Ruffling Society Read online

  RUFFLING SOCIETY BY KAY MOSER

  Published by Heritage Beacon Fiction

  an imprint of Lighthouse Publishing of the Carolinas

  2333 Barton Oaks Dr., Raleigh, NC, 27614

  ISBN: 978-1-938499-80-7

  Copyright © 2018 by Kay Moser

  Cover design by Elaina Lee

  Interior design by AtriTex Technologies P Ltd

  Available in print from your local bookstore, online, or from the publisher at: ShopLPC.com

  For more information on this book and the author visit: www.kaymoser.com

  All rights reserved. Noncommercial interests may reproduce portions of this book without the express written permission of Lighthouse Publishing of the Carolinas, provided the text does not exceed 500 words. When reproducing text from this book, include the following credit line: “Ruffling Society by Kay Moser published by Lighthouse Publishing of the Carolinas. Used by permission.”

  Commercial interests: No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means—electronic, photocopy, recording, or otherwise—without prior written permission of the publisher, except as provided by the United States of America copyright law.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, and incidents are all products of the author’s imagination or are used for fictional purposes. Any mentioned brand names, places, and trademarks remain the property of their respective owners, bear no association with the author or the publisher, and are used for fictional purposes only.

  Scripture quotations from The Authorized (King James) Version. Rights in the Authorized Version in the United Kingdom are vested in the Crown. Reproduced by permission of the Crown’s patentee, Cambridge University Press.

  Brought to you by the creative team at Lighthouse Publishing of the Carolinas (LPCBooks.com):

  Eddie Jones, Ann Tatlock, Denise Weimer, Shonda Savage, Brian Cross

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Moser, Kay.

  Ruffling Society / Kay Moser 1st ed.

  Dedication

  In memory of my mother

  Ruth Small Moser

  my champion

  Contents

  Author’s Note

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Acknowledgments

  Other novels by Kay Moser

  Author’s Note

  Female Texas teachers were on the move in the late 1890’s, both professionally and literally. They were seeking higher education, better wages, and access to administrative positions. When the idea of creating a summer school in Colorado was suggested, a small group of adventurous teachers said, “Why not?” After all, the State Board of Education was pressuring them to further their education, but no summer schools were available at Texas universities. However, a model was already in place: the Chautauqua at Lake Chautauqua, New York, had provided summer education for twenty-five years. And most important, officials of the Gulf and Southern Railway were eager to help so they could claim new routes in Colorado and increase passenger numbers.

  With amazing speed, the new Texas Colorado Chautauqua raced from a mere wish to a fully realized summer school for hundreds of Texas teachers. In September 1897, the Texas Board of Education began a dialogue with three Colorado cities. Boulder was chosen, and the citizens passed a bond in April 1898 to finance eighty acres of land, an auditorium to seat six thousand, and a dining hall to feed three hundred. The countdown began. The city had a mere ninety days to erect the structures and provide electric lights and water for the encampment. They must also build one hundred and fifty wooden platforms to serve as floors for the hip-roofed, compartmentalized tents which the teachers would inhabit, plus bathhouses and a bandstand.

  In Texas, the organizers scrambled to create a six-week-long curriculum of studies which would offer fifty-one classes taught by twenty professors in the arts, sciences, and humanities. They also employed the Kansas City Symphony and arranged thirty-three major evening presentations and a total of ninety-four speeches. The Gulf and Southern Railway offered Texas teachers a special package deal. For $75, a teacher would receive a round trip fare from Fort Worth, all boarding and lodging, admission to all lectures and entertainments, and tuition for the entire six weeks’ school.

  In late June 1898, special trains from Texas arrived in Boulder carrying teachers who were eager to unpack their trunks of household necessities, set up life in their tents, and begin their studies. Since the promised streetcar line to the Chautauqua was not built, the teachers loaded their trunks onto wagons for the one-mile ride uphill to the tent city awaiting them at the base of the Front Range.

  Throughout that first season of the Texas Colorado Chautauqua, approximately five hundred people lived at the camp and participated in daily studies, but thousands came from surrounding areas to enjoy the concerts and lectures. The highest attendance occurred on August 10 when eight thousand people converged on the auditorium to hear the most famous religious speaker of the era, Dr. T. Dewitt Talmadge.

  In Ruffling Society, our fictional heroine, Sarah Novak, will join the Texas teachers who participate in this historical first summer of the Texas Colorado Chautauqua.

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  CHAPTER 1

  June 1898

  Sarah Novak struggled to compose herself as she stood, garbed in a traditional graduate’s cap and gown, in the blinding white light of the Texas sun. The members of Travis College class of 1898 were ready to process into Memorial Hall, receive their diplomas, and begin their new lives. Each student had been on a life journey for the last two years, but none had come further than Sarah. While the others complained of the heat and shielded their eyes from the glare, Sarah remembered her grueling years in the cotton fields. She struggled to accept the new definition of herself, which she had worked so hard to earn. Soon she would no longer be just a Czech immigrant girl, the daughter of a sharecropper. She would mount the stage, accept a diploma, and become Sarah Novak, teacher. The studies of the previous two years represented a steep, arduously climbed mountain, but thanks to God, she had not needed to climb it alone.

  As the students moved forward, they left the heat and glare of the outdoors for the shadowy foyer of Memorial Hall. They paused while the monitor straightened their line. Then the double doors were
ceremoniously thrown open, they entered the auditorium, and Sarah gasped at the beauty of the amber light pouring through the two-story-high, arched Tiffany windows on both sides of the hall. The motto of the college, emblazoned in gilded letters on the dark green background surrounding the stage, glowed in the light and called her to her destiny. Pro honoris, Pro scientia, Pro texana. A thrill of eagerness shot through Sarah as she stepped forward to embrace the challenge—for honor, for knowledge, for Texas—and began her walk toward the ivory urns filled with yellow roses which lined the front of the stage. The president of the college and other administrators stood at attention in a semi-circle surrounding a heavily carved, mahogany table. The scrolled diplomas of the eighteen graduates waited in a fan shape around four gold medals prominently displayed on stands in the center of the table. These were the prizes to be given to the best scholars in science, mathematics, literature, and the classics.

  Sarah scanned the audience and spotted her beloved supporters sitting together on the front row. Victoria Hodges’ red hair made her instantly recognizable. Her tall, broad-shouldered husband, Hayden, and the equally impressive figure of General Gibbes, flanked her. Sarah’s mind flashed back three years to the sunny morning when she had stood at the front gate of the Hodges garden while Victoria eagerly invited her in. That was the moment that changed my life, the moment when my dreams began to become my reality. How can I ever thank her?

  To the left of General Gibbes, Sarah found the petite figure of his daughter, Christine Boyd, the elegant lady from Charleston who had engineered the rescue of the Novak family from abject poverty when Sarah was only a child. Sarah’s throat tightened as she suppressed her tears. She was the human hand of God, the hand that followed His bidding and used her influence to lift my family to security. Next to Christine sat her husband, Richard Boyd, the town’s banker who frequently turned into the Good Samaritan.

  “Kindly step aside.” Sarah felt a sharp rap on her shoulder and turned to find Mrs. Edith Bellows, Victoria’s next-door neighbor, glaring at her. “I wish to congratulate my nephew before taking my seat.”

  As Sarah moved out of the line, she noticed that there was plenty of room for the woman to pass and that the graduates in front of her were not asked to step aside. Sarah wearily shook her head. She will never forgive me for daring to rise above what she deems my station. Sarah glanced around the auditorium. No doubt there are others here who agree with her. She watched as Mrs. Bellows kissed her nephew, Horace, on the cheek before making what she obviously considered a queenly progression down the main aisle. A group of her friends greeted her as she took the place they were saving for her.

  The Travis College string quintet struck up a march, and the audience rose from their seats and turned to the back of the hall. This is it! As a thrill of nerves shot through Sarah, she snapped to attention. Her moment had come; the victory she had slaved for was at hand, but when she tried to lift her feet and move forward, she felt frozen in place.

  Then Sarah saw her. A small, nondescript woman took one step out into the main aisle and peered back at the line of graduates. Sarah’s mother. My daughter is gonna have more! Jana Novak’s defiant declaration, which had enabled Sarah to follow her dreams, rocketed through Sarah’s mind and fired her courage. She lifted her chin, boldly stepped forward, and marched toward her destiny, the prize for which she and her mother had sacrificed so much. When she came alongside Jana, Sarah paused, and her mother pressed two fingers to her lips in a salute of love. Sarah’s eyes filled as she returned the gesture.

  Standing tall next to her mother, Lee Logan beamed down at Sarah, his love shining from his eyes. A thrill ran through Sarah, but she hastened on. Physically, she must not hold up the processional line, and emotionally, she could not risk focusing on Lee’s courtship. Her mind was made up! Yes, it was definitely made up. She planned to be a teacher, not a wife. Was this not the role she had dreamed of all her life? Was this not the self-definition she had chosen when she began her arduous studies in Victoria’s library? Was this not the reason she had defied her father and allowed her mother to sacrifice so much? I have chosen. My fate is sealed. With that thought, Sarah hardened her heart as she mounted the steps to the stage and took her place in the line of chairs set out for the graduates.

  When the processional music ended, the eighteen graduates sat, and President Peter J. Wiseman welcomed the audience. As he spoke, Sarah scanned the front row again. Next to Lee Logan, she found his sister, Lavinia, and his mother. Smiling members of the Riverford Women’s Literary Society finished out the row. Sarah tried to smile back as she swallowed her disappointment. Her father had not come. His resistance to her choosing education over marriage to a Czech farmer remained intact. Her brothers were not present; they had not forgiven her for refusing to sacrifice herself to their ambitions to increase the family wealth.

  On stage, the quintet of student musicians began to play again, but a woman hurrying down the side aisle to the very front row claimed Sarah’s attention. Maude is here! Surprise and delight flooded her that Maude Lindsay, Victoria’s cousin and the principal of a girls’ school in Fort Worth, had traveled to her graduation. Maude had donated her professional expertise to direct Sarah’s studies so successfully that Sarah had gained a scholarship to Travis College. But how on earth did she get away? Sarah wondered. Her own school’s graduation is tomorrow morning. Much to the obvious dismay of President Wiseman, Maude stopped before taking a seat, stood at attention, and saluted Sarah. Sarah grinned but managed to suppress her desire to wave at her big-hearted, but often rambunctious, mentor.

  Valedictorian Warren Briggs delivered a commencement speech full of finely worded exhortations to the graduates to utilize their education for the betterment of society. Sarah’s thoughts leapt to her own partially-laid plans for service.

  In two weeks she would board the train and take her first trip alone. In the mountains of Boulder, Colorado, she would join other Texas teachers to study at the newly established Chautauqua. All across the country, summer schools for teachers, modeled after the summer school at Lake Chautauqua in New York, were being built. In the previous year, Texas teachers had joined forces with the railroads to build Texado Park in Boulder, and Sarah had been offered the opportunity to study in the mountains. She was thrilled!

  Just think of it! Six whole weeks surrounded by other teachers and the Rocky Mountains. But then what? Sarah had no teaching job to return to in the fall. Even though Riverford High School currently needed a classics teacher, the school board had not offered her the position. I won’t just come home and get married. I will teach! Somewhere …

  Sarah glanced at Lee Logan. Her keen awareness of his fine qualities included his willingness to wait for her to finish her education. In spite of his obvious desire to marry, he had actively supported her dreams. She worried, however, that his patience was coming to an end. Why, oh why, does society insist that a married woman cannot—no, may not—teach? Surely until she has children—

  Applause interrupted Sarah’s thoughts, and she realized that the speaker had introduced the graduates and that they were rising from their seats. She leapt to her feet.

  President Wiseman and the dean of education took their positions and readied themselves to hand out the diplomas. As each graduate stepped forward and received the coveted parchment scroll, polite applause followed. From one corner of the hall or another, a more vigorous applause broke out for the occasional graduate.

  Sarah waited her turn, her nerves growing skittery. When President Wiseman called out “Sarah Novak,” she stepped forward, received her diploma, and watched with amazement as Maude sprang to her feet, applauding vigorously. The rest of the front row quickly followed suit, and Sarah felt her heart would burst with gratitude. Three years ago she had been a poor farm girl destined for a life of repetitive drudgery as wife to an immigrant sharecropper, but because of the generosity of these people, she was now a teacher. I will make them proud, dear God. I promise You I will. I wi
ll never forget how the love of strangers elevated my life, and I will extend the same support to the others You put in my path.

  Sarah focused on her mother, who beamed up at her. I will never forget where I came from, Mother. She placed her fingers to her lips and extended them to the woman who had possessed the courage to cross an ocean in search of a better life for her future children. And I will never forget Rose! Sarah fought back a wave of tears as she remembered the birth and death of her infant sister, the tiny girl who had been given no chance to aspire to great heights or to fulfilling love.

  Sarah returned to her seat and slipped her hand down her hip until, in her skirt pocket, she felt the precious handkerchief containing a bit of soil from Rose’s grave. Lee had created the memento and placed it in her hand as they had stood at her sister’s grave two years ago. In the face of her crippling grief and guilt, he had persuaded her to return to town to take the college entrance exam. Lee had translated her grief into a determination to help other poor and outcast children. She met his eyes. He is reading my mind. He remembers.

  Sarah hardly heard the names of the other graduates, but when President Wiseman announced that he would confer the prizes for science, mathematics, literature, and the classics, she forced her attention back to the program. Sarah knew better than to hope. Women were not granted prizes; even though they had earned degrees, it was assumed that they would marry soon and leave behind their intellectual pursuits. The faculty was certain that the prestige of a prize would be lost on a woman.

  As each male winner’s name was called out, he stepped forward, and with great ceremony the president looped the ribbon of the appropriate medal over the recipient’s head as the audience applauded. Finally, only the classics prize remained, but President Wiseman stopped, returned to the podium, and shuffled several papers in front of him. A hum of whispers swept across the auditorium.

  President Wiseman cleared his throat, waited for quiet, then announced, “The 1898 prize for classics goes to Horace Bellows.” The audience broke into applause, but he held up his hand to quiet them. “And to Sarah Novak,” he added. The audience gasped. “Yes.” The president’s voice strengthened. “My conscience will not allow me to skip over the strongest classics scholar because she is a young woman. There will be two classics medals awarded this year.” He reached into his coat pocket, pulled out a medal with ribbon attached, turned, and placed it on the table.