A New Beginning (23 page)

I suppose down inside I knew that we couldn't keep living in the bunkhouse forever. That's fine when a husband and wife are just starting out. But eventually you want a place of your own where you can raise a family, a place that you can call your very own home. As much as I loved being so close to my family, I knew that time would come for Christopher and me too.

Pa and Christopher had talked about building a new house on Pa's property with Christopher's share of the money from the mine, and even about us buying enough land from Pa that we could have plenty of room to call our own. And no doubt Mr. Royce would have happily lent us money now if we wanted to build a new house. I hoped we would do that someday because I wanted to live near Pa and Almeda just like Uncle Nick and Aunt Katie did. It felt good and safe to have a community of people close by who could love and watch out for one another.

But for right now, building a new house didn't seem to be what we were supposed to do. With Christopher pastoring the church now, we felt it was important that he be as accessible to the congregation as possible. It had already come up a time or two in conversation about the benefit to the church if we could live in town.

As we did speak of it more, it was always in connection with the church and our role among the people as the pastor and his wife. Gradually I think both Christopher and I came to realize that we were not the ones who were supposed to buy the freight company from Pa and Almeda. I wasn't sure Becky and Tad were going to want it either. I knew that in her heart Becky still wanted to marry someday. And Tad still talked with wide eyes about going to sea. So the future of the business remained in doubt.

It was around the first of October that Mr. Duncan's purchase of the Perkins farm was made final. Mr. Duncan and his family had been renting Almeda's house in town, the one where she lived before she married Pa. Now, within a month, that house would be vacant. That's when Christopher and I began talking seriously and praying about whether it was time for us to set up housekeeping on our own.

Even though I could tell part of her didn't want us to leave any more than part of me wanted to, it was Almeda who brought it up the moment she knew the Duncans would be moving out. She said that if we wanted it, the house was available to us.

We both knew immediately that it was the right thing to do. We wouldn't have to go through all the work of building a new place at the same time Christopher was doing all he could to establish his new ministry on the right foot. Since the church had made him pastor, he'd been spending lots of his free time visiting and calling on people, getting to know everyone in the community and finding out what their needs were and how he could help them. He didn't want to interrupt that process anytime soon with thoughts of building a new house. And being in town would not only make the calling easier, but would make him more accessible for work as well. It was important, too, he said, that he continue to put in his fair share of time working at the mine when he didn't have other work.

All things considered, we decided to make the move as soon as the Duncans were settled in their new place.

At last the day came in the second week of November, just the week after Mr. Grant's election as the new President of the United States.

Christopher and I loaded up the things of ours that were in the bunkhouse—our bed, a chest of drawers, a small oak writing table, our clothes—as well as a bureau, a secretary, and a few other things from the big house that Pa and Almeda wanted to give us. Then there were boxes and crates of house things, linens and utensils and cooking pots.

Midway through the morning, Harriet Rutledge rode up in her buggy. Christopher and I were outside and had just put a couple of chairs up on the wagon. Harriet got down, then grabbed a small box and carried it over toward us, setting it on the back of the wagon.

“What's this?” Christopher asked.

“My contribution to your move,” she replied.

Christopher and I glanced at each other with puzzled expressions. Christopher lifted the cover that lay over the top of the box and peered inside.

“Books?” he said.

“Yes,” replied Harriet. “I've been waiting for the right opportunity to tell you, and now that you two are going to have your own place, I want you to have Avery's books.”

“But . . .” began Christopher, too astonished to know what to say.

“It is just what he would want,” Harriet went on. “I want you to have my husband's library. I just brought this box as a token. When you are moved in, we will transfer all the rest.”

Christopher was silent. I knew tears were trying to rise in his eyes.

“Harriet,” he said finally, “I just don't know what to say. It's too generous and wonderful a thing for me to be able to respond to.”

“Books are nothing if they are not used,” she answered. “Books are not to gather dust; they are to be taken down and thumbed through and read and learned and grown from. You will give Avery's library its best and hardest use. You know how happy that would make him. Most of the books on theology came from Mr. Henderson, as you know. They came into our hands when he died, now they can pass into
your
hands. Possessions are never permanent. God gives them to us for a season. Therefore,
use
them, Christopher, with my blessing. It will make me happy too.”

Christopher smiled, then nodded.

“Thank you, Harriet. It will be an honor. I will call it my Avery Rutledge Library, and I will think of him every time I open one of them—which, I promise you, will be almost a daily occurrence.”

Everyone helped us load our belongings into Pa's flatbed wagon. There was a fun and playful spirit as we tramped back and forth from the house and bunkhouse to the wagon, carrying and lifting, people asking if we were taking this or that . . . laughing and joking and gaiety.

Yet underneath the happiness there was a sadness too. I suppose I knew it was there, but I didn't want to think about it for fear I would start crying.

Of course I was excited to think of moving into a new home that would be just for Christopher and me. But I would miss all this too. From now on, whenever I came here, I would be a visitor. There was another place I would call home. It might not always even be Almeda's house in town. But wherever it was, “home” would never be here again.

I was thirty-one years old, happily married, and at last leaving the roof of my father for a roof my husband and I would call
ours
.

The time had come when Christopher and I would make
home
something we shared only between us, and with what family the Lord chose to honor us with.

It could not help, therefore, be a melancholy moment. I loved this place. It was the only home I had known for more than half my life.

I knew Almeda was thinking similar thoughts.

I turned from hoisting a box of kitchen things up onto the wagon and began walking back to the house. There was Almeda standing near the porch. She had been watching me and now stood still, holding one corner of her apron to her face. Becky and I had already hugged and cried two or three times, and somehow the parting didn't seem so momentous with her. But Almeda and I had not spoken our goodbyes yet.

I now walked toward her. There were tears in her eyes.

I approached and without a word went straight into her arms. We remained there, both weeping softly. They were tears of sadness, yet good tears too. It was a necessary thing that was happening, a part of life's process of growth.

We stood apart. Almeda's hands were on my shoulders. She looked me full in the face, smiling through her red eyes and tears.

“Corrie . . . Corrie!” she sighed softly. “Just look at you now. You're a grown woman, married, and embarking on a life of your own.”

“Did you ever think it would happen?” I said, half laughing through my own tears.

“What?”

“That I would be married and have a home of my own.”

“Of course.”

“I sure never did.”

Almeda smiled.

“I knew it would happen all along,” she said. “The whole world of men would have been fools to pass up as fine a young lady as you, Corrie Belle Hollister Braxton!”

I returned her smile. “Be honest,” I said. “Did you
really
know?”

Almeda nodded. “I knew the Lord was saving you for just the right man.”

We stood another few seconds, holding each other's eyes.

“I'm going to miss you, Corrie,” said Almeda softly, her eyes filling with tears again.

“And I'll miss you,” I said. “You're the best friend I ever had . . . until Christopher came along. I'll never forget all you've done for me.”

“You have been a treasure to me, Corrie . . . a gift from God. You have helped make my life so rich.”

“Oh, Almeda . . .” I said, starting to cry again. How do you find the words to tell someone like that how much you love her? “It isn't as if I'm going far away,” I said. “We'll still see each other . . . every day.”

“Right,” laughed Almeda, trying hard to smile, just like I was. “Of course . . . nothing has to change.”

Inside, however, I think we both knew that after this day things could not help but change. We would love each other just as much, and we would always remain just as close . . . but it would be different. You can never go back and recapture what some things were like when you were young.

That's one of the things about growing up—there's a melancholy that comes with it when you look back at how things used to be.

“Corrie!” a shout sounded behind me.

I turned. There was Christopher running toward us.

I turned back toward Almeda, then embraced her one last time.

“I love you, Almeda,” I whispered.

“Oh, Corrie . . . I love you so much,” I heard her reply softly in my ear. Then her arms pulled me tight and I could feel her strong embrace all around me. “May God give you the best life imaginable!”

“Thank you,” I whispered. I squeezed her once more, then we released one another, and I turned toward the new best friend God had given me—the husband who had given me his name, and to whom I had given my life and my love.

When the wagon was all loaded and the team hitched up, Christopher helped me up to the seat, then jumped up after me.

“We'll follow you into town to help with the unloading,” said Pa.

“Give us an hour or so,” said Christopher. “We'd like to be alone for just a while there together.”

“All right, but just don't do any of the heavy lifting till me and Tad get there.”

“I promise.”

“Are you two going to sleep in town tonight?” asked Almeda, “or will you be back out?”

“We'll have to see how moved in we are,” I answered.

“You'll have supper here with us?”

“That we will agree to!” said Christopher.

“I'll make up one of the extra beds, just in case,” said Almeda.

Christopher flicked the reins, and the wagon jostled into motion behind the two horses.

“'Bye!” came choruses of voices behind us.

We all waved, Christopher and I in the wagon, and the rest of the family standing by the house in a group watching us go. They were still standing there, hands in the air, as we rounded the hilltop and went out of sight.

I turned back around toward the front, slipped my arm through Christopher's, snuggled close to him. We rode most of the rest of the way into Miracle Springs in silence. There were a lot of things to think about. It was a time of change for us, and we both were aware of it.

Twenty-five or thirty minutes later we pulled up in front of the house that to most folks in town was still known as “the Parrish place,” in honor of Almeda's first husband who had built it after they had arrived in California from Boston.

Christopher set the brake on the wheel, then jumped to the ground and helped me down beside him. He ran to the door, opened it, and ran back to where I was standing.

Without so much as a warning, he suddenly reached around my waist with one hand and under my knees with the other and scooped me off my feet.

“What are you doing?” I exclaimed.

“Merely complying with tradition, my dear,” he replied.

Holding me in his arms as though I weighed no more than a feather, Christopher walked toward the house, then sideways through the door.

“I know we're not newlyweds anymore,” he said, “but since this is our first real home together, I thought it only fitting that I carry you across the threshold.”

“Oh, Christopher . . . you are a romantic!”

“And I hope I will always remain one—that is, if you don't tire of me.”

“Never!”

He walked into the big, empty sitting room, stopped, and slowly turned me all the way around as we gazed upon the place where we would start the years of our life together. For several long moments we remained there, silent with our own thoughts.

“Well, Mrs. Braxton,” Christopher said at length, still holding me in his arms. “I think we're home.”

He bent his face down and kissed me gently. As he eased back from me I threw my arms around his neck and hugged him tight.

“I am so glad you picked me up off that road by Mrs. Timms' farm,” I whispered into his ear. “I can't imagine now that I lived so many years of my life without knowing you.”

Christopher laughed.

“I know what you mean. It seems like we've known each other forever, doesn't it?”

I sighed contentedly.

“Oh, Christopher,” I murmured. “I am so happy to be your wife, and to be able to share the rest of life with you.”

“I share your happiness,” he said. “But I'm getting the best of the bargain.”

“How so?” I asked.

“Just look at all the Lord has blessed me with—the finest woman a man could ever want for a wife—”

“Oh, go on!”

“I mean it—you are! But let me finish.”

“I promise not to interrupt again.”

“All right then. He's given me a wife, a home to call my own, even though it's not
really
mine—”

“It may be someday.”

“Perhaps.”

“Almeda said we could buy it from her anytime we wanted, for no more than it cost Mr. Parrish to build it eighteen years ago.”

“She's a generous woman—we'll see. But you said you wouldn't interrupt again!”

“You asked about the house!” I laughed.

“I did no such thing. In any case, God has given me a wife, a house, a partial stake in a gold mine, a family with brothers and sisters and aunts and uncles and a father-in-law and whatever Almeda is to me who all love and accept me . . . and in addition a church to pastor.

“Goodness, Corrie! In all my wildest dreams, I never expected to be so blessed if I lived to be a hundred. When I met Corrie Belle Hollister, it was like discovering three or four pots of gold at the end of the rainbow . . . all at once!”

By now I was laughing again. I couldn't help it.

“So do you see why I say I got the best of the bargain? I got all that, and all you received in exchange was a man—a penniless husband of soiled pastoral reputation.”

Again I wrapped my arms around Christopher's neck, kissed him on the cheek, and then murmured into his ear.

“But what a man I got!” I said. “A man of God! And that is worth more to a woman than any ten gold mines or twenty houses!”

A moment more we remained in silence, then Christopher gently eased me down to the floor.

We stood for a minute in the middle of the room, arm in arm, without saying anything more.

“We are going to have a good life here, Christopher,” I said at length. “God is going to bless this home.”

When Christopher finally opened his mouth, he was not speaking to me.

“Father,”
he prayed,
“we want to take this opportunity again, as we
have done in the past, to dedicate our lives, our future, our marriage, our ministry together, and this home and
all that takes place under this roof . . . to you. We
join our hearts and pray that you would accomplish good here through us. May hearts and lives be changed as
the men and women of this community come to know you more intimately.”

He paused a moment, then continued.

“
Most of all, Father,”
he prayed,
“accomplish your purposes
in our hearts and lives. Transform us. Make us fully
your son and your daughter, for we desire nothing but that the life of your Spirit flow in us and
through us. Let us serve the people of this community.
Give us opportunities not to be highly thought of, but to minister the foot-washing example of Christlike servanthood to
the people who come our way. May this home be
a refuge for all who enter its doors, where they may find peace, acceptance, truth, and love . . . and most of
all where they may find your loving Fatherhood toward them.
Give us obedient and humble hearts to do your will.
Deepen within us the desire to seek after nothing but your will. We look to you, our Father, to supply
our every need, and to make known the course you want our footsteps to take. We give ourselves completely to
you, Father.”

He stopped, and it was silent again.

“
Amen,”
I said.

Yet a few seconds longer we stood.

“Well, what do you say, Mrs. Braxton?” said Christopher, turning toward me. “Shall we unload that wagon and begin turning this place into the home of Corrie and Christopher Braxton?”