Maria kept the journal in the library to remind those who passed through the doors of what had happened in this building. Before it was filled with dozens of volumes, there was a book that had been written here when women were not allowed to speak on their own behalf. In the evenings there were lessons for those who wished to learn how to read. At first only women attended, many of whom sneaked out and said they were going to a quilting party, but after a while their husbands came to peer through the door, farmers and fishermen who entered the room with their hats in their hands, shyly picking up a book, then fitting their tall, strong bodies into chairs meant for children.

The Maria Owens School for Girls held its first classes soon after, with ten girls in attendance, aged six to thirteen. Faith Owens taught both Latin and Greek, along with poetry and classics. There were still many in town who thought it was a danger and a disservice to society to educate female students; all the same, several local residents allowed their daughters to register for classes, despite the rumors about the Owens women. Faith was not yet seventeen, but quite well respected by the girls and their families, who ignored the rumors that vowed both Owens women became crows who flew above the fields after dark, and that they would put a curse on you if you wronged them, and that they swam naked in Leech Lake. It was true that Maria went to the lake on summer mornings. She could only float, but that was enough, for she’d been able to dive the one time she needed to do so. If she wanted to swim there, among the waterweeds and the lilies, with no clothes on and her hair tied up with blue ribbon, who was to say such a thing wasn’t a pleasure and a delight?