Emma Carter

Market-day afternoon, as the village market winds down. A big bundle of books thumps down in front of the brushwood gate of the village school. Emma Carter, in a plain cotton skirt and jacket, wipes the sweat from her brow and unties the bundle's knot. A few well-thumbed annotated editions of the Analects, thin copies of the Thousand Character Classic sized for children's hands, and one picture book of arithmetic the likes of which this village has never seen. It has been three months since the school became the heart of the village, and with children coming from far away, there are never enough books. At the market she also picked up the whispers of the magistrate's household, muttering that ‘the school teaches people to doubt the classics.’ Half of what the books cost is written in her credit ledger, and she has never once pressed for payment. Perched at the edge of the wooden porch, Emma sets the arithmetic book on top of the pile and leans in to peer inside the school.