Rachel's Prayer (2 page)

Samuel came in with Franky, and I offered them coffee. Frank was young but a good partner to my husband in their woodworking business. And good help with the farms too. Our families still did most of our farm work together, just as we’d been doing ever since Mrs. Hammond died. It seemed to be easier for George that way.

Samuel leaned over and kissed my cheek. “Starting to snow,” he said. “How soon can we leave?”

“We have to wait till the cake’s done,” I answered, sneaking a peek between the kitchen window curtains to see if I could tell how fast it was coming down.

“Probably a good thing Pastor and Juanita said we could stay over tonight,” he continued.

“I don’t like it,” George answered him. “Don’t like leavin’ the stock on a cold night.”

“I told you,” Samuel replied patiently, “Mr. Mueller will be coming to check on them. And he’ll milk in the morning too, if he doesn’t see us back by then.”

“Gettin’ snowed in’s better’n bein’ snowed out,” George protested. “If it turns off bad, we might not get back by nightfall tomorrow. We’ll miss the evenin’ milkin’, an’ there won’t be nobody to feed none a’ the critters.”

Samuel wasn’t at all disturbed by that idea. “Charlie Hunter said he could bring me through in his sleigh if worst comes to worst, but I don’t expect it.”

“I better stay here just the same,” George said, holding his ground. “Just to be on the safe side. We don’t wanna lose no stock, Samuel. They’s too important to us.”

Samuel nodded. “I know they’re important. But your boy’s more important than the stock, and you promised him you’d come to town with us. I don’t think we’ll get a bad storm. The weather doesn’t have that kind of feel about it.”

“You never know,” George said with a shake of his head.

“If you think somebody oughta stay, Pa, better that it be me,” Frank offered. “I can take care a’ things.”

“If you’re down t’ earth long enough,” George scoffed. I turned and looked when he said that. There was just no call for it. Franky could be quite a thinker sometimes, but he wasn’t terribly absentminded and certainly not slothful. I was sure Franky understood how unfair his father’s judgment of him was. But as usual, he didn’t answer back.

“No need either of you staying here,” Samuel told them. “I don’t think there’ll be that much snow. We’ll be able to get back just fine.”

Samuel leaned to kiss me again like he’d forgotten he’d done it the first time. Then he and Frank each gulped a cup of coffee and went to put out plenty of feed and start the milking, even though it was a little early. Robert pulled on his coat and stepped outside to join them.

It wasn’t long before Rorey came downstairs. She was a bit bigger than Sarah and Katie but not so much that she couldn’t fit some of their clothes. And she’d been looking in their closet and picked out a sweater she asked if she could borrow. It matched her best dress better than any sweater she had, and she wanted to look as good as she could for the party. Sarah agreed graciously enough, but I noticed she had a funny look on her face. She was never very happy with Rorey’s efforts to impress the boys. Especially that Turrey boy.

I hastened everyone at getting their things together that they wanted to wear for the party. George said he wasn’t changing clothes, that he didn’t care how he looked and nobody else should either—just being there was good enough. He protested going into town two or three more times before the cake got done. But I knew he wasn’t that worried about the animals. Surely it was the thought of the train that bothered him, like it bothered me. I began to consider that maybe the only difference between him and me was that I wasn’t voicing any of my feelings about it.

But then, my feelings were different than his. Wild horses couldn’t keep me away from the depot tomorrow. Yet I knew it would be difficult not to cry in front of my son. Samuel and I had talked about it several times, and he had as many concerns as I did. Yet Samuel managed to show only his pride in Robert’s decision to serve our country. I prayed that I would stand as strong for my son tomorrow and then continue to stand strong for the rest of my family. Even more than that, I prayed for Robert’s safety. And Willy’s. And every other boy we knew. And the boys we didn’t know.

As I double-checked Robert’s and Willy’s bags, Katie and Sarah were busy washing up all the dishes we’d used. I decided to empty the cookie jar into a paper bag and send the cookies along with the boys tomorrow. I suddenly wished we’d made twice as many.

Pretty soon the cake and the casserole were ready to come out of the oven. Samuel was ready to go, so we decided to wrap the warm cake in a towel, let it cool on the way, and add the icing once we got to the Jones’s house. We would have plenty of time, as early as we were leaving. Samuel wanted to make sure we got into Dearing while we still had light and before the snow could accumulate. Apparently he was more confident about getting home than he was about getting to town.

The Hammonds didn’t have an automobile or a sleigh, so they rode with us rather than get their wagon and pair of horses out in the weather. It was quite a squeeze, fitting George and six of his children in the truck with the five of us and Thomas Porter’s bookshelves.

I brought quilts to help keep everybody warm on the way since most of us would be riding bundled together in the open back end. It wasn’t snowing hard. The fields were kind of pretty with their sprinkling of white.

Samuel wanted me to sit up front with him, but I insisted that Willy and his father have the privilege, hoping that being squeezed together like that would prompt George to say something to Willy. Robert had told me that in the whole time since they’d decided to enlist, Willy’s father had never once said a word directly to Willy about it.

I don’t know if they talked. I only know that the bunch in back wasn’t quiet at all, except for Franky. Maybe it was easier to stay warm with the chatter and even some singing going on.

“This party’s gonna be special,” Rorey announced. “I brought flaxseed for hair gel, Sarah. I wanna fix my hair to look the best. Mrs. Pastor won’t have no trouble with me boilin’ it up at her house, will she? I was fixin’ to start already, but it’s better I didn’t so’s I can finish all at one time with the gel still fresh.”

Sarah barely acknowledged Rorey’s words. I’d once thought the two girls would be friends for life, they’d taken to each other so well when they were little. But in recent years, they’d seemed to grow apart. After the Hammonds’ barn fire, they’d never been as close as they’d been before, and that was understandable, I supposed. But they kept getting more and more different. Once, Sarah and Rorey had spent all their time together, even after Katie came to us. But now it was more usually Sarah and Katie together, while Rorey was busy with something or other of her own.

I prayed for all the kids, the Hammonds and ours. Life had changed so much as they’d gotten older. Even Emmie was not such a little girl anymore. And with the world the way it was, I was a little afraid of the things they’d have to face.

Franky was staring out over the dormant fields. I’m not sure how his thoughts were turning right then, but he spoke sudden words that gave me comfort.

“The earth is the Lord’s, and the fullness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein.”

I knew he was quoting from the Bible, but no one asked him the reason for his chosen verse, and he didn’t explain himself.

I thought of the many miles between our farm and the war that was being fought. Miles of earth and ocean, all held in the hand of God. And then I was glad I’d wanted Franky’s father to ride up front. I was glad he wasn’t back here in the wind to see his son’s eyes stretch across the distance as though he saw something the rest of us did not. I was glad he hadn’t heard Franky’s words. He would only have criticized them.

2

Sarah

Pastor and Mrs. Jones met us at their front door. The casserole Mom had made to contribute to dinner went right in the oven to warm up again, and the pastor ushered most of us to chairs in the sitting room to get warmed up too. It hadn’t snowed enough to make the roads difficult, and it was already stopping, but the wind was cold. I was glad to be inside a while.

Rorey asked Mrs. Jones right away if she could use a pan and a little water to boil her flaxseed to make the gel for her hair. Mrs. Jones was very obliging. She even said we could use some of her perfume for the party if we wanted to. Rorey said it would be the biggest party Dearing had seen in years. I didn’t know about that. But I could tell there were a lot of different feelings in the house tonight. Willy was excited, but his father was grumpier than I’d seen him in a while. Robert seemed as deep in thought as Frank gets sometimes. And Emma Grace stuck as close as she could to either me or to Katie, like it was comfort to her somehow.

It was a little strange to sit down for dinner at the pastor’s house. They folded their little table out, added two extra leaves, and squeezed all of us around it. Robert was suddenly talking more than he ever had before with the pastor in the same room, and he ate like he figured he might be missing that good food before long. Willy ate heartily too, like he always did.

My mother was doting on people, fetching things though it wasn’t even her house. I remembered her telling me one time that keeping her hands busy kept her brain from getting overworked. So I figured she was fretting about Robert going away, and I sure couldn’t blame her for that. It was bothering me a little too.

But Dad didn’t have time to fret because Mr. Hammond kept asking him about the sow with the scrape on her side, or ice on the cattle troughs, or some such stuff. Pastor was talking about the war a little bit, but I don’t think Mr. Hammond wanted to hear it. He’d always had a hard time dealing with things, ever since I could remember. So much that my mom and dad had to take a large part helping to raise his kids after Mrs. Hammond died. Now the whole bunch of them felt like family. And it just seemed natural for Worthams and Hammonds to do things together. Even go to war, I guess.

But Robert was the only Wortham boy, and Willy would be the third Hammond to go. Kirk left last September. Joe had been in the service a lot longer than that. He was an officer, and people said George Hammond ought to be proud.

Mrs. Jones had made us ham and beans with cornbread. That was just about everybody’s favorite. But I noticed Frank wasn’t eating much. I watched him a little, wishing he’d say something, but he was even quieter than usual and spent more time staring down at his plate than eating anything.

I wondered if it bothered him that he’d be the oldest Hammond boy home now, though maybe it wasn’t right to say he was home, since he spent more time in the wood shop than he ever spent at the Hammond farm. He even slept out in the wood shop a lot, on a little cot he’d made and set up in a side room. Except for helping with the farm work, Frank hadn’t been home regular since he was fifteen, though it was so close. And strangely enough, his pa liked it that way.

So maybe Harry was the oldest boy home at fifteen. Bert was thirteen, and I knew they’d be doing a lot of the farm work in Willy’s stead come spring. But I was sure Frank would be home more too. And doing more than his share.

Probably Lizbeth would be there a lot, just to check on things the way she often did already. She was next oldest after Sam and married to Ben Porter, Thomas Porter’s cousin. I thought sure Ben and Lizbeth and their little one, Mary Jane, would be at the party tonight. I hoped so, because it was nice to have Lizbeth around. Maybe she could cheer up Frank. And calm Rorey down a little. That girl was getting too excited for her own good.

More than anybody else, Rorey was hurrying through her dinner so she’d have plenty of time to make herself pretty for the party. It bothered me that she wasn’t thinking about her brother near so much as she was thinking about Lester Turrey. Somehow she’d taken the notion that he was head over heels for her and likely to propose before tomorrow’s train to keep her waiting for him while he was gone.

I hoped it wasn’t true. I didn’t like Lester Turrey. Not one bit. I never had, and I was pretty well determined that I never would.

My brother had a girlfriend, Rachel Gray, and she’d be at the party. They’d already promised to wait for each other, but he’d told me he wasn’t going to propose, not till the day he got back. I hoped Lester didn’t propose either. Not ever.

“Sarah, you’re gonna help me fix my hair, ain’t you?” Rorey called across the table, setting her fork down with a little clunk.

“I thought I ought to help Mrs. Jones clean up.”

“But I already boiled the flaxseed,” she went on. “We can’t wait very long. It’s plenty cool by now to use, and it hadn’t ought to set too long.”

“You can go ahead,” Mom told me. “I’ll help Juanita. You go too, Katie.”

From the corner of the table next to Emmie Grace, Katie looked over at me. I wondered if she was thinking like I was. We didn’t have boyfriends to fix ourselves up for, but even if we did have, they’d be less important tonight than Robert or Willy. I was glad for Katie because she was sensible. She was just a little younger than me, a relative on my dad’s side. My folks took her in when she was six, and she’d been with us ever since. I liked that because Katie was as good as any sister could be. And she had as much trouble understanding Rorey as I did.

Tonight Rorey was in a tizzy. She took off for the kitchen without taking her plate, so when I got up I reached to take hers along with mine. She was getting the pan of flaxseed and the cheesecloth she’d left by the stove, along with a few matches Mrs. Jones had said she could use. She went straight for the dressing table in the bedroom, and I followed her reluctantly. Katie and I would at least put on our Sunday clothes and make sure our hair was nice. But I didn’t feel like making any fuss over appearance, despite Rorey’s intentions.

She started in right away squeezing the flaxseed through her cloth and talking about Lester. “Won’t it be grand, Sarah, if he gets down on his knees?” she exclaimed. “He can’t afford no ring yet, I know, but we can always get one of those sometime later.”