pair for the parts. Brandon, Craig and Gregory could be wise men, Roberta and Beverly would be angels and the rest would be town’s people. Roberta and Beverly agreed to recite a piece appropriate for a Christmas program and they all would sing Christmas Carols.

Again Beverly moaned, If only we had a star or a real live baby for Jesus the program would be perfect but we don’t know anyone who is having a baby, do we?

This time Roberta didn’t answer for she did know someone who was having a baby soon but she didn’t want to tell Beverly, not yet.

Chapter One

Sneak Attack

December 1941

It was almost Christmas 1941, Patrick, hereafter to be called Pat as did his friends, and Olivia Harris were expecting their sixth baby any day. They wondered which it would be this time a boy or a girl. They already had three girls, Roberta, Melissa Fae and Patricia Joann who had died of whooping cough just three months old. They also had two boys, Presley Brock and Jim Bob who were anxiously awaiting Christmas and the arrival of Old St. Nick. But little did they know, or even suspect, their mother was about to give birth to another baby that would arrive before Christmas and Old St. Nick. This year the new baby was going to be the greatest package of joy in the Harris home, not presents from Old St. Nick.

It was Sunday, December 7th, 1941 the sun was shining bright and it was nice for a cold winter day. Since the stores were open on Sunday for Christmas shoppers Pat and Olivia decided to drive to Uniontown. Everyone washed, put on clean clothes and Olivia had an early dinner ready for her family before they drove to town. Even though Pat had been driving a car now a few years it was still a treat for all of them to get in their own car and go to town whenever they wanted.

However, after arriving in town they soon learned this was not just another ordinary winter day. At 3:00 P.M., in one of the stores, they heard President Roosevelt’s national radio broadcast telling the American people of the Japanese attack at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii just that morning. He told how the United States Naval fleet setting in Pearl Harbor had been surprised by an un-merciless and unwarranted attack by Japanese airplane bombers. Heavy casualties, over 2,000, were suffered by the U. S. Navy and Army that morning. Battleships were sunk or destroyed as well as other vessels setting in harbor. From 7:55 A. M. to 9:00 A. M. Japanese war planes came in wave after wave dropping their deadly destruction. Then he told Americans of his intention to declare war on Japan.

Pat and Olivia, along with many other people in the store, heard the broadcast that Sunday afternoon. Suddenly it was no longer a normal Sunday afternoon for rural people to enjoy being in town. War with Japan was on everyone’s mind now instead of Christmas. Pat and Olivia finished their shopping soon after they heard this tragic news. Pat brought Olivia and his family back to their Model-A-Ford and started home.

They didn’t talk very much going home but later that evening Olivia asked a worried question,

Pat, will you have to go to war?

Pat reckoned he wouldn’t, I have this rupture you know, I don’t think the Army would take me, but he was worried just the same. He had a family to feed and would soon have another one, what would war with Germany and Japan mean to them and the world?

Roberta and Melissa Fae were busy getting dishes washed and Jim Bob ready for bed. These were nightly chores the girls did to help their mother who needed all of the help she could get. Ordinarily Bob would have been running from one hiding place to another trying to avoid getting ready for bed. And Presley would have been sitting on the floor behind the potbellied heating stove talking to his dog Ike, completely recovered from polio from the year before. But tonight even the boys were more quiet than usual. Through the silence of the house they could hear a now howling December wind blowing snow against the plastic covered windows.

The next morning everyone had to be up early. The house was cold, the fire in the heating stove nearly always burnt it’s self out before morning. Large pieces of coal were pushed into the stove before going to bed but the nights were long and cold.

Pat was up first to use the chamber then didn’t waste any time getting socks and shoes on for the linoleum covered floor was as cold as the ice covered pond. His truss then a shirt was quickly added before pulling bibbed overalls on over his long handles.

He worked fast to get ashes shook down in the heating stove and place wood chips on the few remaining live coals. When the chips were burning small pieces of wood kept behind the kitchen stove were added. While waiting for the wood to burn sufficient enough to add coal he looked in on Olivia in the kitchen then went back to add coal from the coal bucket, soon the black potbellied stove would turn red from heat.

Olivia was up tending to the kitchen stove the fire was completely gone out and had to be started to fix breakfast for everyone. Soon there was a large pan of biscuits in the oven and meat cooking in a big black skillet she later filled with milk for gravy.

Pat and Olivia set about their separate duties seemingly unaware of what the other was doing, yet each one knew exactly the other’s routine.

I need to get to the barn and milk. I’ll be back in an hour or so to eat, Pat said.

Breakfast will be on the table when you get back, Olivia responded.

Pat put on two coats and then overshoes to go out in the early morning darkness. Snow was on the ground, as he walked there was a loud crunch with each step. Ike crawled out from under the house to go with him and in a few minutes they were to the barn where the milk cows were kept overnight. One by one he went to each cow and aroused her to stand. Some had lain in their own mess dropped before lying down for the night. The morning milking was a messy job but it was nothing new he simply went ahead with the job despite the mess. Sometimes dirty straw got into the milk bucket but Olivia always strained the milk through a cloth flour sack she washed clean then doubled especially for straining milk.

Milking didn’t take very long the cows were going dry for a period of time before their spring calf was born. One three gallon milk bucket was only partly filled as he went from cow to cow. Anyway, Poppy would be over later and want some milk to take back home. The milk foamed up and gave off that warm, fresh milk odder that comes from warm milk on a cold winter morning.

When milking was finished the cows were let out of the barn to go find water at the creek. He knew they wouldn’t find a place along the creek where the water wasn’t frozen over so he took the axe to chop holes in the ice for them to drink.

While the cows drank from the holes he chopped out he hurried back to the barn and found a pitchfork to clean the floor as best he could. Uneaten hay from the night before was scattered to make a clean bed and the job was finished. He climbed to the hay loft and threw down a pile of loose hay then quickly forked it into the mangers. After the cows were back inside he picked up the bucket of milk and headed back to the house.

Come on Ike, he called, let’s go.

The barn and five of the eight cows belonged to Roland, or Poppy as all his kids called him, but Pat helped him do chores in return for keeping his three cows. His Grandpa Benjamin hadn’t built but one cattle barn so there wasn’t another barn to use. He shared the barn, horses and barnlot full of farm machinery Grandpa had acquired. Some day Pat wanted to move from the little house and have his own things if that ever became possible.

Inside Olivia had been working just as fast as Pat did out in the barn. Roberta and Melissa Fae were up before Presley to help with breakfast then their lunches for school. Olivia needed their help, especially now. Roberta sliced bread for sandwiches while Melissa Fae spread butter on them and lined them up across the table ready for the slice of ham Olivia fried in the big iron skillet. The sandwiches were made with bread Olivia baked on Saturday. It wasn’t a store bought looking sandwich but it was good, come noontime each of them would eagerly take out their sandwich and eat what had been prepared in that early mornings rush.

Olivia knew it was about time for Pat to be back from the barn and told Roberta to get Presley up from bed.

Be sure he has clean clothes to put on for school, she said.

Bob had just had his second birthday so he could sleep longer than the rest. Olivia always fixed him a bowl of oatmeal after he woke up.

Just as Presley was getting his shoes on Pat came to the back door with the bucket of milk.

I’ll take care of the milk later, Olivia said to him. Take your coats off and get washed, breakfast is on the table.

They all sat down around the old round wooden table Pat’s parents left behind when they moved over into the big house. The chairs were of similar construction, plain, square wooden kitchen chairs. Each one of the family, except Olivia who wasn’t doing anything very fast these days, slipped onto a chair and hungrily broke open a hot biscuit. Presley was first and said, Pass the gravy please.

But Pat was first to be served. He ate four biscuits covered with gravy along with two pieces of fresh cooked ham. He washed it down with a big cup of black coffee hot off of the cook stove. The morning ahead of him was going to be long and he needed a good hot breakfast to start the day working in the mine.

While the rest were finishing with breakfast he pushed back from the table, took out his pipe and struck a match to the remaining tobacco still there from the last time he smoked. He puffed on his pipe for a few minutes thoughtfully, as if he was preparing himself for what he had to do that day.

You kids be sure and dress warm this morning, he said. And Presley be sure to keep your ear flaps down over your ears, they could freeze and fall off.

Aw Daddy, my ears won’t really freeze and fall off, will they? Presley asked.

Pat smiled but warned Presley again to bundle up good before they walked to school. He knew how cold they could get walking in the early morning before there was hardly any sun shine. Every morning he walked three miles to the coal mine where he worked with other neighborhood men. When the temperature dropped this low he chose to walk rather than try to get his car started in the early morning cold.

The work was hard, dusty, dirty and back breaking but coal mining was the only work there was to do during the cold winter months of Northeast Missouri.

It’s six o’clock Olivia reminded Pat who took one last draw on his pipe then knocked the fire out in his hand and threw it in the coal bucket. He slid the pipe into his pocket and stood up ready now to get started to the mine. After putting on an extra coat he picked up his dinner bucket and with several goodbyes made his way outside. The stars were giving their last twinkle while the eastern sky was breaking light awaking the day to make walking easier.

As he walked along he thought about Olivia and wondered if he should be going to work this week. He knew the baby was due anytime now and Olivia would be by herself all day except for Bob and he was too little to be any help. He thought about Roberta, Melissa Fae and Presley going to school that morning. He wondered if they would get through the day all right and if everyone would be ok when he got home that night. It was just a year ago when Melissa Fae and Presley were sick with polio, for a while it seemed they would be paralyzed the rest of their life. He hoped this cold weather wouldn’t bring it back on them. Despite the cold winter air he lost himself in thought as he walked to the mine in the wee hours of Monday morning.

* * *

Presley watched as Roberta and Melissa Fae scraped the gravy and meat scraps off the plates onto one for Ike to have his breakfast.

Ike is hungrier than that, Presley protested and slid another biscuit onto the plate. He broke it open and spooned gravy all over the biscuit.

Come on Ike, he called, it’s your turn.

Soon Ike was enjoying the leftovers of their breakfast and cleaned his plate almost as clean as the plates Roberta was washing in the dishpan. Roberta washed, Melissa Fae dried and Olivia helped put things away before it was time for the kids to leave for school.

Roberta and Melissa Fae were first to get their coats and overshoes on then help Presley, he was so bundled up he couldn’t bend over to buckle his overshoes. Melissa Fae fussed at him to stand still while she pushed his pant legs down inside the top and hooked the buckles for him.

Olivia was waiting to tie head scarves tight over the girl’s heads and pull Presley’s cap ears down over his ears. With dinner buckets in hand the three went out of the back door and started the mile and a half walk to school.

At seven o’clock Olivia had the kids out of the house to meet Martha and Lori Ballard as they walked by then they all joined Mitchell and Beverly Jean down by the bridge for the long walk to school together.

The busy morning hadn’t left time to talk about the tragic raid on the United States Naval Vessels at Pearl Harbor just the morning before. Roberta tried to keep Presley walking instead of playing she knew there was no time to waste if they were to get there before the teacher’s bell rang. With Presley so bundled up it would have been hard for him to keep up with Mitchell’s longer legs but he was walking with Martha now and that slowed him down. Even though this was Presley’s second year in school it was like his first year walking, just a month into school last year he had come down with polio. He would have played in the snow too much if Roberta hadn’t kept him moving. They arrived at school with red faces, cold fingers and toes but Presley’s ears didn’t freeze and fall off.

At almost the same time they arrived, Craig and Gregory Martin came running up to the school house. They lived just a short distance away that took but a few minutes to walk, or run if late.

Kathy and Brandon Brown came from the other direction and were the last of the kids to arrive at school that morning.

As soon as they could get their coats and overshoes off and hung up in the cloakroom they all huddled around the big, round coal stove to get warm. Mr. Rayton had arrived early to get the stove started but the room temperature was still cold. They all stood around the stove a few minutes chatting about this and that before Mr. Rayton called them to take their seats.

The seats were still cold as the kids slid into their desks. The stove