by Judith Pella
“Believe it or not,” he said dryly, with enough cynicism to counter his neediness, “while I was away, I finally made my peace with God and with myself.”
She smiled sadly, seeming to truly understand his conflicted emotions. “Tell me about it.”
“Not now. Maybe some other time.”
She dropped to her knees before him so as to look directly at him.
“Benjamin, I think now is the time you most need to talk about it. It will be good for you to remember a victory.”
Taking a steadying breath, he told her everything that had happened on the trail, and as she predicted, remembering was a kind of healing balm. So was her rejoicing with him and even her tears of joy. He wept also when Isabel came close to listen to him, and when he finished, she laid her little hand on his arm and offered him a small smile, the first he had seen in a long time.
Impulsively he embraced both Isabel and Elise, his tears dampening their hair, his need receding from a stabbing ache to a whisper of hope.
CHAPTER
45
BENJAMIN GAINED GREAT SATISFACTION IN watching the corn sprout in his field. By early June it was a foot high. If all went well—there were many crop hazards along the way—he’d have enough grain come fall to feed his family for the year. Caring for the crop would keep him sufficiently occupied until then, too. That, and hunting and chopping wood and maintaining the cabin. He also thought he ought to build an addition to the cabin. Sleeping in the barn in spring and summer was bad enough—come winter it would be intolerable.
He definitely had his work cut out. One afternoon while most of the children were napping, he took the notebook in which he used to write his sermons, found a blank page and, sitting at the table, began sketching a rough drawing of a possible addition.
Yes, he could keep quite busy caring for the needs of his family. And he thought he could be fairly content doing only that. Perhaps that was what he was meant to do after all. It could well be that his ministry had failed, in part at least, because he had never truly heard the call of God in the first place. Perhaps he had only convinced himself that he had because he had desired the glory and sense of power the ministry had offered.
Now he felt he could be quite content indeed as a nondescript, obscure farmer.
Almost.
He wondered if he could ever be truly content doing anything until he was certain it was time to close the door on his ministry. The only way to know that was to step back into the waters of ministry. He supposed he wouldn’t have to plunge in headfirst, though that might be in his nature, but even the thought of merely getting his toes wet was a bit frightening. It would mean facing his flock again, humbling himself before them, confessing his failures—which would make any proud man, even a broken man, cringe.
Before he did anything, though, he decided to take the problem to Elise. He was finding great succor in her gentle wisdom, her unassuming simplicity. They’d had many discussions about life since his encounter with the Indians and his personal renewal. Elise had a way of taking Scriptures that theologians had debated for years and distilling them down to their simplest truths. In matters of life in general, she had the same uncanny knack. He marveled in watching her with the children as she imparted simple truths to them in a natural, loving way.
Too bad Micah seemed not to benefit from Elise’s homey teaching. He seemed too scarred from Benjamin’s years of trying to hammer truth into the boy to listen to much of anything these days. If Benjamin’s new humility touched the boy at all, he didn’t show it.
Benjamin hadn’t heard Elise approach. He smelled the lilac first.
She had found a way to crush the leaves of wild lilac and mix them in her soap with quite pleasant results.
“I didn’t want to disturb you,” she said quietly.
“I don’t mind at all. In fact, I was about to seek you out.”
“Truly?”
“Please sit.” He gestured toward the place next to him on the bench so they could both look at the drawing. She seldom was ever this close to him. When her shoulder brushed his and the fragrance of lilac became nearly intoxicating, he decided it wasn’t such a good idea after all. But it was too late to do anything about it.
“Are you thinking about building on to the cabin?” she asked, nodding toward the drawing.
“Yes. Now that the corn is planted, I believe there will be time to get it done before winter. What do you think?” He tapped the drawing with a finger. “I’ve tried to make it simple. I’ll cut a door into the existing north wall of the cabin. A loft would fit nicely along the rest of the wall in the main cabin. By keeping the work confined to one area we can do all the bracing and such at once.” He paused, his brow quirking with skepticism at his own words. “The only thing I have ever built is part of that barn out there, and it leaks like a sieve when it rains. A stout wind—of which I’ve heard Texas is famous, though I’ve not seen a tornado yet—would doubtless blow it down.”
“Perhaps John Hunter will help you,” she suggested.
“He’s done so much for me already, and I have so little to give him in return.”
“I’ve never had the impression John expected anything for his help.”
“You are right, of course.” Leaning his elbows on the table, he propped his chin thoughtfully in his hands. “I want to make this cabin sturdy so that it will stand for a long time.”
“May I ask something? It may not be any of my business, but . . .” Her voice faltered.
He sensed her awkwardness, which most often occurred when she was about to cross into the gray areas their peculiar marriage had made for them. He nodded an encouragement for her to continue.
“Do you have a claim on this land or does your church?” she asked.
He chuckled dryly. “Actually, both I and the man before me were merely squatters. Because of the Mexican laws, the Methodist Church certainly could make no claim. Nor would ministers of that church, since it would mean converting to Catholicism to receive the prescribed league and labor.”
“League and labor? I’ve heard of that, but what exactly is it?”
“A labor amounts to 177 acres, and by the terms of the grant would be farmland. A league is about 4,500 acres of grazing land for cattle raising.”
“That is a lot of land.” She was clearly impressed.
“No wonder so many were willing to convert.” He smiled, remembering the issue he had made of this in the past. “I used to think Catholicism was among the worst apostasies imaginable.”
“Used to?”
“I talked to Father Murphy a bit on our wedding day and came to the conclusion that he was indeed a Christian man. I still disagree with many doctrines and practices of the Catholic Church, but perhaps there are some godly people among them after all. Of course, there is disagreement among the Protestant denominations also. Ah, Elise, you are fortunate to be innocent of all this sectarianism in the church. And I am fortunate to have had you to steer me toward what is truly important about faith.” He turned, focusing an earnest gaze upon her. “Fortunate indeed,” he breathed. Then, rather nervously, he jabbed his finger back at the sketch. “Well, I see the point you were trying to make about the wisdom of building more permanently upon land that does not belong to me. Yet . . . if I know nothing else, I know this is where I wish to put down my roots.” Suddenly a new concern struck him. “But I haven’t asked you . . .”
“You don’t need to—”
“Yes, I do!” His eyes darkened with intensity. “I dragged Rebekah out here against her will. I never asked. I told her it was God’s will, and that was that. I won’t make that mistake again—at least I want to try to be better this time. We may not have a true marriage . . . in every sense, but what we have . . . well, I want it to be different from my first marriage. I want you to be happy, content. What do you think of Texas?”
“You are forgetting, Benjamin, that I was dragged here against my will as a slave. But unlike Rebekah, I had nothing in my
past to long for.”
“Nothing?”
She swallowed and momentarily looked away from him. “Nothing.” Swinging her gaze back to him, she added, “You have given me my life back, Benjamin. You have made me happy just by taking me and my daughter in. I ask for no more.”
“You deserve more.”
“Don’t you see? For a woman it is enough to have her home and family around her. It matters not in what place they are as long as they are with her.”
“It wasn’t enough for Rebekah.”
“Rebekah didn’t have you, did she? Not really.” Elise’s tone was quiet and gentle, absent of all rebuke.
“Neither do you,” he murmured. “Not really.”
“But I did not expect to. There’s a big difference.”
Feeling suddenly restless, Benjamin jumped up and strode to the window across the room. The rawhide drape was pulled back to let in the June sunshine. A slight breeze touched his face. He inhaled a deep breath. He had no right to feel so good about life. And no matter how lavish the grace of God, he would always feel his inadequacy.
Mistaking him, she said quickly, “I’m sorry, Benjamin. I didn’t mean to stir up difficult issues.”
He turned, confusion momentarily knitting his brow, then he realized she had misunderstood him. “You haven’t. But I realize I have much to learn about women, about wives. That is why I want to include you in my decisions. It is the one thing I have learned.”
“Then far be it for me to stand in the way of progress.”
He noted by her smile and the way the corners of her eyes crinkled mischievously that she was teasing him.
He came back to the table and sat, but this time on the bench opposite her, so he could look at her more easily, he told himself. “I would like to make my home in Texas. It is a good land now, but when we break from Mexico, it will become a land full of possibilities. I want to be part of that. If this suits you, then my only ambivalence comes in just how I will be part of Texas. Farmer, cattleman, teacher . . . or Methodist minister.” His chest tightened just saying the word minister. Was it because he could not let go of a lost dream, or because he feared it was a dream yet to be fulfilled? “I need help,” he confessed. “The ministry was all I knew, all I wanted. It was everything to me, and I sacrificed everything for it. I am not willing to do that again. I won’t do that again.”
“I don’t think God expects you to.”
“I am not sure I know how to find a balance, and that frightens me.”
“Is that the only thing keeping you from it?”
His head jerked up, taken aback. He hadn’t quite thought of it like that. “Yes, I think it is. That and a complete sense of inadequacy.”
“Well, if you want my opinion . . .” Pausing, she searched him with her eyes, and when he nodded she went on, but rather shyly, still with little concept of the power of her simple wisdom. “When Jesus came to earth, all logic should have led Him to the religious and political leaders for his support—you know, the priests and the Pharisees and the Saddu—oh, I can never remember that one.”
“Sadducees,” he offered.
“Yes, them. Anyway, He didn’t go to any of the leaders. Instead He went to fishermen and such. Simple men. Simon Peter was a perfect example. I really like him. Not only was he simple and uneducated, he was also constantly making mistakes, just as we all do. But it was he, not the high priest, whatever-his-name.was, who Jesus made the head of his church.”
Benjamin shook his head in awe at the clarity of the point she was making. “In the past I always dismissed Peter because I could not understand him, nor Christ’s choice of him.”
“He was a perfect leader because he knew what it meant to make mistakes, to be human,” she suggested with quiet intensity.
A grin spread across his face. “That’s it, of course! Jesus said, ‘My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness.’ ”
“Yes,” she said, “and that is why He chose the men He chose. And that is why I think He might choose you, Benjamin.”
“I am definitely the weakest of the lot!”
“Oh . . . I didn’t mean . . .” she reddened, as though realizing her words could be taken as an insult.
He took her hands reassuringly in his. “Elise . . .” Her name rolled off his tongue like a prayer. As his eyes met hers, her unlikely past flickered through his mind, and he knew she, too, had been used of God. For only God could have seen past the filth of her life to the precious jewel within. Only God would have had the patience and love to coax it to the surface. Only God could have known how profoundly she would affect Benjamin’s life and those of his children. Only God would have known that this fallen angel was in fact a true angel.
“What, Benjamin?” she breathed. Her hand was trembling a little in his.
“I was just thinking about what a gift you have been to this house-hold . . . to me.”
“Oh, goodness!” she attempted a dismissive laugh, but her face still reddened, both with embarrassment and with pleasure. “So . . .” Her voice squeaked over the word, and she paused nervously to clear her throat. “Do you know what you will do, then?”
“I’m going to see if these Texians want a flawed, bruised, and rather worse-for-the.wear man to lead them.”
CHAPTER
46
MICAH, I AM SURE YOUR mother would have wanted you to have lessons.” Elise thrust the primer under the boy’s nose. “Or else she wouldn’t have brought this all the way from Boston.”
“My ma wanted a lot of things she didn’t get,” Micah retorted.
“Don’t be disrespectful of your mother!” Elise scolded firmly.
“I ain’t being disrespectful of her . . . or you either,” he added quickly.
He didn’t have to say where his disrespect was aimed. It was clear enough he blamed only one person for the fact that Rebekah Sinclair would never realize any of her dreams or desires. But Elise was determined that, if nothing else, she was not going to allow Rebekah’s children to be ignorant or illiterate. Elise was barely literate herself— education of female members of southern gentry was discouraged—but she could read, and she would expect no less from her—that is, Rebekah’s—children.
“Now you open that primer, Micah,” Elise ordered, “and start to read. Isabel, you follow along.”
Actually Micah was quite a good reader. He’d had very good instruction before coming to Texas, where, by his and Benjamin’s admission, his teaching had been neglected. Isabel, on the other hand, was completely unlearned. Now seven years old, she knew only some of the sounds of the letters and a few words by sight, but little else beyond that.
When it came Isabel’s turn to read, the first word on the page stumped her.
“T-ha-e,” Isabel paused. “That doesn’t sound right.”
Micah said with big-brother superiority, “It’s the. ‘Th’ makes one sound. You should know that.”
“You’ll get it,” Elise encouraged when she saw Isabel’s lip quiver.
“Why don’t you look at the word and say it again. That will help you memorize it.”
Isabel did so and with similar prompting, managed to finish a sentence.
“That was very good!” Elise exclaimed, perhaps with overstated enthusiasm, but she hoped her praise would be incentive for future lessons. “Your father will be pleased and proud of both of you when he comes home.”
Isabel beamed, wanting nothing more than to please her father.
Micah merely smirked and rolled his eyes.
Elise let out a sharp breath, frustrated as always by his attitude.
This time however she couldn’t let it go. “Micah, why don’t you try to give your father a chance? If you’d open your eyes for a minute, you’d see he has changed.”
“So what?”
“So what!” her voice made a discombobulated squeak. “You can’t hold his mistakes against him forever!”
His hard stare seemed to say he could ind
eed do just that. “I don’t care what he does now. He ruined our lives, and I’ll never forgive him for that.” Pushing aside the primer, he jumped up and strode to the door. “I gotta feed the animals.” He opened the door, slamming it behind him as he exited.
Elise looked at Isabel as if the child might understand her frustration. She was about to voice her emotions to her, as she had become the closest thing Elise had to a friend. But she reminded herself that this was just a seven-year-old child who had her own burdens—she still awoke at night crying for her mother. She didn’t need adult burdens to compound her own.
“Perhaps you should go out for some fresh air also,” Elise suggested to the child.
Isabel rose. “I’ll pick some flowers.”
“That would be nice.” Elise smiled and, giving the child a brief hug and kiss on the cheek, sent her on her way.
The cabin was quiet now. Elise had finally managed the feat of getting the younger children all to take their afternoon naps at the same time. But the quiet of the cabin and the incident of wanting to vent her emotions to Isabel made Elise realize how much she missed Benjamin.
He’d been gone on his circuit for three weeks now, although this time his aim was to see if he still had a ministry to his Texians. She had encouraged him to go, not fully realizing what that would mean to her. It wasn’t that she was lonely, not in the way she imagined Rebekah had been. Elise was entirely content with her life in the little cabin. Caring for the children fulfilled her in a way that often surprised her. And she enjoyed keeping house as well. She had found a length of red gingham in the trunk and with Isabel’s help and encouragement had made curtains for the windows and a cloth for the table. With other fabric, a pretty blue calico Benjamin had brought home for Rebekah shortly before her death, and old patterns stowed also in the trunk, Elise made dresses for all the females in the house, including herself. She’d also taken the hide from the deer Micah had shot and Benjamin had tanned and was in the process of making a shirt for Micah. She hoped to have it done by his birthday, which was coming up soon. From the scraps she would make a pair of booties for Oliver.