She Said Children Had Studied There for Twelve Years Under a Territorial Seal — Then the Cut Chain Link Dropped on the Claim

"Gus?"

"Yes'm."

She looked for Hannah and found her already at her bench, with her slate out and her hands folded on it, staring at the window. Hannah was nine, the best speller in the room and the worst at sitting still. Cora had never seen her fold her hands without being told.

"Hannah, are you well?"

"Yes, Miss Lindqvist."

"Is your father coming to the meeting?"

The girl looked at her. "He was up all night," she said. "He was out in the shed. I don't know."

***

Horace Whitcombe arrived at nine-fifteen in a hired buggy from Harlan Crossing, with a leather portfolio under his arm and dust on his trouser cuffs. He was a big man gone soft at the middle, in a black frock coat and a gray silk tie, and he had the kind of gray beard that looked as though it had been trimmed by a barber who was afraid of him. He was fifty-nine. He had been chief clerk to the Surveyor General, then Register of the Land Office at Harlan Crossing, and since spring, by the Governor's appointment, Commissioner of Territorial Lands. He had given out the prizes at the spring program two years running. He had a deep, warm voice, and he used it the way a preacher does, letting it drop when he wanted a room to lean toward him.

The children had gone. Cora had watched them down the wash until the last bonnet disappeared, and only Hannah had looked back.

"Miss Lindqvist." Whitcombe took off his hat and stood in the doorway a moment, letting his eyes adjust. "I am obliged to you. I know it is no small thing to close a school, even for a morning."

"The board's letter said the school's interest must be represented."

"And so it must." He set the portfolio on her desk and did not open it. "I'll be plain with you, as I believe you prefer plainness. The Red Willow family has filed a contest against the lines of this township. They say the boundary between Section Fifteen and Section Fourteen is laid down wrong. If they prevail, this knoll, and the spring below it, and something near forty acres of creek bottom, would be found to lie on the old Red Willow homestead and not on the Pruitt section."