by Irene Brand
“‘And the child grew and became strong. He was filled with wisdom, and the grace of God was upon Him.”’
From the booklet, she read the thought for the day, “Parents are expected to guide and monitor a child’s growth, insuring that the child grows up spiritually, as well as physically. A child should receive an adequate education, which includes learning the teachings of the Bible at an early age. Children are expected to love their mother and father, and parents should love their children. Love is the key to a happy home life.”
Summer closed the Bible around the booklet, determined that she’d get more acquainted with the Bible before the next morning. Timmy and Nicole joined hands and stretched their free hands to Summer. She took the hands as the children waited expectantly.
“Mommy always prayed,” Timmy said and bowed his head.
Cold sweat broke out on Summer, and she thought she was going to faint, but she cried out in her distress, “Oh, God!” She bowed her head and struggled for words. “Oh, God, help us today. Protect Timmy and Nicole at school and help them to learn their lessons. Amen.”
The children squeezed her hands and jumped down from their chairs. They hustled into the bedroom, came back with their coats and book bags and stood expectantly before her.
She forced a smile. “Now what am I to do?”
“Mommy hugged and kissed us and told us she loved us before we went to school,” Timmy said.
Tears welled up in Summer’s eyes, and she knelt by the children and pulled them both into a tight embrace. “I love both of you,” she mumbled over the lump in her throat. She released the kids and kissed them on the foreheads.
“Bye,” Nicole said. Long after the children left the house, Summer sat at the table, her head in her hands.
While Nicole and Timmy seemed to be adjusting to the situation without their parents, Summer noticed that they were moody a lot of the time. They seldom opposed her instructions, but they bickered a lot between themselves. She and David agreed that they must spend some quality time with the children, so on the third Saturday, they took Nicole and Timmy into Asheville where they had lunch together, attended a movie and bought groceries. Summer believed that the kids might be more receptive to the foods she prepared if they helped buy the ingredients. The kids were so excited over the outing that they temporarily forgot their parents’ absence. All of them wanted to make the trip to town a weekly ritual.
When they returned from Asheville, Edna hailed them from the steps of the elementary school with news about the next day’s worship plans.
Sunday was expected to be a day of rest and worship at The Crossroads. Edna conducted worship services in the auditorium at the elementary school. Bert had directed worship for The Crossroads residents in a small chapel located in a wooded area behind the dormitories. After his death, Edna had combined the two services at the elementary school.
“Since you’ve stated that you aren’t spiritually experienced to lead the worship service, the mission board has arranged for a seminary student, Curtis Nibert, to come here for a year as the resident pastor. He will go to the seminary two days each week for classes, but the rest of the time, he can be on the field. Curtis was a short-term volunteer at the elementary school a couple of years ago, and he impressed me then. I think you’ll like working with him. He’ll be here in the morning.”
“That’s a relief off my mind,” David said. “Several of the boys have mentioned the chapel services, acting as if they expected me to start them. The teenagers think they’re too old to worship with the little ones.”
The chapel was an unpretentious log building with a crude wooden cross nailed over the front door. The building had benches for fifty worshipers, and since attendance at Sunday chapel services was compulsory for the residents, the room was almost full when Summer arrived with Nicole and Timmy. Most of the staff members were present, too. David had saved a seat for their family near the front of the room. Mornings in the mountains were cold, but heat was provided by a small stove in the middle of the room, which Stonewall Blackburn was filling with small chunks of wood.
Edna was on hand to introduce Curtis, and Summer felt drawn to him immediately. A thin man in his midtwenties, he stood tall and erect. His almost white, blond hair gave Curtis the appearance of being prematurely gray. His blue eyes were eager, bright and full of laughter.
Mayo Sinclair was running through chords on a studio piano that was out of tune, and Summer thought of the grand piano at the Weaver home that was seldom used. All three Weaver daughters had taken piano lessons. Spring had become proficient on the instrument, but after she left home, the piano was seldom played. Mayo had a touch that made the piano sound as if it were talking.
David leaned across the two kids and whispered, “Mayo’s father is a bluegrass musician.”
Flashing the words on a screen from an overhead projector, Curtis led the group in singing several gospel choruses and David joined in a pleasing tenor voice. Summer didn’t know the songs, and she had difficulty following, so she stopped trying. Curtis’s message was brief, and although it was slanted mostly toward the students, Summer paid close attention to his words. Every day it seemed as if she encountered a new situation where she needed spiritual enlightenment in dealing with Timmy and Nicole.
The sun had chased the fog away by the end of the worship service, and they went outside to a warm, balmy October day and the pleasant scent of a mixture of pine and drying leaves. Deeply inhaling the fragrant air, David said to Summer, “Let’s take the kids on a hike into the national forest this afternoon. There are several good trails, and we need to take advantage of the nice weather.”
“I’m not an outdoors person,” Summer said, “but if I’m going to live here, I’ll have to be, I suppose. Why don’t we take a picnic lunch?”
“That’s a great idea. Let’s ask the kids.”
Nicole and Timmy enthusiastically agreed. Summer changed into jeans and a sweatshirt when she got home and laid out jeans and a shirt for Timmy. She searched the cabinets and refrigerator for picnic fixings.
“What do you kids want to eat? We could take cheese cubes, apples and cookies. Or we can make sandwiches out of the lunch meat we bought yesterday. There’s a two-liter bottle of cola already cold in the fridge.”
They preferred peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches, which she made hurriedly and packed them, some apples and a bag of cookies into a backpack she’d found among Bert’s possessions. They were waiting on the porch for David when he arrived wearing jeans and a colorful plaid sweater. Summer hadn’t seen him dressed so casually since that day over two years ago when they’d gone to the amusement park in Ohio.
David strapped the backpack over his shoulders and handed Summer a book he carried. “I found this in the office. It’s a field guide to eastern trees. We might as well try to identify the trees in the forest while we walk.”
“I want to eat first,” Timmy said. “I’m hungry.”
“You’re always hungry,” Nicole said in disgust. “You’re going to get as fat as a pig if you don’t watch out.”
“Will not,” Timmy said belligerently, giving his sister a shove.
“Will, too.”
David lifted his eyebrows, and Summer wondered how peaceful this outing was going to be.
“Perfectly normal behavior between brother and sister,” he murmured for Summer’s ears alone. “I had two sisters and they can be trying.”
“I had two sisters also, but Mother didn’t allow us to quarrel.”
“I’ll ignore it for a while,” David said. “Hopefully, they’ll get tired of fussing in a few minutes and turn to something else.”
“There goes a deer,” Timmy shouted and ran down the trail, but he couldn’t match the speed of the leaping animal. When they came upon a terrapin, he said, “I’m going to take it home and put it in a cage in my room.”
“No,” Summer said. “I don’t want it in the house.”
“Aw, it won’t hurt nothing.”
“He’s right, you know,” David said.
“No! After having the cabin riddled by squirrels, I won’t have animals inside.”
“Mommy wouldn’t care if I have it,” Timmy shouted, stomping his feet.
The obvious answer was that his mother wasn’t in charge of the house now, but Summer couldn’t say that to him. She shook her head, and Timmy kicked a rock and ran ahead of them. Summer felt as if Nicole and David both thought she was being unreasonable because they stopped talking as they walked along the trail. When they stopped for lunch, Timmy couldn’t be found, and it took David a quarter of an hour before he found where the child had hidden. After that altercation, no one seemed to have an appetite, and they nibbled silently on their food.
David eventually started identifying some of the trees they saw, and the kids would talk to him, but they said nothing to Summer. She wasn’t in the mood to talk, either. When they returned to the cabin, she prepared spaghetti for their evening meal as a peace offering, for both children were fond of spaghetti. Still they didn’t relent in their cool attitude toward Summer, and she was so tired that she didn’t really care. As soon as David left, she sent Timmy and Nicole to bed, and she took a shower and got into bed, too.
She slept listlessly, once again depressed, wondering if she would ever be capable of dealing with two children. Mothers learned gradually how to raise their offspring. She hadn’t had any on-the-job training. Suddenly she’d been handed two children, and she was expected to know how to handle them as if she were a pro. It was an impossible task.
When she entered the kitchen the next morning, the first thing she saw was a terrapin crawling across the floor. So Timmy had brought the creature in even when she’d told him not to! Had David known about it? Summer didn’t want to touch the animal, but she wouldn’t have it in the house. Taking a pot holder, she lifted the terrapin, annoyed that the varmint hissed at her before withdrawing into its shell. She carried it out to the edge of the forest and left it there.
Chapter Eleven
Annoyed at her own attitude as much as she was at David, Summer couldn’t bring herself to talk when she went to the office, answering David with as few words as possible.
Finally, he said, “Why are you still angry?”
“I resented being treated like a pariah yesterday because I think wild creatures should be kept out in the woods. You and the kids talked, but left me out of the conversation, so I knew you were angry at me. You should support me in a few rules instead of making my task more difficult.”
David’s eyes narrowed. “I tried to talk to you, but you gave me some pretty short answers.”
“Did you know Timmy brought that terrapin home with him?” she accused.
“No, I didn’t.”
“Well, he did, and it was crawling around in the kitchen when I got up this morning.”
“What did you do with it?”
“Put it outside where it belongs. I don’t expect you to understand my way of life, but I’ve always been used to a neat, well-ordered home, which incidentally, I never cleaned myself. I’m not above working with my hands, and I’m trying to keep the cabin in some order. I can make allowances for the children’s lax habits, but it’s too much to expect me to operate a menagerie in the house. David, you can help me with this if you will. Whether you agree with me or not, I expect you to support my decisions.”
Before his irresistible grin, she found her irritation melting away, but she didn’t relax her stern expression.
He gave her a playful mock salute. “Consider it done. I’ll have a man-to-man talk with Mr. Timothy. No more varmints in the house.”
True to his word when David came for the evening meal, he said, “Where is Timmy? I’ll have a talk with him.”
Summer grinned slightly. “He’s in the bedroom—he’s been looking all over the cabin for the terrapin, but he hasn’t asked me any questions.”
“Timmy, come here,” David called.
Timmy walked slowly into the room.
“Why did you bring the terrapin home when your aunt told you not to?”
Timmy’s lower lip drooped into a pout. “’Cause I wanted to.”
“That’s not reason enough. Summer’s trying to make a good home for you here, and she’s not making many rules. But when she does, I expect you to do what she says.”
Timmy argued with David for a few minutes, but he finally said he was sorry for disobeying Summer, and she hoped that was the end of his rebellion. When she said this to David, he laughed.
“Don’t count on it. Boys can be ornery. I know by experience.”
Then while they were eating, Nicole said, “If we can’t have a turtle for a pet, how about a dog?”
David tried to suppress his amusement, but at the confused expression on Summer’s face, he burst out laughing.
“It’s your call,” he said to her.
“I’ll have to take a rain check on that one,” she said, amused in spite of herself.
“Don’t you like dogs, Auntie?” Timmy asked.
“I like dogs. We had a dog on the farm when I was a child. He was Autumn’s dog, but he didn’t stay in the house. Let me see how I get along raising you two kids before I agree to having a dog. For that matter, I don’t dislike terrapins, but they’re not house pets.”
Edna, David and Summer held semimonthly staff meetings to discuss plans and problems for the two schools and to correlate the activities. Curtis Nibert often sat in on the meetings. At twenty-five, Curtis was slender, but not tall, and in her few conversations with him, Summer had been amazed at his spiritual and emotional maturity. Still, his blue eyes gleamed with a boyish smile, his long blond hair was tied back in a ponytail and his casual dress attested to his youth.
When they gathered in David’s office for the mid-November meeting, David asked, “What about Christmas arrangements? How long is the vacation period?”
“We have a two-week break, and several of the children go home,” Edna said. “The house parents stay in the dorm, so you and Summer can leave if you want to.”
“I wasn’t thinking about that, although my parents called this morning asking us to bring Nicole and Timmy to their home for the holidays. That’s what started me thinking about what’s usually done here.”
“We have programs at both schools,” Edna continued. “Curtis, I’d like for you to plan the one at The Crossroads.”
“Okay. I’ll start working on it right away.”
“What do you do with the students who stay here?” Summer asked. “There should be something special for them.”
“We buy a gift for each student, but sometimes it’s not much. Depends on how much money we have left after the necessary bills are paid.”
“I’ll ask my mother and sister in Ohio to send gifts for the students at The Crossroads. Autumn’s church congregation will be glad to help I’m sure.”
“That will be fine,” Edna said. “We rely heavily on contributions for our Christmas activities.”
“It disturbs me,” Summer said, “that the schools operate from hand to mouth. There’s surely some way we can provide a budget for the school so we’ll know what we have to work with. I’ve been thinking about sending out a monthly newsletter to churches that support the schools. The older students could be involved with preparing it. Would the mission board supply a list of supporters and indicate how we can encourage additional support? I have a few acquaintances in New York who might even be interested in what we’re doing.”
“It would be great if we could find a few large contributors to make substantial bequests to an endowment fund and put The Crossroads on a self-supporting basis,” David said.
“We operate on faith, David,” Edna said quietly. “God supplies all our needs.”
“I believe that, but I don’t see that it’s sacrilegious to provide these kids with more than the necessities. I envision the day when The Crossroads will have a big gym, so our students can compete in intramural sports, and
additional dorm space to reach out to more youth. The volunteers are doing a good job, but it would be more effective if we had enough funds to pay a full-time staff. And that’s never going to happen unless we publicize what we’re doing. Summer’s newsletter could do that. Do you actually believe it’s wrong to work toward economic stability, Edna?”
She hesitated. “No. It’s just not my concept of mission work, but I realize I’ve been here a long time. I may be out of touch with reality.”
“You’re doing a wonderful job, Edna,” Summer said sincerely. “I can tell from Nicole and Timmy’s progress that they couldn’t receive a better elementary education anywhere, but I believe we have to make changes at The Crossroads.”
Curtis nodded enthusiastically. “If there aren’t some changes in the curriculum, Crossroads residents won’t be prepared to face the challenges of the twenty-first century.”
“Exactly,” David said. “We need a computer lab, for one thing. And the science teacher is a wonderful person, but at seventy years, he’s still teaching science and math as he did twenty years ago. That’s not good enough anymore. We need staff members who have kept up with changes in technology.”
Edna threw up her hands. “I apparently haven’t kept up with the times, either. David, you and Summer are The Crossroads’ administrators. You can make decisions, subject to the approval of the mission board. I’m in an advisory position only and overseer of the spiritual climate. I just want these schools to serve the purpose for which they were organized—a place for spiritual, physical and mental growth to youth who can’t find it elsewhere. I’ll be the first to concede that you may know how to do that better than I do. My methods are much like they were when I first came here.”
“But they’re working, so why change them?” Summer said.
Edna smiled her thanks at Summer. “I’ll support your decisions as much as possible, but remember, all of you, that unless the motivation comes from God, your plans will never succeed.”