All She Left Behind
Page 32
Yes, Sarelia was the verbal one; Emma her quietest child at seven. Albro, middle son, was her husbandry child, tending the sheep and cattle. He followed after his father as a dreamer. Octavius would want to go. Would Clark? Already fifteen, he was her studious boy, thoughtful, often engaging in philosophical discussions about the meaning of life and God’s relationship to man as he worked in the family boot-making shop. And then Virgilia, her firstborn, seventeen, who was her helpmate. In ways, Virgilia was more like a younger sister than a daughter. She’d hate to lose the girl’s baking, cleaning, and child-tending skills when the right young man took her fancy. But wasn’t that what life was about, raising children to give them confidence to make their own lives, separate from their parents, letting them fly off into the future, giving them courage to face the inevitable losses? What if some wanted to go to Oregon and some stay? Break up her family? She stopped mid-kneading. The crust would be tough if she didn’t calm down.
Virgil had come in from the fields, followed by his son. Was that a twinkle in his eye?
“Orus is back,” Virgil said.
“You already knew?”
“He stopped in the field after seeing Mrs. Brown. He looks fit. Slimmer but strong.” Her six living children moved around the log home as though in a dance, each knowing the steps that kept them from bumping into each other. That dance was all Pherne had ever hoped for as a young girl, to find the kind of love her parents had had, live a comfortable life surrounded by the things that brought her pleasure. Fine furniture. Jewelry. Books. And family, of course. She’d raise her children to be faithful and be kind to each other and their neighbors. Virgil had been the perfect choice. But now, disruption promised to raise its little head in the form of Orus Brown.
Virgil led the prayer after they’d swarmed around the breakfast table, and together they all said, “Amen.” Pherne stood up to bring coffee to her husband. She turned and surveyed the scene. All she loved sat around that mahogany table, high-back chairs with carved harp-back design and arms (to help her mother push up out of the chair when she ate with them). Virgil had spared no expense to bring those luxury items on board ship to their Missouri home. What more could she ask for? She hoped they’d stay here forever.
Her eye caught her husband’s as he passed the platter of biscuits. He winked at Pherne. She felt her face grow warm. She was pleased that Virgil had resisted Orus’s pressure to go west with him to explore two years previous. She needed to tell Virgil that and not let him ever wonder who she saw to be the head of her family: It was her husband and not her brother. Nor her mother, either. She meant to keep it that way.
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Kirschmann, Anne Taylor. A Vital Force: Women in American Homeopathy. New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 2004.
Larsell, O. The Doctor in Oregon. Portland, OR: Binford & Mort for Oregon Historical Society, 1947.
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Also by Jane Kirkpatrick
This Road We Traveled
The Memory Weaver
A Light in the Wilderness
One Glorious Ambition
The Daughter’s Walk
Where Lilacs Still Bloom
A Mending at the Edge
A Tendering in the Storm
A Clearing in the Wild
Barcelona Calling
An Absence So Great
A Flickering Light
A Land of Sheltered Promise
Hold Tight the Thread
Every Fixed Star
A Name of Her Own
What Once We Loved
No Eye Can See
All Together in One Place
Mystic Sweet Communion
A Gathering of Finches
Love to Water My Soul
A Sweetness to the Soul
NOVELLAS
Sincerely Yours
Log Cabin Christmas
American Dream
Midwife’s Legacy
NONFICTION
Promises of Hope for Difficult Times
Aurora: An American Experience in Quilt, Community, and Craft
A Simple Gift of Comfort
Homestead
Jane Kirkpatrick is the New York Times and CBA bestselling author of more than thirty books, including A Sweetness to the Soul, which won the prestigious Wrangler Award from the Western Heritage Center. Her works have been finalists for the Christy Award, Spur Award, Oregon Book Award, and Reader’s Choice awards, and have won the WILLA Literary Award, USABestBooks Award, and Carol Award for Historical Fiction. Many of her titles have been Book of the Month and Literary Guild selections, with more than 1.5 million books in print. You may read her work in more than fifty publications, including Decision, Private Pilot, and Daily Guideposts. Jane lives in Central Oregon with her husband, Jerry. Learn more at www.jkbooks.com and sign up for her newsletter Story Sparks.
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