Christmas On His Ranch: Maggie's Dad / Cattleman's Choice

Julie was the brightest spot in Antonia’s days. The little girl was always cheerful, helpful, doing whatever she could to smooth Antonia’s path and make it easy for her to teach the class. She remembered where Mrs. Donalds had kept things, she knew what material had been covered and she was always eager to do anything she was asked.

Maggie on the other hand was resentful and ice-cold. She did nothing voluntarily. She was still refusing to turn in her homework. Talking to her did no good. She just glared back.

“I’ll give you one more chance to make up this work,” Antonia told her at the end of her second week teaching the class. “If you don’t turn it in Monday, you’ll get another zero.”

Maggie smiled haughtily. “And my daddy will cuss you out again. I’ll tell him you slapped me, too.”

Antonia’s gray eyes glittered at the child. “You would, wouldn’t you?” she asked coldly. “I don’t doubt that you can lie, Maggie. Well, go ahead. See how much damage you can do.”

Maggie’s reaction was unexpected. Tears filled her blue eyes and she shivered.

She whirled and ran out of the classroom, leaving Antonia deflated and feeling badly for the child. She clenched her hands on the desk to keep them from shaking. How could she have been so hateful and cold?

She cleaned up the classroom, waiting for Powell to storm in and give her hell. But he didn’t show up. She went home and spent a nerve-rackingly quiet weekend with her father, waiting for an explosion that didn’t come.

The biggest surprise arrived Monday morning, when Maggie shoved a crumpled, stained piece of paper on the desk and walked back to her seat without looking at Antonia. It was messy, but it was the missing homework. Not only that, it was done correctly.

Antonia didn’t say a word. It was a small victory, of sorts. She wouldn’t admit to herself that she was pleased. But the paper got an A.

Julie began to sit with her at recess, and shared cupcakes and other tidbits that her mother had sent to school with her.

“Mom says you’re doing a really nice job on me, Miss Hayes,” Julie said. “Dad remembers you from school, did you know? He said you were a sweet girl, and that you were shy. Were you, really?”

Antonia laughed. “I’m afraid so. I remember your father, too. He was the class clown.”

“Dad? Really?”

“Really. Don’t tell him I told you, though, okay?” she teased, smiling at the child.

From a short distance away, Maggie glared toward them. She was, as usual, alone. She didn’t get along with the other children. The girls hated her, and the boys made fun of her skinny legs that were always bruised and cut from her tomboyish antics at the ranch. There was one special boy, Jake Weldon. Maggie pretended not to notice him. He was one of the boys who made fun of her, and it hurt really bad. She was alone most of the time these days, because Julie spent her time with the teacher instead of Maggie.

Miss Hayes liked Julie. Everyone knew it, too. Julie had been Maggie’s best friend, but now she seemed to be Miss Hayes’s. Maggie hated both of them. She hadn’t told her father what Miss Hayes had said about her homework. She wanted her teacher to know that she wasn’t bad like her mother. She knew what her mother had done, because she’d heard them talking about it once. She remembered her mother crying and accusing him of not loving her, and him saying that she’d ruined his life, she and her premature baby. There had been something else, something about him being drunk and out of his mind or Maggie wouldn’t have been born at all.