Page 30 of On a Midnight Clear

THREE WISE MEN FROM THE EAST TO ARRIVE TOMORROW

The headline caught Stella Barrington’s eye as she cleaned up her father’s breakfast dishes. Grinning, she set aside the bowls she’d just stacked and picked up the folded newspaper.

Always one to appreciate a clever bit of writing, she unfolded the paper to view the column in its entirety.

Stella already knew the basic details the article would cover since her father headed up the symposium committee at Baylor that was responsible for bringing the guest lecturers to town, but any columnist possessed of enough wit to draw in the nonacademic populace by teasing them with a nativity reference at this time of year deserved a read.

Professor Albert Boggess, Chairman of Baylor University’s Department of Mathematics, has put his background in astronomy to good use in guiding a trio of wise men from the east to our humble town for the upcoming Christmas season.

Three professors from the hallowed halls of Harvard University will arrive on Tuesday to bestow their gifts of knowledge, prestige, and academic prowess upon a mathematics program still in its infancy.

Professor Ignatius Barrington called the visit “quite a coup” and expects the impact on students to be substantial.

“These men represent some of the finest scientific minds our country has to offer,” Barrington said.

“Their combined research in the fields of mathematics, astronomy, and physics is groundbreaking. Exposing our students and faculty to such talented minds is a gift beyond price. A continued partnership with these learned men will propel our program into the next century as one of the top programs in the West.”

Oh , Papa . You do have a flair for the dramatic.

Stella grinned as she shook her head. Baylor might be the oldest university in Texas, but it couldn’t yet compete with the top national programs in mathematics.

Agriculture, yes. Mathematics . . . well, she loved her father’s optimism, but she doubted his theoretical numbers lined up with those rooted in reality.

The article went on to highlight some of the visiting gentlemen’s accolades.

Professor Goldstein’s recent article in the American Journal of Mathematics .

Professor Muir’s pioneering research on electromagnetic waves.

The third professor was a protégé of James Mills Peirce, son of the late Benjamin Peirce, who many considered to be the father of American mathematics. One of her father’s heroes.

Stella’s stomach flipped as she read that last line. Surely it was mere coincidence. Mr. Peirce was bound to have more than one protégé. Her eyes flew over the rest of the article, searching for an unfamiliar name, one that would offer reassurance that disaster did not loom around the corner.

Considered one of the brightest young American minds in the field of mathematics, Professor Stentz recently received a prestigious Parker Fellowship to study in Germany under renowned mathematician Felix Klein at the University of Gottingen.

Stella’s fingers lost all feeling. The newspaper plummeted to the floor.

No. It couldn’t be. Professor Stentz coming here? Her stomach lurched. Why had her father not warned her? With all his excitement over the symposium, never once had he mentioned the names of the Harvard professors who would be visiting. Had he kept them from her intentionally?

She pressed a hand to her midsection, ordering it to settle.

Of course Papa hadn’t willfully kept things from her.

He didn’t have a deceitful bone in his body.

Truth be told, he might have mentioned it in one of his evening rambles, and she’d not noticed.

She’d been known to nod and offer the occasional mmm of encouragement without really listening when he started meandering down theoretical roads.

She’d inherited his love of academia, but literature interested her far more than mathematics.

Yes, she was proficient in algebra, trigonometry, and the basics of Euclidean geometry, but when he started going on about various aspects of number theory, her level of comprehension, and therefore interest, dropped exponentially.

Even so, the probability of Frank Stentz’s name being mentioned without her noticing was infinitesimal.

Not with her heightened awareness of that particular personage.

Every day she searched the mail in hopes of spotting his return address.

And when she allowed herself foolish romantic daydreams, his was the name attached to her imaginary suitor.

Yet in less than a day’s time, he would no longer be imaginary.

He’d be in her town, eventually in her home, very much in the flesh.

Good heavens. This was a disaster. Gripping the table’s edge, Stella lowered herself onto the nearest chair.

She never should have started corresponding with the man.

A part of her had known it to be folly. But she’d been in the middle of reading through all of Jane Austen’s novels in the autumn of last year when Papa returned from a meeting of the newly formed New York Mathematical Society.

The influx of happy endings for the Bennett sisters, Emma, and even the timid and plain Fanny Price must have temporarily altered Stella’s brain chemistry with some sort of romantical infection, deafening her to the pragmatic voice that usually guided her actions.

Papa had been filled with stories when he came home, most of which centered around a young man he’d met with ties to the great Benjamin Peirce.

Yet it wasn’t just a love for pure mathematics that had bonded the two, but a shared faith as well.

One of their discussions on the concept of infinity as developed from Cantor’s set theory had taken a religious turn, and Mr. Stentz had invited Papa to Sunday services at the very church Papa had already planned to attend.

Papa declared it a sign from above that God had a hand in bringing the two of them together.

“You’d like him , Stella. Polite. Devout.

Absolutely brilliant , yet humble. Not one to toot his own horn , though he’s not afraid to argue you into the ground during a theoretical debate.

Respectfully , of course.” He’d chuckled at that.

“He’s near your age , too. Thirty , I think he said.

Not the ancient scholars one generally meets at these types of functions. ”

When a letter arrived the following week from Mr. Stentz, her father had read it to her, emphasizing the line where the gentleman had asked after his daughter.

“Why don’t you scribble a few lines to the fellow?” Papa had urged. “I’ll include it with my letter. Might do the man good to have someone speak to him about matters not involving numbers.”

What a fool she’d been to agree. To think such a flirtation harmless.

Writing a man who lived a thousand miles away had seemed safe enough.

The two of them would never meet. He worked at Harvard, for pity’s sake.

She had nothing to fear in striking up a friendship.

And when the letters had become more personal?

Well, it was like living in her very own novel.

A place where she could pretend to be beautiful and clever, the type of woman to engage the interest of a scholarly gentleman.

A gentleman she’d come to respect and esteem. Perhaps even love.

Well, that book had just slammed closed, and reality had slapped her across the face.

Frank—her Frank—was coming to Texas, and she’d no longer be able to pretend that anything romantic could exist between them.

Because the moment he saw her, he’d see what every other eligible man in McLennan County saw—a plain spinster of eight and twenty years with no feminine attributes to attract a man’s attention.

Unfashionably tall, flat of chest and large of nose, with feet so long she had to have shoes specially made.

She’d accepted the truth about her destiny years ago.

She’d not been built for marriage. God had selected another path for her.

One that led her to take over the running of her father’s household after her mother passed away ten years ago.

One that gave her the freedom to serve as a volunteer sponsor for the Rufus Columbus Burleson Literary Society on campus, mentoring the female students who attended.

One that allowed her to chair the nativity production committee at church.

Her life was fulfilling. Meaningful. She didn’t need a man to validate her.

So why was the prospect of losing the regard of Mr. Frank Stentz slicing through her heart like an overzealous letter opener?

“Ready to begin collecting data, my boy?” Isaac Goldstein chuckled as he slapped Frank’s shoulder, causing the bow tie he’d been straightening to go askew.

Frank frowned at his reflection in the small mirror hanging in the boardinghouse parlor and set the tie back on its proper axis, precisely perpendicular to the placket of buttons running down his shirt front.

Perhaps revealing his experimental intentions to his colleagues had been an error in judgment.

Yet any data collected needed to be analyzed impartially, and for once, Frank doubted his ability to be objective.

Besides, both Goldstein and Muir had wives, meaning they possessed a rudimentary knowledge of how to decipher feminine signals, an ability Frank found as impossible as dividing an integer by zero.

Yes, they’d claimed their wives two and three decades ago, respectively, but they’d still accomplished the feat.

And if he’d learned anything in the field of mathematical research, it was that one must build upon theorems already proven in order to advance one’s understanding.

Hence, his enlistment of the professors.

Though, the amiable Goldstein was a more eager participant than the dour Mr. Muir.