The Schoolteacher's Gamble
A young rural teacher outwits a robber who targets her on the road home.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
Mattie Noble, a young schoolteacher, had just collected her pay from the district treasurer—two twenty-dollar bills and two tens. As she walked the five miles home through the woods, she was stalked by Al Parrish, a local known for his bad reputation. Parrish, aware that Mattie was considered 'cowardly,' planned to ambush her near the dreaded Indian burying ground. As she neared the woods, she spotted him behind an old hollow tree. He grabbed her arm, demanding her money. Recognizing the hopelessness of struggling physically, Mattie thought quickly. She convinced him to walk past the burial ground before robbing her, and in a moment of distraction, she flung her handkerchief—containing the money—deep into the woods. Though he knocked her unconscious, Mattie’s brothers—who had been nearby—arrived to rescue her. They found the money exactly where she had thrown it, and though Mattie proved her mettle, the story notes her brothers still insisted on calling her a 'little coward.'
“A brave teacher... She's afraid of her own shadow.”
This story highlights the 19th-century trope of the 'feeble' woman using guile to navigate gendered expectations of cowardice and strength. It reflects the era's preoccupation with 'cowardice' as a moral failing, mirrored in the companion story on the page about a sailor who refused to fight.
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