A Bride's Agreement

by Elaine Bonner

  Lord, please let her return my love. It was clear from the Scriptures that it was the Lord’s will that husbands and wives love one another. Surely God would answer his prayer. Until then, Pearl would be in his home, sharing his life. He wanted more, he thought restlessly, but it was enough for now.

  Pearl slipped a final tomato into the bushel basket setting beside her between the garden furrows and stood, her hands against the small of her back as she unkinked her muscles. A red-winged blackbird lit on a plant, cocked his head at her, and darted off, his wing a crimson-and-black splash against the sky. A frown knit her brow beneath the wide straw hat she wore to protect her skin. Clouds rolled over and under each other like milk in a churn, constantly shifting shades of gray. It was going to rain, and hard. The only question was how soon. The stillness preceding the storm was eerie; winds were one of the constants on the prairie.

  “Come along, Grace.” Lifting the basket, she started for the house with Grace racing stumbingly through the garden row before her.

  Funny how her attitude toward the weather changed after only a few days on the farm. In town a storm was merely an inconvenience, causing errands and pleasure outings to be postponed and making the streets difficult to pass. Here, a storm could threaten her new family’s livelihood.

  A smile softened the tense muscles in her face. Her new family. Precious words.

  On the porch, she turned and surveyed the fields. She knew the men would stay out until the storm struck, redeeming every available minute.

  She set the basket down inside the pantry. Spices in round wooden boxes, coffee in its red tin, and the ever-present kerosene jug dwarfed the smell of the fresh vegetables. She’d have to find time to preserve what vegetables she could for the winter. Perhaps Boston would help her; it would give them a chance to visit.

  As she re-entered the kitchen, Pearl’s gaze rested briefly on the old cupboard her father had made for her mother. Mother Boston and Dr. Matt had saved the cupboard for Pearl from the Wells’s sod house. Jason and Frank had brought it to the farm the day before Jason and Pearl’s wedding. The few pieces of her mother’s blue-and-white china which had survived the journey from the East to the homestead claim now rested safely on the shelves.

  Had her mother and father been happy, Pearl wondered, a young married couple, poor, starting out their life together on the frontier? She hoped so. She hoped they’d been madly in love; so much in love that no hardship they faced together seemed impossible to endure.

  Pearl moved to the screen door. The clouds seemed to meet the earth in a solid gray-blue wall not far past Thor Lindstrom’s fields.

  Jason had told her to expect some neighbors to join himself and the day laborers next week to help with the threshing. Thor’s wife, Ellie, had stopped the day after the wedding, offering to assist Pearl in cooking for the large group of men. She was grateful for the offer and would return it when the threshers worked Thor’s farm.

  Jason’s favorite team of draft horses, fly nets flapping, stomped rapidly into the yard pulling a load of grain and the three men. The wind was already increasing and whirled the wheat from the wagon in dusty sworls. Even as she watched Jason and Andrew leap down to open the barn doors so Frank could drive the wagon inside, darkness shut out the daylight.

  Rain came pouring down, the wind whistling around the house with a ferocious intensity.

  Boots rushed across the porch, and the kitchen door swung open before the men. They were soaked to the skin, and water poured from their hats and clothes. Pearl was surprised to find that the day laborers had already left, hoping to beat the storm home.

  When the men had changed, Maggie poured fragrant coffee from the large graniteware pot and set out sugar cookies, and the family spent a few luxurious minutes visiting around the kitchen table. Grace sat on Frank’s lap and happily dunked a cookie in his coffee cup until the cookie all but dissolved. The little girl always loved when the men returned from the fields.

  So did she, Pearl admitted to herself.

  Frank pulled out the latest edition of The Progressive Farmer, and Andy slipped away—likely to bury his nose in another dime novel, Pearl thought. Grace climbed on Maggie’s lap in the rocking chair and listened entranced to Black Beauty.

  Jason took his cup of coffee and went out on the porch, leaned against a pillar, and watched the rain still drenching the land. Pearl took her blue cotton shawl from its peg behind the kitchen door and followed him, pulling the door shut behind them. She tugged the shawl close about her shoulders as she went to stand beside him, tucking a hand in his arm in the comfortable, old familiar manner she’d had with him when they were young, and fiancés and marriages were far in their future.

  “Will the rain damage the crops?”

  Jason slipped his arm from her hand to drop it loosely about her shoulders. “Dad always said not to tally up your losses until the game was over, but it doesn’t look good.”

  It felt warm and secure with his arm about her, and she leaned against him contentedly.

  He sighed deeply. “A farmer’s always at nature’s mercy. How’s a man supposed to care for a family, never knowing when some storm or insects might wipe out his crops?” His hand cupped her shoulder, drawing her closer against him. “And now I’ve dragged you into that life.”

  She slipped a hand cautiously over his, not wanting to let him know how intimate it felt to be so near him. “I wasn’t dragged into this m–marriage kicking and screaming. I’m not meant to be a responsibility. Wives were created to be helpmates, if I remember the story of Adam and Eve correctly.”

  His chuckle rumbled in her ear. “That’s a mean argument. Makes it difficult for me to stand up on my soapbox and orate on man’s natural superiority.”

  “Good!”

  “But I’ve made a commitment to my brothers and sisters, and they’re counting on me.”

  “God has made a commitment to you, too.”

  He was silent a moment. “I needed that reminder to trust Him. I’ve felt like Atlas trying to carry the earth on his shoulders the last few weeks. And doing a poor job of it, too.”

  The door creaked open behind them. Pearl tried to ignore the disappointment that flickered through her at the interruption.

  “Pearl, will you cut my hair tonight?” Maggie asked, frowning down at one of her braids. “You did promise, and school is starting soon.”

  Jason jerked around, and a lonely feeling settled in the pit of Pearl’s stomach as his arm dropped from her shoulders. “Why are you cutting your hair?”

  “I’m almost thirteen. Girls my age simply do not wear their hair in braids.”

  “If you wear your hair short, how are the guys at school going to stick your braids in the inkwells or pull on it to let you know they’ve got a hankering for you?”

  Maggie’s face flooded with color. “Boys! Really, Jason!”

  Pearl fought back a smile. “I recall a certain young man dunking my braids in an inkwell. Ruined my favorite school dress.” Her gaze darted accusingly to Jason, and she had the satisfaction of seeing him flush. “If you find some shears, I’ll cut your hair now, Maggie.”

  She was back in a minute with a comb and shears, and they all moved to the kitchen.

  Jason sat across the table from them, turning the pages of the Montgomery Ward implement catalog. “So what’s this newfangled hairstyle like?”

  “Didn’t you notice that almost all the young misses at the dance were wearing their hair in loose curls just below their shoulders?”

  “Can’t say I did, sis.”

  “Men!”

  “You have to remember, I’m a married man. I’m not supposed to be noticing other girls.”

  Pearl’s hands stilled, and her gaze shot to Jason’s. He’d been waiting for it, his eyes laughing at her. The comb trembled slightly as she began pulling it through Maggie’s hair once more. “We weren’t married then.”

  He chuckled, and she had to smile. She’d sounded like a prim, middle-aged housewif
e even to herself.

  Maggie pulled a Jordan Marsh catalog from the stack of magazines Jason had brought into the room and showed him the current style.

  Grace entered and dumped two dolls and an armload of homemade clothes on the wooden chair beside Jason. Picking up a curly-haired doll, she wrapped it with painstaking care in a soft flannel square, then leaned heavily against Jason’s leg. “She needs you to hold her.”

  Jason took the doll in his arms as carefully as though it were a baby, and Pearl’s heart turned over at his gentle care for his little sister’s feelings. She well remembered how Johnny refused to have anything to do with her when she played with dolls. “Pretty baby. Don’t remember seeing her before. Is she new?”

  Grace nodded, her head bouncing repeatedly, her attention already on another doll she was awkwardly attempting to diaper with a flannel scrap. “Pearl gave her to me.”

  “What’s her name?”

  “Mawy.”

  “Mary? Nice name.”

  Would Grace never outgrow her difficulty with the r sound, Pearl wondered as the little girl answered Jason. “Yes. That’s her name ’cause Peawl gave her to me on your mawy day.”

  A puzzled frown appeared on Jason’s brow. “You mean the day Pearl and I got married?”

  The bouncing nod repeated. “Maggie said Pearl won’t ever leave us again. She said when people get mawwied, they stay together for always.” Her eyes looked like big brown buttons as she raised them seriously to Jason’s face, silently asking if it was true.

  He pulled her into his lap. “That’s right, Pumpkin. When people get married, they make promises to each other. You know what promises are, don’t you?”

  “Yes. That’s when you can never change your mind.”

  Pearl saw a laugh twinkling in the eyes so like Grace’s. “That’s a pretty good way to look at a promise, I reckon.”

  “And you pwomised to stay with Pearl for always?”

  “Yep.”

  “What else did you pwomise?”

  His voice grew softer, and there was a hint of huskiness. “I promised to love Pearl, and honor her, and cherish her forever.”

  Grace tilted her head and poked a finger at his chest, accentuating each word. “And you can’t ever change your mind.”

  Pearl’s heart caught in her throat as he captured her gaze in his. “No, I won’t ever change my mind.”

  “Good.” Grace wriggled down from his lap and exchanged dolls with him. “Now you hold Molly for a while.”

  “Yes ma’am,” he said meekly.

  Pearl could hardly keep her mind on trimming Maggie’s hair. Why was he doing this, repeating his vows as though he meant them with all his heart, when they both knew it was Miranda he loved?

  Pain lanced through her. How sweet it would be if his vow to love her had been sincere! It must have been difficult for him to promise to love and cherish her, when his heart belonged to another. He wasn’t a man to give his word lightly.

  Grace seemed content to play silently beside Jason, and he turned back to teasing Maggie. “Almost thirteen sounds a little young to be interested in boys.”

  “I didn’t say I was interested in boys!”

  “My mistake.”

  Big brothers must all be cut from the same cloth, Pearl thought, remembering how Johnny had teased her through the years. About time she came to Maggie’s rescue. “You weren’t much older than Maggie when you met…”

  “My wife.” He smoothly cut off her reference to Miranda.

  She stared at him over Maggie’s head, her mouth open slightly. What had come over him today? Perhaps he was simply his normal teasing self and had no idea how her heart turned each word over and over, wishing for his love.

  “Tell me how you met,” Maggie demanded.

  “It was the winter your family moved here.” Pearl clipped at the long locks carefully. “We were skating on the river. I skated too far downstream and fell through some weak ice. Jason rescued me.”

  Maggie gasped and whirled around, her eyes huge and shining. “He saved your life? How romantic!”

  “Your hair is going to be much shorter than you wish if you jerk like that again.” She softened the words with a smile. “It wasn’t romantic at all. I looked like a drowned rat.”

  “You didn’t look quite that bad,” Jason qualified gallantly.

  “Anyway, it took me a minute to find the hole in the ice when I came back to the surface of the river. I tried to crawl out, but the ice was too thin and kept breaking off. My hands felt like icicles, and my body was growing numb quickly. Then I heard Jason telling me to keep fighting.”

  She stopped trimming, the memory so powerful she couldn’t continue.

  Jason shrugged. “It wasn’t such a big thing.”

  “I could hear the other kids yelling at him to stay back or he’d fall in, too, but he didn’t even take his eyes off me once. He just flattened himself against the ice and held out a stick and told me to grab on. My hands were too cold by then to close around something that small.”

  “What happened next?” Maggie asked breathlessly.

  She looked at the eyes that had stared into hers that long-ago day, knowing her heart was in her gaze but not knowing how to prevent his seeing it. “He said not to worry, he wasn’t going to let me die.” And then the sun came out. She always remembered it that way. His eyes had been brown and warm and golden all at once, like the sun. She’d looked into them and known he wouldn’t let her drown, and the panic inside her ebbed away.

  “You’re making me sound way too gallant. You should be writing serials.”

  Pearl ignored his modesty. “He crawled closer to the edge of the hole. We could hear the ice cracking with every movement. My brother, John, who had been too far away to get to us immediately, held onto Jason’s skates in case Jason fell in, too. It was a good thing, as the ice broke two more feet around the hole before Jason pulled me out.”

  Maggie sighed and hugged her arms around her apron-covered chest. “It’s just like the knights of the round table.”

  Jason choked on his coffee, and Pearl laughed at him over Maggie’s head. “Knights! Do I look as if I wear armor?”

  “You’re a hero, just the same,” Maggie said with a determined nod of her freckled round face. “Overalls and all.”

  Jason snorted and refused to meet either of their gazes.

  “He’s certainly a hero in my book. I tagged after him for months.” Years would be more accurate, Pearl thought. She handed Maggie a hand mirror. “What do you think of your new look?”

  Maggie lifted a hand to the wavy hair. “Is it really me?”

  Jason picked up the catalog Maggie had shown him earlier. Pursing his lips, he looked critically from the page to Maggie and back again. “Yep. You look just like the young miss in the advertisement.”

  Maggie flushed with pleasure.

  “We’ll wrap your hair in rags this evening to make curls.”

  “Oh Pearl, I’m so glad you came to live with us!” She wrinkled her nose at Jason. “And I don’t care what you say. I think it’s the most romantic thing I’ve ever heard, meeting your wife by saving her life.”

  “Just hope your own life doesn’t ever need saving,” Jason grumbled as he stood up. “Far from being the fearless savior Pearl describes, I was scared out of my wits the whole time.”

  “I never knew that.”

  Pearl didn’t realize she’d said the words aloud until he stopped beside her. “Any reasonable person would have been. I was shaking in my boots, scared stiff you were going to sink beneath the waterline and be gone forever.” His trembling attempt at a smile made her throat ache. “And then who would have been my helpmate?”

  Her knees lost their starch as he left the room, and she plopped into the chair beside Maggie. Jason had always been an irrepressible tease. If she didn’t stop taking his comments seriously, she was going to make herself miserable.

  But his words and intense gaze lingered in her mind the rest
of the evening and followed her into her bed that night. “I promised to love Pearl… forever.”

  CHAPTER 11

  The night of the big storm was the last Pearl had time to dwell on Jason’s behavior. The storm hadn’t been as damaging as they’d feared. Crop losses were minimal, though they later learned that many farmers did lose crops and windows to hail—including the poor farm Johnny managed.

  It was days before the land dried out enough for the men, horses, wagons, and machines to get back into the fields. Until then they spent their time repairing and maintaining fences and machinery, and cleaning out the barn. Once they were back in the fields, Pearl and the girls seldom saw the men other than at meals, or when they carried morning and afternoon snacks to them.

  Preserving, cooking, baking, laundry, housekeeping, and gardening kept the women as busy as the men. The hired men merely added to Pearl’s workload. She fell into bed each night so tired that she was asleep almost before she finished her prayers.

  Sundays were the only times of rest. After church they would often visit with Dr. Matt and Boston or with Johnny and Jewell. Back at the farm the children loved to read. Sometimes they had hay fights in the barn or slid down the haystacks—which would set Grace to giggling nonstop. Pearl especially liked the times they went horseback riding. She missed riding Angel, and the horse was gaining weight from lack of exercise.

  Rising before the sun was especially difficult for Pearl, but Jason always arose before her and had the fire in the kitchen stove started so she could prepare the usual huge breakfast. His thoughtfulness never failed to add cheer to her morning.

  Pearl’s hope dipped and swayed like the wheat in the wind the first few days of their marriage, and she asked the Lord to show her how to stay strong in the hope He’d given her on her wedding night. Soon after, she came across Romans 15:4 in her daily devotions: “For whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope.”