Copyright
ISBN 978-1-60260-593-0
Copyright © 2009 by Janet Spaeth. All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, is forbidden without the permission of Heartsong Presents, an imprint of Barbour Publishing, Inc., PO Box 721, Uhrichsville, Ohio 44683.
All scripture quotations are taken from the King James Version of the Bible.
All of the characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or to actual events is purely coincidental.
Our mission is to publish and distribute inspirational products offering exceptional value and biblical encouragement to the masses.
one
He has answered me! He can’t live without me! He tells me that we belong together, that we will breathe and live and love as one. When I read his words, of how he will carry me away from this drudgery, I want to spin in the barnyard. Never mind the chickens. I am Cinderella, and this is no longer Minnesota, 1935, and the drought is only—
Lolly Prescott smiled as she reread the words. He was won-derful, truly he was. He was everything she’d always wanted, everything she’d dreamed of. She shut her eyes and clutched the journal close to her. Her heart was in the paperbound volume, her secret love revealed.
Her reverie was broken by frantic barking from outside, signaling her brothers’ arrival back from the fields. The family dog never let the two young men out of sight, and the beast barked the way some people talked—without end. If it weren’t for the furry protective love Bruno provided, she would have long ago traded him in for something quieter.
She shoved the notebook into her apron pocket. The note-book had been a gift from her teacher when she graduated from high school. It was no bigger than a slice of bread, and was bound in plain brown card stock, but it had become her haven. Hurriedly she stuck the pencil into the bun straggling down her neck. She didn’t dare let them know about her secret. They’d never give her a moment’s peace—not that they did anyway, she thought, as the dog danced happily around her feet.
“George. Bud.” She tried to calm her voice. “You’re back early.”
Her brothers threw their hats at the rack in the hallway, both of them missing the hooks and leaving the hats on the floor. Automatically she walked over, rescued the headwear from Bruno’s playful tossing, and hung them properly.
“It’s hotter than—” Bud began, but George prodded him with a warning shake of his head. Bud glared at his older brother. “What did you think I was going to say? Give me a little credit here, George.”
“I know it’s hot,” Lolly said, trying to stave off the argument that would inevitably begin if her brothers weren’t sidetracked. “This whole summer’s been dreadful. Do either of you want a glass of water?”
“Is it boiling?” George asked, pulling a chair from the table and dropping into it.
“Not yet. Ask me again midafternoon. It just might be by then, especially if it sits in this kitchen.” She poured water into a dish for Bruno, who promptly lapped the bowl dry.
“Awww, poor Lolly. Is my poor sister feeling put upon? Is it too hot in here? Want to try a turn in the fields? Think it’s cooler there?”
“Stop your blathering, Bud. It’s too hot for that kind of nonsense.” George leaned back and put his arms over his head. “I wish the air wasn’t so still today.”
A fat fly buzzed sluggishly on the window ledge. She pushed a stray strand of hair, wet with sweat, back to the bun at the nape of her neck, but it promptly fell out again. “It might rain.”
Bud hooted. “Might rain. Might snow. Hey, George, it might even hurricane!”
Lolly shut her eyes just long enough to send up a short prayer for patience. All these years of living with her two brothers, especially Bud, had given her plenty of practice in the art of the brief prayer.
Bud was nearly seventeen, but his impetuous energy made him seem younger. He sped through life without caution. When he was four, he jumped from the hayloft to see if he could fly. He couldn’t, and the scar over his ear was silent testimony to that experiment.
At seven, he decided he wanted to know what it was like to drive the truck. They had to rebuild the chicken coop after that escapade.
Now, ten years later, he was still as rambunctious and un-contained as ever.
George, on the other hand, was a somber and proper fellow. He seemed to Lolly to be stolidly middle-aged rather than twenty-four. He was, Lolly had to admit, a bit boring.
“Anything coming up in that weed patch you call a garden?” Bud asked, interrupting her thoughts. “I’m about ready for some sweet corn and green beans and some big, ripe tomatoes. That’s the stuff dreams are made of.”
She rolled her eyes. “Dream on, then. So far I’ve got radishes. Want some radishes for dinner? How about for breakfast?”
“You two are crazy. Radishes just come up first. Give her some time, Bud.”
George unfolded his lanky frame from the spindle chair and made his way to the door. “I’m soaked, and I smell like a barn. Just because I stink doesn’t mean that the kitchen should, too. I’m going to clean up before dinner.”
He preferred to use the pump outside to clean himself off rather than the sink inside after working in the fields, especially in summer when the water was cool from the well and evaporated almost immediately in the heat.
From her position in the kitchen, Lolly watched him at the pump. Lately the water hadn’t been coming out of it as easily as before. No matter how hard she tried, there were times when she couldn’t get any water out at all.
But George was stronger than she was, and water soon gushed out. That was a good sign. It meant that the water table was still high enough for them to use. Nevertheless, George, always careful, made sure that every drop went into the catch basin.
Her brothers were so different from each other. George lived by rules and expected everyone else to. Bud was a bundle of lightly packaged energy. There was nothing about the two that was alike, except their nearly obsessive sheltering of their sister.
As if she had anything to be sheltered against here in Valley Junction. Lolly resisted the urge to sigh. There wasn’t a marriageable man within fifteen miles of her, unless she counted seven-year-old Adam Whitaker, or Nigel Prothus, who was well into his nineties.
One thing this drought had done was to take away what few choices she’d had. When she thought about it, a heavy blanket of sorrow lay across her. So she did the only smart thing. She didn’t think about it at all, at least not unless she had to.
Usually there wasn’t enough time to dwell on anything. Taking care of the farmhouse and the scattering of chickens took up most of her time.
She touched the little notebook hidden in her apron pocket. Everyone needed some kind of dream. Dreams were choices.
If anything, she needed the light that her dreams provided. She felt stuck, right in the middle, both in age and in managing her brothers. Stuck on the farm. Stuck with her brothers forever. Stuck with a dog that would not stop barking.
When her parents had died in an accident five years ago, the responsibility for the family had fallen directly on her young shoulders. She’d been barely fourteen at the time, and she’d grown up very quickly. Too quickly.
The fly on the windowsill stirred slightly, and she noticed others beside it, on the outside of the house. In the distance, somewhere near the river, a mourning dove called, and she lifted her head with hope. “Did you hear that?” she asked Bud.
He sho
ok his head. “It’s all folklore, and you know it.”
“No, it isn’t.” One thing she’d inherited from her father’s side of the family was the same streak of stubbornness that made Bud such a trial at times; except she’d learned—usually—to keep her composure. Bud, on the other hand, was pigheaded and strong willed, and it was only through the grace of God that he hadn’t ended up in some kind of major trouble.
She could still hear her mother’s advice as clearly as if she were speaking it beside her: We choose our battles, Lolly-Dolly. Be wise. So she crimped her mouth shut and turned away, back to the window.
It wasn’t folklore. It was real. Flies congregated on walls and mourning doves cooed before rain.
Her heart lifted with a momentary anticipation. Maybe it would rain. She closed her eyes, linked her fingers together, and began to pray. Rain. Please, dear God, let it rain. We need—
Her conversation with God was interrupted as something pulled on the back of her head, and her hair tumbled down around her shoulders in a sticky mass.
“A pencil? Why do you have a pencil stuck in your hair?” Bud waved it just out of her reach. “Let me guess. You’re writing a book! That’s what my sister’s doing. She’s writing a book! Hey, George! Guess what Lolly’s doing!”
Hot anger mingled with cold fear. She watched as Bud let the screen door slam on his way out, and listened as he told George, who shook his head soberly.
Her fingers closed around the notebook. There was no way she would share it with her brothers. She’d sooner eat every page than let them see its secrets.
She needed the comfort of her words. If she could build this story in her mind, it became, for a moment, a window. No, not a window. It became a door, a full-fledged exit from a relentless reality into something glorious and shining and beautiful.
Bud was talking animatedly to George, waving his hand in the air as if he were writing fanciful letters. His words floated to her through the torn screen door. “Look at me. I’m a famous writer. Here’s my story. Once upon a time there was an ugly girl named Lolly.”
“Cut it out,” George said flatly. “Leave her alone.”
Bruno barked at Bud, and her younger brother, diverted for the moment, threw a stick for the dog to retrieve.
Lolly let herself breathe easier.
He was just teasing. Of course he was. How could he possibly know? There was no way.
❧
Colin Hammett stopped and leaned against a sun-bleached fence post. The sun was relentless in its assault. He pulled a grimy handkerchief from his pocket and wiped the sweat from his face.
There’ll be times you’ll try to remember this heat, Hammett, he reminded himself. Mentally bottle this and put a strong cork in it, so when December rolls around with its bitter winds and its stinging snows, you’ll have this summer’s excess to warm your hands and your soul.
He almost laughed aloud. All this time on the road alone was making him quite the poet. Next thing he knew, he’d be penning sonnets about stars and odes to squirrels.
He’d changed so much in the past two months. He rubbed his chin and grimaced at the growth of beard. How long had it been since he’d shaved? One week? Two?
He was a mess. There was no doubt about it. He’d thought that his time on the road would give him some time to think, to sort things out, but now he knew even less than he did before.
When he’d left New York, he hadn’t had any idea at all what he was getting into. He knew he had to get away, and get away he did.
His life there had been good, too good. The challenges were few, mainly which tie to wear to which soiree.
His company, a family business, was still successful despite the hard financial times that others had experienced.
He dropped his pack and flexed his fingers. He was very tired, but he needed to remember why he was here. Consciously, he began to run the scene again in his mind.
He’d been in one of the poorer sections of the city, in a hurry, as always, to leave it. He’d volunteered to drop off a carton of food, donated by his church, at a soup kitchen.
That had been his life—not unaware of poverty but untouched by it. And always, always, he’d prayed for the poor. Perfunctory prayer perhaps, but there was a part of him that held back compassion. Was it possible that there were no jobs, no employment out in the world? It made no sense to him.
He’d been especially rushed that afternoon. An evening dinner with the mayor beckoned. A ragged man seated at the door of a shop caught his attention, and in his expression, Colin had seen not the vacant gaze of despair, but eyes full of—of something. He hadn’t been able to put a name on it.
The action was easy. Reach in his pocket, pull out a handful of coins, toss off a quick “God bless you,” and be on his way. He’d done it a million times.
But this was the millionth and one.
“God bless you,” he’d said, and the man looked at him with what he now knew was dignity and responded, “Blessed is the man that trusteth in the Lord.”
At first it hadn’t made sense, and Colin had dismissed it as the ramblings of a vagrant. But the words had stayed with him, digging into his bones until he finally faced the truth: He hadn’t trusted in anything, especially not in God. He saw how meaningless and empty his life was, and he vowed to quit letting his life be given to him on a silver platter. The only way to do it was to change it all. If he was going to understand the man on the street, he’d have to become the man on the street. It meant starting over, with nothing.
The prospect of change was exciting. He’d come back from his expedition a changed man, with a backpack of stories to tell.
He went home, threw a change of clothes in a bag, and headed off to find himself.
Now he wished he’d been a bit more circumspect in his actions.
As he’d done so many times before, he ran through the litany of what he’d do differently. He’d have brought more money, arranged for lodging, settled his meals, organized some transportation, even packed additional clothing. He lifted up his right foot and stared ruefully at the sole of his shoe. It flapped loose and had a hole in it the size of a silver dollar.
But haste has its own wings. He’d flown out of the city, vowing never to look back. Here he sat, somewhere in Minnesota, by the best of his reckonings, and without a penny to his name—and he was indeed looking back and reevaluating his actions.
The life of a rambler hadn’t been as exciting and invigorat-ing as he’d envisioned. He’d managed to cobble together enough food and shelter at each stop to make this adventure bearable. It hadn’t been easy, but that was part of the challenge.
The road shimmered in front of him, and he reached for a fence post to steady himself. Each step was becoming harder to take. Maybe the end of the road was near for him.
He’d always claimed himself as a Christian. He was a bulwark of his church, in the front each Sunday. Tithing and singing and serving as the president of the men’s league—it all counted, didn’t it?
When he’d decided to adopt the life of a vagrant, it was to understand those less fortunate, to become aware of his own blessings, and to get closer to God. He had succeeded on the first two counts, but on the last one? Unless he counted that he was pretty much knocking on heaven’s door at the moment, he’d have to say he’d failed.
He took the canteen out of his pack and raised it to take a drink. His hand shook, and the few precious drops of water remaining fell to the ground.
The moment had come to ask for help.
A few tears stung sharply at his eyes, and he dashed them away with the filthy handkerchief.
Help. He didn’t want to ask anyone for anything, not any-more. That had been his motto, ever since his life—or lack of it—had sent him from the days that had been totally planned out, right into the dizzying unknown of a life on the road.
Only the weak asked for help. How many times had he heard that—or, God help him, how many times had he said that? Only the weak.
But he had to have something to drink, and soon. His lips were dried and cracked, and his tongue was so swollen that he could no longer sing his way along the road. Now the hymns were only in his mind, the lines and verses jumbled together. Just that afternoon he had tried to get through “Rock of Ages,” and he struggled in the middle of the second verse as the lyrics left him.
Left him! He’d prided himself on his knowledge of hymns, and now that, too, was leaving him.
Something was happening to his head. Not only was he becoming wildly fanciful and horribly forgetful, he was having difficulty keeping his eyes focused on the road ahead.
Now there’s a metaphor for you. The road ahead. How can I keep my eyes on the path before me when I can’t even see where I’m going?
The brilliance of the sun was blinding. He blinked, and blinked again. But still he saw through a white veil of blazing sunlight.
His head felt like an oversized empty ball on the top of his body. He was floating.
Had it ever been this hot? This airless? The truth was that today was blistering and dry, just like the day before, and the day before that. Rain was the prayer on everyone’s lips.
A verse from Jeremiah sprang into his head, the same one the man on the New York City street had said to him, and he said it aloud: “Blessed is the man that trusteth in the Lord, and whose hope the Lord is.” There was more after it, something about a tree by a river, but he couldn’t recall it at the moment.
He had to trust. God saw him, trudging along the road. God would see to him. God would provide. He had to trust in that, but he knew one other thing: He had to help himself, too.
He took one last swipe across his face with the grubby cloth and took a deep breath. Pull it together. You have work to do.
Resolutely, he balanced his bedroll on his back and took a tentative step. His knees turned to rubber, numbly refusing to hold up his body. The world swirled into a dust-colored spinning vortex, and his legs gave out from under him.
Kind-Hearted Woman Page 1