My Children Are More Precious Than Gold Read Online Free PDF Page B

across the room. She glanced toward the windows. An eerie hush
had fallen over the timber. A lone brown leaf left over from winter
skittered across the yard. All the animals had disappeared, but the
most terrifying sign of a fast approaching storm was the way the
sky had changed. Bess had never seen anything like it. Once a
peaceful, clear blue, the sky was a rolling turmoil as dark green
as a mallard duck's head. Dipping down as it rolled, the one huge
cloud touched the tree tops, edging toward the school.
    Bess checked around her. She realized
the other children hadn't noticed the change. She waved her hand in
the air to get Mr. Steincross's attention, but he had already
spotted the approaching storm. He was standing at the window near
his desk at the front of the room, staring at the cloud.
    “ Mr. Steincross!” Bess
called out.
    “ Yes, Bess, what is it?”
The teacher asked in his precise tone without taking his eyes off
the storm.
    “ There's a bad storm
comen!”
    That got the attention of the other
students.
    “ There is?”
    “ Where?”
    “ Let's see!”
    “ Settle down, children.
I've been watching the storm's progress. No need for alarm.” The
teacher spoke calmly, but nervously, he rubbed his hands together
and paced in front of the windows. “To be on the safe side, all of
you in the middle of the room slide under your desks. Those of you
with seats by the windows join the children under their desk in the
middle of the room. All of you stay there until I tell you to come
out.”
    Bess and the other children by the
windows darted across the room to do as the teacher instructed.
Bess went around the potbelly wood stove in the middle of the room.
She squeezed down under Susie Kate Parkin's desk along side of her
friend. The girls peeked out from under the desk toward the windows
to keep an eye on the storm.
    The dark, green cloud boiled,
descending closer to the clearing. The room turned from a gray cast
to gloomy darkness. The tree tops swayed frantically back and forth
in the strong wind. The temperature dropped fast, creating a damp
chill in the air when the pelting rain rattled on the tree leaves
in the distant timber. The rattling leaves was a sound that grew
louder as the rain moved closer to the school. A sudden strong gust
of wind blew through the open windows, scattering slates and chalk
onto the students under the desks.
    “ Don and Lue, help me
close these windows,” the teacher commanded.
    Lue grabbed the top of a window and
felt a blast of cold air push against him. As he shoved the window
down, he noticed a movement by the boy's outhouse. “Mr. Steincross,
Dillard is still at the outhouse! The wind jest pulled the door out
of his hands and knocked him down. He cain't walk in this wind by
himself. I'm goen after him.”
    Crack! Kaboom!
    “ You will do no such
thing. That lightning is wicked. I'll go get Dillard. You get under
your desk. Now!” Mr. Steincross ordered when Lue
hesitated.
    The teacher ran for the door and
turned the knob. He pushed with all his might, struggling to shut
the door behind him. Don and Lue rushed to help him. Despite the
teacher’s orders once the door was shut, they eased along the wall
to the windows to look out.
    Leaves and small twigs filled the air
as the gale force winds carried to the school cries of help from
the small, frightened boy, laying face down in the grass with his
arms folded over his head. The teacher tried to walk straight
toward Dillard. He staggered sideways against the storm's
intensity.
    Crack! Kaboom! A vivid lightning bolt
forked across the dark sky. The teacher blinked from the brightness
that lit up the yard for an instance then steeled himself to the
deafening boom. He felt the earth shuttered beneath his feet. The
lightning's target, a large oak tree at the edge of the school
yard, toppled to the ground in a crash of limbs and
leaves.
    Finally, the man reached the little
boy as the rain hammered down on them. “Dillard, get up. We