She began teaching school at the clapboard-roofed schoolhouse, learning the children’s names gradually and their ways more quickly. Her students ranged in age from tiny five-year-old Laura Adams to strapping sixteen-year-old Toby Pritchard, Waylon’s younger brother. Some could read and count, others could do neither well enough to mention. Some were friendly and eager to please her, others stared at her rebelliously as if waiting for the new teacher to do or say something wrong so they could try to get her fired. Rebeccah found that teaching the young people of Powder Creek was completely different from teaching the arrogant young women at Miss Wright’s Academy. She actually enjoyed it. She quickly became fond of the little ones with their trusting baby faces and eagerness to learn, the way they chanted out the alphabet and brought her shiny apples and cut-out paper hearts. She also took a fancy to the middle children, like Billy and Joey, and young Mary Adams, who was one of six children and worked at the Bodine house before and after school helping Caitlin.
