Sarah's Promise

by Leisha Kelly

  My milk cow raised her back leg up and down, impatient because I milked slower than Dad did. “What’s your hurry?” I asked her irritably. “You’re not gonna go run the pasture in this weather anyhow.”

  Dad looked over at me again. “Need help, pumpkin? I’m almost done here.”

  Dad had been calling me “pumpkin” since I was tiny. But lately, it seemed like he’d done it less and less. Until today. Twice in just a few minutes. Maybe he was thinking of me as his little girl again for some reason. Maybe he was wondering about Donald Mueller too, since he’d brought it up. Maybe I should tell him about the invitation. But surely it wasn’t necessary. Nothing would come of it. Donald was just a presumptuous dunce who mistakenly thought Frank was a weakling. He wouldn’t have dared ask me to the dance if I were engaged to any other young man in town.

  I rose from the milking, trying to turn my thinking to other things. I didn’t want to have Donald on my mind for another minute. Dad carried both our milk pails to the house. Neither was full. Milk was down for both cows.

  The wind was brisk, tossing snow in our faces on the way to the porch. The end of our lane was drifting shut. If the sky didn’t clear by morning, we’d be snowed in. There’d be no going to town and no way to know whether Frank had gotten to Sam’s house safely. But there wasn’t any reason to doubt. I could easily picture him comfortable in a chair with one or two of the kids cuddled on his lap. Maybe he was already there, in out of the blowing cold.

  4

  Frank

  In the frigid January air, I did what I could to help the family in that wrecked car. The man looked dazed, and his wife was bleeding from a head wound. I searched in the vehicle but couldn’t find nothin’ to hold against it to stop the blood. I’d forgotten my handkerchief again, and there wasn’t nothin’ else handy but Sarah’s homemade scarf. Surely it wouldn’t bother her too much that I used it for a temporary bandage.

  The little girl in the backseat was scared for her mother. She had the strangest eyes I’d ever seen—cloudy, half-closed, and turned two different ways. At first I thought she might be hurt too, but her father checked her over and said she seemed all right.

  I couldn’t leave them in the bitter cold to go look for help. I wasn’t sure where to go or how long I’d be. The man told me that the closest doctor was in Morrisonville. It wasn’t one of the town names on my route, so for a minute I felt strange and unsettled like I might have lost my way. But he said it was only six miles down a side road.

  The woman didn’t want to go to the doctor, mostly because she wasn’t wantin’ her little girl to stay scared for her. She kept insistin’ she was all right, but her husband was pale and shaky, and I convinced him that they all ought to be looked at. When I helped them to my truck I realized that the little girl was blind.

  Mrs. Wortham’s blanket came in handy to spread over the woman and daughter. I drove the whole family carefully on that snowy side road to Morrisonville, glad I’d put the tire chains on miles before. I couldn’t help thinking that God had put me on that lonely road to do what I could for these people.

  At the doctor’s office, both of the parents needed attention, but there was only one doctor and nurse on staff. I ended up lingerin’ with the little girl because they asked me not to leave her sitting out in the hallway alone.

  I’d never prayed for strangers quite like I did then. The little girl sat in a chair beside me. She’d been clutching at a cloth bag since we left their car, and now she clung to it tighter the way she’d clung to her mother’s hand in my truck. I thought of Sam’s little boy Albert hugging close to Thelma’s side sometimes, and wondered what life would be like if you couldn’t see what was going on around you or hear what other people could hear.

  I’d never figured to be in such a spot as this. I needed to get back on the road, but I couldn’t leave yet. Out by that lake I’d asked God to use me and use this trip if he would. But I certainly hadn’t expected somethin’ like this.

  The little girl didn’t say nothing at first. And I didn’t say nothing to her. The nurse went past us to call for some relatives on the telephone, but then she went back to the examination room without speakin’ to us at all.

  I considered what Sam’d think if I was late gettin’ in. He didn’t have a telephone at home, so I’d have to call Thelma’s uncle and leave a message if I was held up too long. I started itching to leave, but at the same time I knew I should stay. This little girl’s parents and the doctor hadn’t wanted her in the room to hear all of what was goin’ on. So the most important thing I could be doin’ right then was to make sure she wasn’t left sitting alone till somebody else got there.

  I knew I was right when she asked me in a quiet voice to pray for her folks. I already had been, but I was glad to oblige her out loud. She was being brave for a kid who couldn’t a’ been more than nine or ten.

  I don’t know how long I stayed. The little girl told me her name was Mary and her parents were Warren and Jeanie Ensley. We still hadn’t heard how her folks were by the time her aunt and uncle arrived, but when they got there the nurse came out and said Mary’s mother was doing all right. She took Mr. Ensley’s brother aside and told him something that didn’t seem to be good news. Mary wanted me to pray again, and so did her relatives. They seemed to think I was a minister, and even though I tried to tell them I wasn’t, I still prayed with them because it was the right thing to do.

  They wanted my name and address when I left, so I gave ’em one of the WH business cards Mr. Wortham’d made up a long time ago. Then I could finally get back on the road. The snow had started up again, the wind was getting worse, and I’d lost a lot of daylight. But I was still glad I’d been able to help.

  Retracing my route back to the main road north, I realized I prob’ly wouldn’t make it to Camp Point tonight. The sun was almost to set. But the road was still passable. I decided to press on and get as far as I could.

  Before long, the wind was whipping snow as the night’s darkness closed in. It wouldn’t be safe to keep going much farther. This day hadn’t turned out the way I’d planned. But it didn’t bother me because I was so sure I’d been doing what I should.

  At Auburn, I stopped to find lodging and got directed to the Commercial Hotel on the town square. Kinda hated to spend the money for a room, but there wasn’t much choice. The lady there didn’t have no problem letting me use the telephone to call Thelma’s uncle, and he promised to deliver my message that I was held up by the weather. After that, I went to my room, ate more of the food I had along, and plopped onto the bed, determined to be up and gone by daylight.

  But night brought a winter storm the forecasters hadn’t known to predict. Buckets more snow, and whipping wind to boot. By morning the streets were closed, and the wind was pilin’ up drifts tall as a hay wagon. I was stuck.

  5

  Sarah

  There’d be no going to town today. In other circumstances, I would’ve liked the pretty snow decorating our trees and fence lines, but right now it was depressing. We heard on the radio about a train being stalled, but it wasn’t Sam and Thelma’s. Hopefully, they’d be having breakfast at home, with Frank in the middle of things. I guessed they’d know the weather was bad here if they tried to call and couldn’t get any answer.

  “Will the service station be open at all today?” I asked Dad.

  “I expect. But Charlie’s probably out now with the push-plow on his tractor. He may not be there till afternoon.”

  “I wish he’d bring his push-plow by here.”

  “Hershel Mueller’ll plow this road as soon as he can,” Dad answered.

  It wouldn’t be soon enough for me. But being here where we couldn’t hear the telephone ring might be better than being there if it didn’t ring. What if Frank hadn’t made it to Sam’s last night? What if he still wasn’t there?

  I tried to quit thinking like that. Frank was probably playing with the kids or helping Sam and Thelma pack boxes already. January was an awful
time to be moving, but Sam’s new job would be starting next week, so it didn’t make sense to wait.

  I pulled on my coat and boots, grabbed a basket, and went out to collect the eggs. A hymn came to mind, and feeling grateful for that, I started humming it under my breath. It was one of my favorites. “Blessed Assurance.” But it didn’t seem quite right to sing it out loud in the morning’s quiet.

  I walked around the side of the house and through the gate into the chicken yard. The hens were cackling and fluttering about, stirred into a nervous frenzy again. Maybe they remembered yesterday’s scare as plainly as I did. But before I could even get to the chicken-house door, I saw paw tracks. These were almost as big as the tracks I’d seen yesterday, but it couldn’t be the same dog. These tracks were fresh, on top of the new-fallen snow.

  Just thinking about encountering another dog like the first one made me more than a little anxious to get done and back in the house. I hurried through collecting the eggs and setting out feed for the hens just as fast as I could. No dog came around, but I heard barking again in the distance.

  That was a rotten day. Snowed in at home, we had plenty to do, but I was longing to get out and get the word of assurance from Frank that I’d wanted so badly.

  We finally saw Hershel Mueller, Donald’s father, with his snowplow on the road just before dark. Dad said we’d be able to get out tomorrow if it didn’t snow again. I couldn’t wait. Not quite two days was all the time Frank and I had been separated, but the knowledge of the miles between us made me miss him all the more.

  We heard barking we didn’t recognize again at bedtime, and it bothered Katie considerably. She wasn’t wanting to meet up with any other strange dogs anytime soon. But that wasn’t what kept me from getting to sleep that night. I couldn’t stop thinking about my wedding, only five months away. I wondered if Frank thought about it as much as I did.

  When I finally got to sleep that night, I dreamed that Frank and I ordered a Sears and Roebuck house like one a friend of ours used to live in, and set it up in Dad’s cow pasture. I was getting ready to plant a strawberry patch and a dozen rose bushes when the dream ended abruptly with our rooster’s crowing.

  The first thing I did was look outside. Clear skies! And the wind hadn’t brought much drifting in the night. I could still see the path Dad and I had shoveled in our drive yesterday. I knew we could finish enough this morning to get out to the plowed road and get to town.

  I hurried as quickly as I could through breakfast and chores. Mom and Katie were planning to bake bread while we were gone. I started thinking about Frank’s birthday and wondering what I could do with him so far away. If he were here, I’d cook a special meal for him and make his favorite dessert, a gooseberry-apple pie. And then present the gift I’d bought to read him: Walden by Henry David Thoreau. But that gift would have to wait until we were together.

  Dad and I worked quickly at the rest of the shoveling, and all the while that hymn “Blessed Assurance” kept running through my head just like yesterday. I could remember Emma Graham singing it so many times. She was the woman who’d given us this farm, and I’d considered her a special friend even though I was still so young when she died. I wondered what dear old Emma would think of me being engaged to one of the Hammond boys. I doubted she’d be surprised. She’d seemed to know all along that our two families were meant to be more than just neighbors.

  Dad and I headed to town as early as we could. I think he was hoping for a telephone call almost as much as I was, but when we got to the station he got right to work as usual. There was nothing for me to do but wait, no telling how long. But surely Frank would call as early as he could, since he hadn’t been able to get through yesterday when he was supposed to. I’d brought my embroidery along, knowing I’d be stuck in town until Dad got off work. But it wasn’t easy to concentrate. So I prayed that Sam would be mindful and not keep Frank busy away from a telephone.

  I tried to focus my mind on the embroidery—a double rose pattern on a set of tea towels for Katie. But looking down at them in my lap made me think of Frank’s birthday again. What could I do for him if he was still so far away? I didn’t want to just send him the book I’d gotten, because I wanted part of my gift to be reading it to him. If he wasn’t home by then, I’d have to think of something else.

  Might he like his initials embroidered on a set of handkerchiefs? I doubted he’d care, but it was all I could think of.

  Hours crawled by. I worked and prayed, stared at the phone, and then prayed and worked some more. I finished one of Katie’s tea towels and started on another. Dad stopped for a sack lunch with me and then got right back to work on an old car he was fixing for Charlie. Why didn’t Frank call? Surely he knew we must be anxious after two days. Did he just assume the weather was so bad we’d be stuck at home again? I doubted that, unless things were far worse where he was. We rarely stayed snowed in for very long, partly because of my father’s determination and partly because of Hershel Mueller’s diligence as the road commissioner.

  I sighed and threaded my needle with a short length of yellow thread. Thinking of Hershel Mueller made my mind turn unpleasantly to Donald. He’d always been far too bold, even after it should have been apparent that I was interested in Frank.

  “Come on, Sarah,” he’d dared to tell me once. “You wouldn’t be happy with a Hammond. Especially not that dim-witted Franky. Can’t you see that? What would it hurt to give somebody else a chance?”

  I wouldn’t even speak to him after that. I wanted nothing to do with anyone who had a low opinion of Frank— sometimes not even Frank’s sister Rorey, who’d written me a long letter last Thanksgiving, asking if I was truly serious about our engagement.

  You know Frank as well as I do. He’s good with wood, but he’ll never make a business work on his own the way his head’s off in the clouds half the time. And can you imagine reading orders and everything else for him for the rest of your life? He’ll be dependent on you or your parents, Sarah. Is that what you want?

  I’d been positively furious over that letter, and it wasn’t easy to get past those feelings even now. Rorey was too much like her father. Neither one of them had ever managed to see the blessing Frank had been to my family, and his own, nor the humble brilliance that was hidden behind his silvery eyes. Rorey was ignorant. Blind, not to see how truly extraordinary her brother was.

  The clock ticked away, and I began to pray again for the phone to ring. When it finally did, I nearly fell, I jumped out of my seat so fast. Dad let me answer it.

  “Hello. Marathon Service Station.”

  “Hello. Who is this? Sarah?”

  It was Sam, not Frank. My heart was doing flip-flops. “Yes, it’s Sarah. Can I talk to Frank?”

  Silence. And then Sam’s voice, hedged with uncertainty. “Actually, I was calling to see if you’d heard from him.”

  Those words knocked the wind from me, and I could barely answer. “He’s not there yet?”

  Dad turned around.

  “No, I’m sorry,” Sam answered with hesitation. “We’ve been worried. I hoped he’d found an opportunity to call you.”

  “He was supposed to call you too, if anything held him up!”

  “I know. That’s what’s bothering me after all day yesterday. He did try Uncle Milty night before last to say he was slowed down by weather. But he didn’t call again so we expected him yesterday morning. Been weighin’ awful heavy that we ain’t heard nothing more all this time.”

  “W-where was he?”

  “Uncle Milty don’t remember the town. Is your father close by?”

  Without a word, I handed the phone to Dad and sat back down, feeling numb. Frank was missing! Somewhere between here and there. And because of Thelma’s uncle’s poor memory, we had no way of knowing how far he’d gotten.

  In the snowstorm, or on a patch of unfamiliar road, something bad must have happened. And not a little problem, either. Something big enough to keep Frank from a telephone all this time. He was
supposed to have been able to call yesterday! He should have been to Sam’s house the night before that! A day and a night had passed, and where was he? What could have happened?

  6

  Frank

  Roads were closed in and out of Auburn all day yesterday. The winds were wild, pushing the drifts around unpredictable. Electric power was out, and phone lines were out too. I tried at least six times to place a call, but there was no getting through until the storm damage was repaired.

  The hotel owner was gracious, letting me stay longer than I’d told her without adding to the price. She’d brought candles to my room and made sure I had a hot meal. I was fretting so much over what Sarah must be thinking that I would have left that afternoon if there’d been a way. But I couldn’t see six feet in front of me outside, and the roadways weren’t clear. No choice but to stay put. Despite the worries, I knew Sarah and her folks would want me to wait, hard as that was.

  At least I’d gotten through to Thelma’s uncle once so Sam would understand the situation. Maybe he’d managed to reach the Worthams, if the telephone lines were all right to Dearing. I hoped he’d think to call them. I hoped they weren’t frettin’ over this.

  That next morning, I’d tried to work the telephone again, but with no better luck at it. Auburn’s lines were just dead. But the roads had been plowed some, so I started out against the protests of the hotel owner and one of her neighbors. They thought the gray sky looked like more snow. But I couldn’t wait any longer.

  I started out confident that I’d get to Camp Point before noon that third day even though I had to drive slower than I wanted to. But before I got to the next town the truck started spitting and sputtering, trying to stall on the road. I had to pull over best I could to figure out what was the matter. Water in the carburetor, maybe. Should a’ thought of that while I was in Auburn, with all the blowing snow there’d been. Warm engine could easily melt snow to water and give me problems.