Winter Is Not Forever

by Janette Oke

  But Aunt Lou did befriend her, and she responded. She often walked over to the parsonage for a cup of tea. Aunt Lou was even able to get her to start reading her Bible again—but she still wouldn’t agree to come to church.

  Willie didn’t even come home the next summer. He had a job there near the school. I missed him, but I was really too busy to think much about it.

  The harvest weather was better and the crops were in on time. The next winter was milder, too, and our few animals fared much better.

  When spring returned, we planted again—this time with some of our own seed. We had chosen the best, spending many of our winter evenings gathered around the kitchen table carefully sorting out seed for planting. For Uncle Charlie it was difficult; his twisted hands found it almost impossible to handle small things.

  That third year on the farm, the crop that we planted gave us the best yield we had seen for some time. The hay did especially well, and the pruned-back fruit trees began to bear again like they hadn’t in years. We’d have several pigs ready for fall market, and the cattle, though slow to make a comeback, showed good quality in the small herd we were developing.

  We were even able to put out money for paint, and in between the haying and the harvesting I was able to paint the buildings, including the house. It sure did make the whole farm look better.

  I even began to think about a tractor, though I didn’t mention it to Grandpa and Uncle Charlie. I knew they would be likely to think I was moving a bit too fast.

  The crop was all in, and I had just celebrated my twentyfirst birthday when I got a letter from Willie. We hadn’t been writing quite as often as we once had, and I was pretty excited when I saw his handwriting. Willie was now in his final year at the college and would soon be a mission candidate. I knew he was excited about finding which foreign field God had in mind for him. I would have been excited too, but the thought of Willie graduating was a reminder to me that I was already four years behind in my preparation time. It would take a good deal of extra hard work once God showed me what He wanted me to do with my life.

  I just had to write, Willie said, and share with you the most exciting news. Camellia has become a Christian. I won’t tell you any more about it than that, as she wants to tell you all about it herself when we come home for Christmas. Yes, you read that right. She is going to come home to see her mother. She knows that they must get some things straightened out between them.

  I couldn’t believe it! It was just too good to be true. And yet I didn’t know why I found it so hard to believe. I had been praying daily for several years for that very thing to happen. The tears began to fill my eyes, and I brushed them away with the back of my hand.

  Camellia was a Christian! Camellia would be coming home at Christmas! It all seemed like a miracle. Praise God! Bless Willie!

  I read on, the pages blurred now from the tears in my eyes.

  We’ll be there on Monday’s train, Willie went on. It arrives at 11:35 a.m.—or is supposed to. Remember how we used to go down to the station to watch for the train—not to see the train as much as to watch the people? Remember how some of them would get so irate because the train was always so late? Well, if it’s that late on Monday, the 21st of December, I might understand for the first time why they acted as they did.

  My eyes slid to the calendar. The twenty-first was twelve days away. How would I ever be able to stand the wait?

  Then I let out a whoop and raced up the stairs two at a time to tell Grandpa and Uncle Charlie the good news.

  CHAPTER 14

  Sharing the News

  I DAYDREAMED MY WAY through the rest of the day and tossed my way through the night. After such a long time, I would see Willie and Camellia again! Camellia had become a Christian!

  The next morning I saddled Chester and headed for town. I couldn’t wait to tell the good news to Uncle Nat and Aunt Lou.

  Sarah saw me coming and met me at the door. “Hi, Unca Dosh!” she shouted before I even had time to dismount. She was still having trouble with her j’s. And I was still waiting for the day when she could properly say uncle, though I must admit that I secretly thought “Unca” sounded pretty cute.

  I picked her up and gave her a kiss on the cheek. “Hi, sweets.”

  “Have you been to da store?” she asked coyly. “No, I came straight here to see you.” I kissed her cheek again. Sarah knew that only shopping brought us to town midweek. She squirmed to get down, and I set her on her feet.

  “Can I go wif you?” she asked, her big blue eyes pleading.

  “I don’t need to go to the store this time,” I replied, feeling quite flattered that she wanted to be with me every moment that I was in town. “See?” I continued, pointing to Chester, “I didn’t even bring the wagon—just Chester.”

  Sarah’s lower lip came out, and I thought for a moment that she would cry.

  “I’m not going to the store,” I repeated quickly, crouching down to her level.

  The tears came to her eyes then, and she looked at me as she tried to blink them away. “Then how can you get candy?”

  For a minute I didn’t quite understand. Then it dawned on me. We came to visit after shopping, and we always had a small bag of treats for Sarah.

  I couldn’t help but laugh. The little beggar hadn’t done a great deal for my ego, but at least she was honest and forthright.

  “No candy this time,” I said, tousling her curly hair. “Too many sweets aren’t good for you. Where’s your mamma?”

  “She’s wif brudder.” The tears were already disappearing.

  “Where?”

  “In the kitchen.”

  “Is she feeding him?”

  “No,” said Sarah, shaking her head, “baffin’ him.” Then she suddenly seemed to remember that she was missing one of her favorite parts of the day. She turned from me and ran back through the porch into the kitchen, calling as she ran, “Mamma! Unca Dosh is here.”

  “Good,” Aunt Lou answered, “come right on in, Dosh.” I could hear the chuckle in her voice.

  I wasn’t really uncle to Sarah and Jonathan, of course—I was cousin. But Aunt Lou was training the children to call me uncle since our relationship fit with that title better.

  Sarah ran ahead of me and climbed up on a kitchen chair beside the table before I got there.

  “See!” she pointed excitedly. “Brudder can sit now.”

  I couldn’t believe how much he had grown just since the last time I’d seen him.

  Aunt Lou smiled at me. “I’ll be done here in a second; then I’ll fix you some—whatever you want. Coffee, tea, milk, lemonade.”

  I nodded, reaching to chuck Jon under the chin. “How ya doin’, big fella?” I asked him. He rewarded me with a grin.

  “He’s got a tooth already!”

  “Two,” corrected Sarah. “Mamma say two.”

  “Two is right,” informed Aunt Lou. “Another one is just coming through.”

  Aunt Lou finished dressing Jon and handed him to me. “Will he spit?” I would have taken him even if she had assured me that I was bound to get spit up on.

  “He’s good about that,” she said instead. “Hardly ever spits up. And I haven’t fed him yet, so you’re safe.”

  Sarah and I played with the baby while Aunt Lou made hot chocolate and cut some slices of lemon loaf. “So, how is everyone?” she asked.

  “Fine.”

  With her question and my reply, my good news again came foremost in my thinking. “Uncle Nat here?” I asked. I had hoped to tell both of them together.

  “No, he went out to the Lewises’. Mr. Lewis is the new Church Board Chairman and they have some things to discuss.”

  I was disappointed, and it showed.

  “Did you need him?” asked Aunt Lou.

  “Oh no. I—I just got some great news, and I wanted to tell both of you.”

  Aunt Lou’s head came up from the stirring of the hot chocolate. Her eyes searched mine. “Well, you aren’t going to make me wait
just because Nat isn’t here, are you?”

  I grinned. “Naw,” I said. “I wouldn’t be able to stand it.” “Good!” she said emphatically and set the two cups of hot chocolate on the table. Then she reached for a glass partly filled with milk for Sarah.

  “So?” she asked, passing me the lemon loaf.

  “Just got a letter from Willie,” I began.

  “Did he get his assignment?”

  “Nope. Even better than that.”

  “He’s coming home?” said Aunt Lou, knowing I would be pretty excited about that.

  “Yeah, for Christmas—but there’s more.”

  I was really enjoying this little game. We had played it many times over the years, savouring some bit of exciting news and making it stretch out just as much as possible.

  “And?” prompted Aunt Lou.

  “Camellia is coming, too.”

  “Camellia?” Aunt Lou sounded almost as excited as I had been.

  I nodded, my face flushed with the wonder of it all.

  “Here?”

  “Here! To see her ma.”

  Aunt Lou surprised me then. She started to cry. I think she started to pray too. She was talking softly to someone, and I knew it wasn’t me.

  I sat there hardly knowing how to respond; then I got up from my chair and gently laid Jonathan in the small bed that stood in the corner of the kitchen. I had the feeling that Aunt Lou might need me, but I still didn’t know just what move I should make. Sarah brought me back to attention. She reached for Aunt Lou’s hand, concern in her eyes.

  “Mamma,” she said. “Mamma, why you cry?”

  Aunt Lou’s face changed immediately and reached out to gather Sarah to her. She began to laugh softly. “It’s all right, sweetheart,” she assured Sarah. “Mamma is crying for joy. I’m fine. Really. It’s all right.”

  Then Aunt Lou turned to me. “Mrs. Foggelson will be so happy. I told her I’d pray that Camellia would forgive her for what she had to do.”

  Had to do? The words echoed and reechoed in my mind. But I didn’t ask questions—at least not then.

  Then Aunt Lou put a hand on my arm and, looking at me with tears starting again, pleaded, “Oh, Josh! We’ve got to pray like we have never prayed before. We’ve got to pray that this time together might be a time when Camellia and Mrs. Foggelson will realize how much they need God in their lives.”

  “Well,” I began, then abandoned all caution and rushed on, “that’s the rest of the good news. Camellia has already realized that.”

  Aunt Lou’s eyes got big, and she searched my face to see if I had really said what she understood me to say.

  “You mean—?” she began. I nodded and then I gave a whoop and reached out for Aunt Lou, and we laughed and cried and praised together.

  “I’ve gotta go,” I said to Aunt Lou finally. “I really didn’t have time for a trip to town today, but I just couldn’t wait to tell you.”

  “Oh, Josh,” she said, “I’m so glad you came. That is the most exciting thing that has happened since—since Jonathan,” she ended with emphasis, and turned to her little son.

  Jonathan sucked his fist noisily, reminding his mother that he was still unfed. Aunt Lou kissed his forehead and murmured something to him.

  I heard a deep sigh from the chair beside me and looked down into the forlorn face of little Sarah. She sighed again, gave her little shoulders a shrug and turned her small palms up.

  “Nonny sweets,” she said. “Nonny” was Sarah’s own word. As far as we could figure out, she meant “not any” or “none” when she used it.

  Both Aunt Lou and I laughed.

  “Here,” I said, fishing in my pocket. “Here’s a penny for your piggy bank.”

  Her face immediately lit up and she took the penny from me, scooted down from her chair and called as she ran toward her room, “T’anks you, Unca Dosh.”

  We heard the penny clink as it joined the others in her bank. I grinned as I shook my head.

  “That’s an awful little beggar you’re raising there, Lou,” I said. “Me?” responded Lou. “Me? Seems to me her begging has something to do with three men in her life.”

  I shrugged my shoulders, turned my palms upward, “Nonny sweets.” I grinned and left.

  CHAPTER 15

  Homecoming

  I SUFFERED TERRIBLY waiting for the twenty-first. I kept trying to imagine what it was going to be like to see Camellia again. I wondered what the new Camellia would be like. She was a believer now. She would undoubtedly have a new softness, a new understanding, a new gentleness to her.

  On the other hand, I hoped she hadn’t changed too much. I would have been terribly disappointed if she had put her beautiful coppery hair into some kind of a tight bun or something. And I couldn’t imagine her in strict, plain dresses either. Somehow they just wouldn’t suit Camellia.

  And Willie—it seemed like such a long time since I had seen him. He was bound to have changed. I thought I had grown away from Willie; that after my first awful months of missing him so, I had finally learned how to get along without him. But now that he was due home, all the old memories of our friendship returned, and I missed him more than I ever had.

  A glance in my mirror told me that I had changed over the years, too. I tried to think back to how I had looked at eighteen and I couldn’t really remember. I knew I had filled out since then. The clothes I had worn as a teenager just hung in my closet, waiting for someone to sort through them and discard them. But somehow it felt comfortable to have them still hanging there day after day, month after month, even though I knew I would never be able to wear them again.

  I looked at my muscular arms. Shoveling the grain onto the wagon and shoveling the fertilizer off had made me quite well developed, not the skinny teen I had been.

  I rubbed the outline of my jaw. At seventeen I had shaved a few times, but not really because I had needed to. It made me feel rather grown-up to pull the razor over my face. But now I had to shave, and to my surprise it hadn’t turned out to be nearly as much fun as I had dreamed it to be.

  But apart from growing up and filling out and needing to shave rather than just wanting to, it seemed that there really hadn’t been that much change in me. I was still the same farm boy that I had always been. And now Willie would be cityfied and book-learned.

  I thought of other changes. We had all been a lot younger in more than years when we had last seen one another—kids, still thinking that life had only good things in store for us, I guess. Willie had his dream of being a missionary, and looked like he was about to realize that dream. Camellia had high hopes of becoming someone important in the field of Interior Design; for some reason I had never been told, her dream had gone sour. She had quit and taken a somewhat mundane job.

  And I was still “treading water” as far as what I was to do with my life. After I finished straightening out the farm and getting Grandpa and Uncle Charlie cared for, that is. It was taking much longer than I had first thought, but things around the farm were slowly improving.

  The only problem was, Grandpa and Uncle Charlie weren’t improving. Grandpa was no longer a young man. Slightly stooped, he grumbled some when he went to climb anything and he grunted when he leaned over. I knew Grandpa had neither the strength nor the desire to run the farm again.

  And Uncle Charlie really worried me. Week by week it was more difficult for him to handle the household chores, things like the hot pots and peeling the vegetables. More and more Grandpa was needed to help him in the house. For now I could handle the chores and most of the farm duties myself, but what would happen after God had directed me into my life work?

  It weighed heavily on my mind. But Uncle Nat had told me time and again that God would make things clear to me one step at a time. When it was time for me to pursue my life’s calling, God would have someone else to care for Grandpa and Uncle Charlie.

  Still, I couldn’t help but speculate just how God might do that. He could arrange for hired help. But that was so c
ostly. Unless the farm really did much better on the new program, I didn’t see how that plan would work. He could have one of the neighbors sharecrop the farm. The Turleys were our closest neighbors, and they were really struggling after the setback of the hard winter when they lost most of their stock. They wouldn’t likely be able to afford it.

  Or He could direct Grandpa to sell the farm. That thought really bothered me. I knew that after having put so much time and energy into making the farm more productive, I would have a tough time watching someone else take over—especially if that someone let it go back to the way I had found it! I’d have to do a lot of praying to be able to accept the sale of the farm.

  But as much as I pondered the questions about the farm, even that failed to occupy my thoughts in the days prior to December twenty-first. Most of my thinking was of my two school friends and how we would feel about each other after so many years and so many changes.

  I couldn’t, of course, expect Camellia to come back home and consider me her beau. I mean, I had called it all off when she didn’t believe as I did. Now it would take some time and some getting reacquainted to get things back to where they had been.

  I was prepared for that. In my mind I began to list all of the things that young fellas do when they court. Flowers were hard to come by this time of year, but candy was readily available. A fancy necklace or a bracelet might be nice. I might even be able to find one that would match the ring I planned to buy later on.

  One thing troubled me. I didn’t know how long Camellia expected the courting to take. Would she expect me to come calling for a number of months, or could we take a shortcut since we had once been sorta sweethearts? I decided that I would just have to play that part by ear.

  But the wait seemed forever.

  I checked out the time of that train. Three times, in fact, I had checked just to be sure. I shaved especially carefully that morning and shined my Sunday shoes and pressed my shirt. Uncle Charlie had already ironed it, but he couldn’t do the job that he used to do.