The Winds of Autumn (21 page)

I just sat there letting Pixie lick the crumbs of cookies from my fingers.

“Every day I thank God that He took our baby home to be with Him,” Aunt Lou continued, and tears filled her eyes now. “Every day.”

Aunt Lou is thankful that her baby died?
I couldn’t believe it.

“But—but I heard you,” I stated rather sharply. “I heard you that night. You said, ‘Please, God, no.’ ”

“Yes, I did,” agreed Aunt Lou, and even though she was seated with me at the table, she somehow seemed far away. “My faith was small, Josh. I admit that to my shame. When I saw the baby and was afraid that she would live with her handicaps—her deformities—I said, ‘Please, God, no’—not because I was afraid she might die, but because I was afraid she might live. Josh, I know that you won’t understand this, and I’m ashamed to tell it, but I—I cried out to God to take her. I was wrong, Josh. I shouldn’t have done that. I should have been willing to accept from God whatever was right for us and our baby.”

The tears were running freely down Aunt Lou’s face now. I’m not sure, but there might have been some on my cheeks as well.

“I did pray for the strength to accept God’s will—later,” went on Aunt Lou. “And I was finally able to honestly say, ‘Thy will be done.’ In just a few minutes after I uttered the prayer, God took her to be with Him.”

I couldn’t understand it. Not any of it.

“I am so thankful. So very thankful. Not for my sake, but for hers. Our baby is perfect now. She is no longer deformed. She will never be teased or tormented or made fun of. She will never suffer because of her handicaps or need to endure surgeries or painful hours. I do thank God for taking her.”

I had eaten as many of Aunt Lou’s fresh cookies as I could hold, so I just sat there ruffling the fur on the back of Pixie’s neck.

“If she had lived, Josh, I would have found a way to thank God for that, too. I think that’s some of the meaning in the word ‘grace.’ The Lord gives His grace to take what comes with thanks and faith. Do you understand that?”

I wasn’t sure, so I didn’t say anything.

“We called her Amanda, the name you had picked. Did you know?”

I did. I had heard.

“It hasn’t been easy,” Aunt Lou confided, “but I am glad to have a little jewel in heaven. Amanda. Amanda Joy. She did bring joy, even during the months we were planning and preparing for her. And it brings us joy to know she is safely in heaven, too.”

Aunt Lou stood up and brushed away the last trace of tears with her apron.

“I know this has been hard for you, too, Josh,” she said. “Why, you wanted that baby ’most as much as Nat and me. It’s hard to give her up, I know that Josh, but we can be glad she is safe and loved and cared for by God himself.” There was a brief pause, “And as soon as I am completely well and strong again, we are going to have another baby. We won’t need to worry about the measles this time—that’s over now. I know it seems like a long time to wait, but the months go quickly and before you know it, you’ll have that little cousin you’ve been wanting.”

Aunt Lou reached out and ruffled my hair, her smile back.

“We’ll make it, Joshua,” she said. “With God’s help, we’ll all make it.”

I got up to go. I had wood to split and haul. I was glad, too, to be out of the kitchen.

I was really confused now. We had lost our baby—our Amanda Joy, but Aunt Lou said she thanked God every day for His mercy in taking her. How could I have known that God— in His will—had been answering Aunt Lou’s prayer when He took Amanda Joy to heaven?

But I was still upset about Uncle Nat being away. If God wanted to care for Aunt Lou, He could have had Old Sam get sick at a different time—or the baby born earlier or later or something. There was no reason Aunt Lou should have been left to face the delivery of a severely deformed child, then the loss of it, all alone. Surely God could have worked things out much better than that.

I was really confused, but my anger still hadn’t left me.

C
HAPTER
23
Picking Up the Pieces

I
VISITED CAMELLIA ONCE
before I left town for the summer. I’m not sure how I felt about the visit. It was fun to sit and read books and chat about ideas again. It was great to be able to handle some of the interesting, colorful texts from Mr. Foggelson’s library. It was good to see Mrs. Foggelson and get her pleasant smile of approval. I even enjoyed the tea and pastries— sort of—but all the time I was there I had this funny, nagging feeling deep down inside that I wasn’t doing the right thing. I tried to ignore it, but it wouldn’t go away.

Mr. Foggelson sort of hung around for a while talking about good books and showing me special pages that I should read. He even read a few paragraphs from a history book aloud to me to be sure I wouldn’t miss them. Then he talked about the passages, asking me what I thought about this idea or that concept. I tried to answer the best I could, but some of them were things I had never heard of before.

I think Camellia and I were both glad when he finally left us on our own. Camellia told me over and over how “dull” she had found Jack Berry and how much she had missed my visits. I almost got to believing her. I did wonder why it had taken her so long to discover the fact of Jack’s “dullness,” but I didn’t say so.

I still wasn’t much taken with talk about Jack Berry. I hadn’t forgotten what he’d done to me. It was my right to feel pretty strongly about him, and I managed to keep quite a “hate” for him going.

In fact, whenever I wanted to spend some time feeling sorry for myself or getting mad about something, all I had to do was think of Jack Berry. I would let that little voice play over and over in my mind,
Jack Berry, Jack Berry,
and then I would think of the fist coming at me in the dark and the taste of blood and the sting of knuckle cuts and I would lather up real bitter feelings. Actually, I kind of enjoyed it. I must have—I did it often enough. It was the first time in my life that I had a really good excuse to get mad at the world.

Oh, I had been mad or upset about things in the past to be sure, but always I listened to this little voice saying,
Josh, this isn’t right You’re not as bad off as you pretend to be.
But when it came to Jack Berry nearly killing me, I felt I had real good reason to nurse my anger.

Well, I only got that one chance to go over to Camellia’s house and then Aunt Lou announced that she was feeling well enough that I should go on out to the farm like I usually did. She knew how much I missed it. Grandpa promised her that we’d slip into town every few days and see that she wasn’t wanting for anything. Uncle Nat said that he’d see to it that she didn’t do any water hauling or hoeing in her garden for a while yet, and I set off for the farm, anxious to get back to the familiar surroundings of green fields and wooded pastures.

Pixie was almost as glad to be back as I was. She spent the first ten minutes running round and round in circles and the next ten minutes checking out everything around to make sure it was just the same as when we had left it.

We all laughed at her, but I knew just how she felt. I was a little anxious to do some checking on my own, as well.

The place where I was heading was the crik, but I didn’t want to appear too eager—just up and run for it the minute I got in the yard. But my family knew me well. I had just put my things in my room and returned to the kitchen when Grandpa turned to me.

“You suppose you might be able to catch us a fish or two for our supper, Boy?” he asked. I grinned and nodded.

“Hear they’ve been biting pretty good,” added Uncle Charlie.

“What about my chores?” I asked.

“Reckon we can handle things for ’nother day,” Grandpa assured me. “Catchin’ us our supper will be your job for today.”

“If you get some big ones,” said Gramps with a wink, “then I’ll go with you tomorrow.”

So I was soon off to the crik.

My family must have known I needed this trip—and alone. I’d always enjoyed the company of Gramps. I would look forward to having him go with me on any of the days throughout the summer—except this one day. After so many things had happened, tearing me all up inside and confusing my thinking, I felt that my head was spinning. This day I needed to be alone.

The crik was about as pretty as I had ever seen it. The water was silvery ripples, almost as clear and clean as when it first splashed out of its hard rock bed at the spring up in the hills. The leaves were new green and they dipped and swayed in the afternoon breeze, flipping snatches of sunshine back and forth on the soft, still air. The birds were all atwitter. They had finished their nest building and were busy now caring for young. Nearby a nest of baby robins called loudly to be fed, reminding me of the two babies at the last church picnic who had thumped on their high chairs with their metal spoons, making one awful commotion.

The thought of babies turned my thinking back to Aunt Lou and little Amanda. I still hadn’t sorted through the hurt of it all. Aunt Lou was thankful that her little baby, her helpless little deformed baby, had been taken to heaven where she could be whole and without pain.

I knew Aunt Lou loved her baby so much she was willing to bear the pain of losing the little one if it meant something better for the baby. I knew that Aunt Lou hurt deeply. She said many times how much the prayers of the people kept her bearing that pain each day, and how she depended upon them. Well, I was glad that the people were praying for Aunt Lou. I wanted her to have all the help God could and would give her.

I still had some questions, though, and they wouldn’t go away. Why did God let Aunt Lou get the measles in the first place? And why did He work it so Aunt Lou was without Uncle Nat when the baby was born and died? If God was really a God of love, why didn’t He care for her better than that? I sure wouldn’t treat someone I loved in such a fashion.

No, I just wasn’t ready to forgive God. He could have worked it out much better. I didn’t understand His ways at all. Did He
plan
for His people to hurt? I had heard preachers say that it was in such times that people learned to “trust” and to “grow.” Well, there must be a better way than that. They were just trying to excuse God for His thoughtless actions, according to my way of thinking. I still had my mind made up. If God treated His good servants that way, then I sure wasn’t going to be one of them.

I didn’t know if He’d miss my service or not, but I guess I hoped that He would feel pretty bad about it. After all, that was about the only way I had of getting even.

I caught two nice-sized fish and felt pretty good about myself when I hurried home to show them off.

“Well, Boy,” beamed Grandpa, “I guess you’ve earned your supper, right enough.”

Uncle Charlie grinned too and took the fish to fillet them for supper.

“Do we have a date for tomorrow, Joshua?” asked Gramps. “I sure would like to catch one of those. I’ve been wanting to go fishing, but somehow it just isn’t much fun for me to go on down to the creek without you. You willing to take an old man with you tomorrow? Is it a date?”

“Sure,” I answered, nodding my head in agreement. “It’s a date.”

“Good!” said Gramps. “I’ll get my hooks all cleaned up and ready.”

Boy, did those two fish taste good. Even Pixie got in on it. I fed her tiny pieces of the fish after making good and sure there weren’t any bones in them. She licked her little chops and begged for more. I let her lick at my sticky fingers instead.

We all went to bed early. I felt tired, though I couldn’t understand why. I had worked lots harder on many days and not felt so all done in.
It’s the excitement of coming home again,
I decided. I cuddled Pixie close on one arm and settled down to sleep. By now it didn’t even bother me much that I hadn’t taken time to say my prayers.

Willie rode his old horse Nell over for a visit one day. She was fat and lazy and a little clumsy, but Willie wouldn’t have stood for anyone saying anything mean or teasing about her. He had ridden her since he had been just a kid in first grade, and he loved her just as much now as he had when she’d been a spirited young mare with her head held high and a prance to her step. I knew better than to make any cracks about old Nell.

We spent our time rubbing down the old horse and talking some boy talk about things we wanted to do with our summer. Already we were talking camping trip again. The further behind us our trip up the crik got, the better our memories of it. We were ready to go again the first chance we got. This time, though, we wouldn’t try to shortcut through the Turleys’ pasture.

“You know,” remarked Willie, “I sure understand Avery lots better since that trip. He’s a good kid, too. We spend lots of time together now. Was a time when I couldn’t really understand what you saw in the fella. Used to make me kinda sore that you thought him your best friend ’stead of me. Now that I know him, I really like him.”

I was a little surprised at Willie’s words—not about his liking Avery now that he knew him better, but about him feeling kinda jealous because I had liked Avery a lot.

“His ma is feelin’ lots better now,” Willie went on. “An’ I think Avery feels better about things, too. You know, Josh, he’s grown a lot closer to God now that he isn’t so scared an’ he feels more sure of himself an’ all. I think God really worked out that trip so’s I could get to know Avery better and he’d have one more good friend.”

Willie stopped and thought for a few minutes in silence. I guess I was doing some thinking, too. I had a feeling that Willie might be making a much better friend for Avery than I had ever been. Willie was helping him to understand God better. I had left Avery to do that sorting out all on his own.

“I’m not sure how it works,” Willie suddenly said. “Do you get closer to God when you are not so scared about other things, or are you not so scared about other things because you are closer to God? What do you think?”

I looked at Willie’s serious face, then shrugged my shoulders carelessly. How should I know which came first—if either?

I showed Willie all of Pixie’s tricks, and then he wanted to see if she’d do them all for him. When she did some of them, he was real pleased with himself. He’d always wanted a dog of his own, he said.