Rachel's Prayer

by Leisha Kelly

  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.”

  I made a face. “If he’s planning that at all, maybe he’s thinking like Robert, that he’d rather do it when he comes home.”

  “No. We’ve been friends so long, I think he’ll want to make sure a’ things tonight. Then we can have the weddin’ soon as he gets home. And till then, I’ll write him every day.”

  I shook my head. “I wish you’d quit talking like this.”

  “Why?” Rorey asked me all innocent. “You know we’ve been likin’ each other a real long time.”

  “Off and on, sure. But that doesn’t mean it’s particularly good for you. Or that he’s thinking like you are about this.”

  Rorey strained the last bit she could of the flax gel and rubbed some at the hair framing her forehead. “You’re just jealous, that’s all. ’Cause you don’t have a beau. You wanna start settin’ the waves in back for me?”

  “I don’t know why you bother,” I huffed at her. “Your hair’s wavy enough already.”

  “No, it’s not. And anyway, I want the best finger waves in town tonight.”

  Katie came in just then, and I saw Rorey’s eyes turn toward Katie’s beautiful curls. But Rorey didn’t say anything about Katie’s hair. She never did. She never really talked to her much at all.

  “You know, Sarah, Lester’s brother Eugene’s kinda taken with you,” Rorey told me. “You oughta dance with him tonight.”

  “I wouldn’t dance with Eugene Turrey if you paid me,” I snapped without thinking.

  “Why not? Just ’cause he’s Lester’s brother? Honestly, I woulda thought you’d forgive and forget the past a lot easier than that. Even if somebody done somethin’ that don’t suit you, that’s no reason to hate their whole family.”

  My problem with Lester was more than some little thing that didn’t “suit” me, and she well knew it. His foolishness once, along with hers, had caused a fire that almost got my father killed, and Lester’d been even slower than Rorey to own up for it and say he was sorry. But besides that, he was mean, hateful to Rorey’s brother Frank, and rough as an old cob. I didn’t mind all the Turreys. Not the girls, anyway. But the problem with Eugene and with Lester’s other brothers was that they were too much like Lester.

  “I don’t hate anybody,” I told Rorey. “I just don’t like their trouble.”

  “Yeah. You sound like Franky—too good to say you hate ’em, but that sure don’t mean you’ll treat ’em very nice. All Eugene wants is one dance.”

  “I don’t have to dance to be nice. And Frank doesn’t have to let himself be walked on, neither. He’s not been mean to them one time, Rorey, and you know it.”

  “Whatever you say.” She kept at spreading the flax gel in her hair and setting the waves as best she could. I wondered if she knew how mad she made me. I wondered if she did it on purpose. “You want some curl?” she asked me suddenly. “I boiled enough flax for you if you want.”

  I looked in Mrs. Jones’s dresser-top mirror at my long straight hair, just like my mother’s, fine and brown. I supposed it needed cutting. I supposed I ought to accept Rorey’s offer to help me curl it some for the party. But I didn’t feel like obliging her in anything right then. “I like my hair the way it is,” I told her, glancing for a moment at Katie across the room. “Katie said she’d help me put it up in back.”

  “Oh, Sarah, that’s so old on you. Don’t you wanna look nice for the boys?”

  “I don’t care if I do or not. I just want Robert and William to have a good time.”

  “Well, it’s okay if you have a good time too.”

  “I think everybody will,” Katie broke in. “Except it’ll be kind of strange thinking about saying good-bye tomorrow.” She had laid out her dress on the bed and kicked off her shoes to run the polish rag over them again. I knew Rorey wouldn’t ask if she wanted to use the flaxseed gel. Katie had Shirley Temple curls. All natural.

  I polished at my shoes a little bit too, even though they didn’t really need it because Dad had shined everybody’s earlier. I made sure my wool stockings were pulled up in place. Then I changed my dress lickety-split and straightened the pin on the collar. For warmth, I added the pink pearl-buttoned sweater that Mom let me wear since Rorey had borrowed mine. I guessed that would be about all I’d do, except for putting my hair up like I’d said. Katie was already combing hers, though it didn’t look like it needed it.

  “You mind lightin’ the matches for me, Sarah?” Rorey asked. “I need to fetch a little more water.”

  She went out of the room with a towel in her hands, and Katie walked over to the dressing table. “I’ll strike the matches. I was thinking I might use a little of Mrs. Jones’s perfume, since she said it’s okay. But I don’t think I want to do much of anything else. What do you think, Sarah? Do I need to fix up some more?”

  “Oh, Katie. You never need anything. You’re cute as a lamb.”

  “You’re the one that’s extra pretty, Sarah. The boys watch you an awful lot. I don’t think Rorey’d think half as much about her appearance if it weren’t for that.”

  I scoffed. “Rorey thinks I’m plain. Just ask her. She’s always telling me I need to do something or other.”

  “She’s just jealous. And she doesn’t want you to know.”

  I shook my head but didn’t say anything else. Katie struck three matches on the bottom of Mrs. Jones’s pottery jewel box, let them burn just a little, and then blew them out and set them down one by one on the plate Rorey’d left.

  “How do you think my eyes would look lined like Rorey’s going to do?”

  “I don’t know. Your eyes are dark already. With pretty lashes. You don’t need nothing.”

  Rorey came hurrying back with her bowl of water, primping at her hair. “What do you think? Will the curls stay?”

  “They can’t go anywhere stuck together like that,” I teased her. “Sure hope you got all the seeds out so they don’t start dropping off on the dance floor.”

  She ignored me. Carefully she used the burnt match ends to line around her eyes so they’d stand out better in the evening light. And then she took a crumpled piece of red crepe paper from her pocket and dunked it in the water.

  “What’s that for?”

 
; “Sarah, don’t you know anything? Esther Mueller showed me. It’s for just a little color.”

  I thought “a little color” was a little understatement. The wet crepe paper rubbed against Rorey’s cheek left a whole lot more color than she would’ve needed. But she was satisfied once she’d smoothed the smear around the edges some.

  While she was doing that, Katie helped me put my hair up in a twist, and she put on her sweater. Pretty soon we were all ready to go.

  “Don’t you look lovely?” Mrs. Jones said when we came out in the sitting room. But I knew she was just being polite. We didn’t look much different than we did on Sundays, except for Rorey’s dolling up. She’d put a ribbon in her hair on the right above her ear. It matched her dress perfectly. I guess she did look pretty nice.

  Everybody else had gotten ready too, and some of the boys were already bundled up waiting for us. Mrs. Pastor had to quick pull off her apron, and then she grabbed a hat and started helping everybody get their coats.

  “Your scarf’s gonna muss your hair,” Harry told Rorey.

  “I’m wearin’ it around my neck, not on my head tonight,” she replied.

  “Won’t your ears get awful cold?” Emmie Grace asked her.

  My mother expressed the same concern, but Rorey was headstrong. She bundled up like the rest of us except that she left her head bare. Her father just looked at her sideways a little. “If you get sick a’ the cold, girl, it ain’t nobody’s fault but your own.”

  Those words didn’t bother Rorey the slightest bit, and pretty soon we were all walking down the street toward the community building. Dad and Pastor Jones were carrying the cakes that Mom and Mrs. Jones had made for the party. Dad would go back later for the truck and Thomas’s bookshelves. We didn’t want to bring them now because it was supposed to be a surprise.

  “You s’pose the cows’ll be all right tonight?” Mr. Hammond suddenly asked again as we were walking.