by Peterson, Tracie; Davis, Mary; Hake, Kelly Eileen; Stengl, Jill; Warren, Susan May
“Oh Ewan.” She kissed his cheek. “How right you are. And that is the way Luke would hae wanted it—that we allow for grief but look forward to the promise of tomorrow.”
“And when we wed, my Rosalind,” Ewan vowed, “ ’twill be a time to keep.”
Epilogue
Montana, 1889
Can you believe it?” Marlene squealed, all but dancing for joy. “After two years of waiting, I’m finally married!”
“Wi’ a home already built and a farm already in operation. Johnny’s worked hard to make ready for his beautiful bride.” Rosalind smiled. “I’m thinking ’twon’t be long before you join your mam and me.” She patted her rounded tummy with affection and looked at Delana, who was two months further along. “Isn’t that right, Mrs. Freimont?”
“Ja.” Delana laughed. “Though I hadn’t thought to bear a babe near the time when my daughter would!”
“It’s a wonderful surprise.” Marlene leaned over her mother’s swollen stomach. “She’s going to be a sister, I think.”
“Not mine.” Rosalind cupped her hands over her own swollen midriff. “I bear a son. Ewan and I—we’ve decided to name him Luke.” Her eyes sparkled more with joy than sorrow, a sign of God’s healing and the passage of time.
“What a wonderful idea!” Mam drew her into a tight clasp, her own eyes looking suspiciously moist. “Luke would hae liked that.”
“Yes, he would.” Marlene reached out to grasp both of their hands. “It’s a lovely gesture, and I’m so happy for you!”
“We’ll speak of it more when the babes are born.” Delana smiled. “For now, we’ve much to celebrate. My daughter, a bride, and Montana declared an official state!”
“Yes. It’s a grand day for a wedding—a day to be remembered.” Johnny came up behind the women to steal a kiss from his blushing bride. “We’re going to blow the anvils now.” They all hurried to the clearing, where Ewan and Johnny carefully overturned one anvil, pouring black gunpowder into the base’s hollow before positioning the second anvil directly atop it. A thin trail of the gunpowder spilled over the side, waiting to be lit.
“And here we go! Everybody step far back, out of the way!” Johnny lit the trail of powder and rushed to Marlene’s side. At that moment, the anvils began to dance, emitting a loud series of sparks until the pressure built up sufficiently to overturn the top anvil with a spectacular boom!
When the gunpowder supply was exhausted—and everyone’s ears rang with the sound of the merry tradition—Ewan stepped forward. Rosalind watched with pride as her husband waited for everyone’s attention and began his speech.
“When I married my beautiful Rosalind o’er a year ago, ’twas a day of great joy. And also one tempered wi’ sorrow wi’ young Luke”—he paused for a moment as several people drew shaky breaths—“gone to heaven. But we know he would hae wanted us to celebrate.”
He broke into a grin. “Now, after a long, patient wait, Johnny and Marlene hae wed on this joyous day. I’m both pleased and honored to speak an old Irish blessing upon their marriage and on all who are gathered here today. If my wife would join me…” He held out his hand, beckoning Rosalind to come to his side.
Surprised, she did so. Suddenly, she knew he’d planned the blessing to be a celebration of their own marriage, as much as Johnny and Marlene’s. Looking into the deep green of his gaze, she spoke the ancient words with him:
“May love and laughter light your days,
and warm your heart and home.
May good and faithful friends be yours,
wherever you may roam.
May peace and plenty bless your world
with joy that long endures.
May all life’s passing seasons bring
the best to you and yours.”
BEYOND TODAY
by Tracie Peterson
Chapter 1
On the way home from town, Amy Carmichael closed her eyes and rested her head against the edge of the jostling wagon. She was trying desperately to ignore the animated, nonstop rambling of her twin sister, Angie.
Physically, Angela and Amy Carmichael were identical. Considered too tall by most of their peers, the girls measured at exactly five feet, ten inches. Their stature was the only thing their friends could find to criticize, though, for the twins’ perfect features and tiny waists had been the envy of all. Now, at nineteen, with dark hair the color of chestnuts and brown eyes like velvet, the twins were envied more than ever.
On the outside, the twins were a beautiful matched pair, so much alike that they confused even their friends. But on the inside…
“You’re not listening, Amy,” Angie commented with a pout.
“No, I suppose I’m not. I’m really tired, Angie.” Amy tried to adjust her sunbonnet for the tenth time. She pulled its shade over her eyes, squinting at the October sun that felt as hot as any summer day. She tucked a strand of hair beneath the bonnet, glad for the air’s slight crispness that hinted that colder weather was coming.
“Just look at the dress Alice sent me,” Angie whined.
Amy sat up and tried to show some interest. Angie was profoundly proud that their older sister Alice had broken away from the frontier prairie life, to live in a big city back east. Their sister understood Angie’s passion for city life and often sent Angie hand-me-downs from her city finery.
Amy, on the other hand, had little or no interest in the clothes Alice sent. She’d rather be in calico or homespun any day. In consideration of Angie’s feelings, however, Amy reached out and touched the shiny, pink satin. “It is lovely, Angie. You’ll look quite the city girl in this.”
“Oh, I know,” Angie gushed, “and won’t the boys be impressed.”
Amy grimaced. “Where in the world will you wear it for them to see?”
“Why the barn raising, of course!” Angie continued to chatter away, while Amy waved to one of the neighbors in the wagon behind theirs.
As they made their way home, Amy looked often over her shoulder at the small parade of wagons behind them. She smiled. The harvest had been a good one this year. The corn, sold today for a record price, combined with August’s summer wheat, guaranteed that the residents of Deer Ridge would head into winter fully supplied with not only their home grown foods, but also store bought goods and money in the bank; such security was a rarity indeed.
Things had gone so well in fact, that the twins’ parents, Charles and Dora Carmichael, were planning a barn raising to erect a much needed livestock barn.
“What do you think he’ll look like?” Angie questioned, continuing to rub the satin against her wind-burned cheek.
“Who?” Amy asked, wondering if she’d missed part of the conversation.
“The circuit rider of course. Think of all the wonderful places he’s been. I get goose bumps just imagining all the things he’s seen. It must be truly spectacular to travel to new places all the time.” Angie sighed dreamily. “Don’t you ever think of what it’d be like to live back in the city? Don’t you ever want to make plans for the future, Amy?”
Amy smiled. “A future beyond today?”
“Oh bother with that,” Angie said in frustration. “I remember Grandma always saying that and I hated it then, too. A person has to make plans.”
“Why?”
“Just because they do.” Angie’s lips pressed together. “Besides, you’re making plans for the future. You just don’t know it. You’re already rearranging the house in your head, just to accommodate the barn raising and the circuit rider’s stay. Now don’t tell me you’re not, because I know you, Amy Carmichael.”
Amy shrugged her shoulders. Arguing with her twin was pointless, so she said nothing at all.
Angie didn’t care. She continued chattering as if the conversation had never taken a negative turn. That was the best thing about Angie, Amy thought as she half-listened to her twin; Angie’d argue her point of view, but she wouldn’t run it into the ground by fighting.
“Amy,” she said now, le
aning forward as if to share a great secret. “I heard Mama say that the circuit rider used to live in Kansas City! Imagine that—Kansas City!”
Amy rolled her eyes. Between the satin dress and the circuit rider, Angie was completely daffy. Amy watched while Angie’s fingers slid back and forth over the smooth material; she could tell that Angie’s fascination with the gown was reaching the point where she would soon sink into an absorbed and silent contemplation. She would be imagining, Amy knew, what she would look like in the dress, what accessories would compliment it, how she should do her hair when she wore it. Amy smiled and sighed; she welcomed the silence.
While Angie dreamed of the party that would follow the barn raising, Amy, as her sister had predicted, calculated the work that would be involved during the day of labor.
Barn raisings were real celebrations, and the entire community would turn out to help. The plentiful harvest, coupled with the news of the circuit rider, made the best of reasons to celebrate.
Amy hadn’t realized how much she missed regular church services, what her father referred to as the “calling of the faithful.” Now they would have a regular circuit rider, and even if he only came every three or four weeks, it was better than nothing at all.
The small community of Deer Ridge had often contemplated building a church and hiring a full-time minister, but nothing had ever come of the plans, much to Amy’s disappointment. She remembered the community meeting to decide which they would build and support first—a church or a school. With the many large families supplying donations of felled logs and other building materials, the school easily won.
Amy sighed as she remembered church services back in Pennsylvania. They’d left the civilized east, though, and moved to the wild prairie of western Kansas when she and Angie had been only seven.
Their older brother Randy had been elated at the prospect of an adventure. At seventeen, Randy saw this as an answer to the future. Pennsylvania farms were hard to come by and most of the land near his parents’ home was already being farmed. Randy had known he could continue farming his father’s land, but he wanted to make a stake for himself; homesteading in Kansas offered him the best chance.
Twelve-year-old Alice, though, had been miserable, just as Angie had been. They hadn’t wanted to leave Pennsylvania. Alice had cried herself into the vapors and had to be put to bed, while Angie had whined so much that she received the promise of a spanking if she didn’t settle down.
But despite the trepidations of two of the Carmichael daughters, the family farm was sold and the remaining possessions loaded into a canvas-covered wagon.
Unlike her sisters, Amy thought the whole thing great fun. She loved to run alongside the wagon on the way to their new promised land and hated being made to ride inside with the weepy Alice and whining Angie.
The memory made Amy feel cramped now as she sat squeezed between the supplies for the barn raising. “Pa?” she called up to the wagon seat in front of her where her father handled the team. “I’d like to stretch for a while. Would you stop so I can jump down?”
“Sure.” Charles Carmichael smiled. Amy was so much like him—always moving, eager to be doing rather than watching.
Amy scrambled down, and because of the slowness of the heavily loaded wagons, she was easily able to keep pace on foot. Once again, she twitched her sunbonnet back in place. “Pa?”
“What is it, Amy?”
“I was just wondering if you knew anything about the circuit rider. Is he young or old?”
“Can’t rightly say, but the district minister said he’d be on horseback. I can’t imagine him being too awful old, if he’s going to cover all this territory on horseback,” Charles answered thoughtfully. “It’d be a might taxing on an older feller.”
“And he’ll be there for the barn raising and stay the night at the farm with us?” Amy already knew the answer, but she wanted to check the grapevine information she’d received from her sister.
“Yup. It’s all settled and ain’t we the lucky ones. New barn and a man of God all in the same day. Ain’t we the lucky ones.”
“More like blessed than lucky,” Amy’s mother, Dora Carmichael, put in from the other side of her husband. “Carmichaels don’t hold no account in luck.”
Charles laughed. “That’s for sure, Ma. We’d never have gotten this far on Carmichael luck.” The three of them laughed at this, though no one was really sure why. The Carmichaels had enjoyed a good life with many choice blessings, yet something in her father’s words had amused them all.
No one who lived on the prairie ever chalked much of anything up to luck. Out here, surrounded by such a vast expanse of wilderness, human beings seemed to dwindle right down to the size of ants. They needed their belief in a pattern made by God, a design that He could see from up above, to give them strength; the thought of luck and chance spoiled the image. Maybe that’s why they’d laughed. Whatever the reason, Amy was grateful for the laughter and the love.
Three weeks later found the farm in a frenzy of preparation for the barn raising. The entire community would turn out to help the Carmichaels put up their new barn, as well as celebrate the harvest and the arrival of the circuit rider.
Dora Carmichael spent hours sweeping the farmhouse floor. The Carmichaels were one of the few families in the community to have a puncheon floor, and Dora prided herself in keeping the long thin boards shining with a glow that rivaled even the finest city homes. Normally, once a month she would scrub the floor with a splint broom made from a piece of hickory—Dora always declared that this was the only way to “gussy up” the worn wood—but now with the circuit rider due to stay the night in the Carmichael house, Dora worked that broom until her arms ached.
The Carmichael farmhouse was by far the largest in the community. It was made now of logs and stood two stories high, but it hadn’t always been so. The soddy house had come first. Amy remembered her disappointment the first time she’d seen their new home. It had been made of grass and mud, and the thought of living in a dirt house made Alice and Angie bawl. Amy didn’t care for it any more than her sisters, but she looked past the sod and saw her father’s pride.
Charles Carmichael had stood proudly with his hands on his hips, the hot, Kansas sun at his back, and sweat dripping down the side of his face. He was dirtier than Amy had ever seen him, but the promise of the future shown clear in his eyes, and his smile was as wide as the Smokey Hills River itself. He had built his family a house; now it was up to them to make it home.
Right then Amy decided to work extra hard to make each day pleasurable for her parents. And that was when she decided to adopt her grandmother’s attitude of one day at a time, looking no further than that day for trouble, because tomorrow was sure to have even more time to plan for problems. And now, Amy thought with a smile, what with getting ready for the barn raising, she had plenty of work to keep her from worrying about anything that might come later on.
“Amy!” Her mother’s call made Amy hasten to pull up yet another bucket of water from the well.
“Coming, Ma.” Amy hurried back to the house, slopping water on herself as she ran. She was careful to leave her boots at the back door, as she entered her mother’s freshly scrubbed kitchen.
“Just put the water on the stove and help me put these curtains up.” Dora Carmichael motioned Amy toward the stove.
Amy poured the bucket of water into a large cast-iron pot and put the bucket outside the door. Wiping her wet hands on her apron, she reached up to help her mother place the red calico curtains at the kitchen window.
“Looks real good, Ma.” Amy stepped back to get a better look. “That calico made up real nice for curtains.”
“Well, it’s not too bad if I do say so myself. Especially considering the fact that this was your sister’s dress, just last week.”
“Don’t tell her and maybe she won’t fuss.” Amy laughed. Angie fought to have less homemade things in the house and more store bought luxuries.
“I j
ust can’t understand that sister of yours. Never could understand Alice either.” Dora sighed. “Don’t they ever stop to think that somebody had to make those things the store buys and resells?”
Amy laughed and put her arm around her mother’s shoulders. “Angie only thinks about which one of her beaus she’s going to marry and what big city she’ll go live in. I don’t imagine she thinks about much more than that.”
The late October temperatures were unseasonably warm and the window stood open to let in the steady southerly breeze. The calico caught the wind and fluttered like a flag unfurling. “They sure do look nice, Ma,” Amy repeated.
The 20th of October found the Carmichaels’ homestead overrun with friends and family. Amy and Angie’s brother Randy was the first to arrive. His growing family was seated in the bed of the wagon behind him.
Amy helped her nephews, Charlie and Petey, from the wagon bed, before taking her two-year-old niece, Dolly. Her very expectant sister-in-law Betsey smiled at her gratefully.
“How have you been feeling, Betsey?” Amy questioned as the pregnant woman scooted herself to the back of the wagon.
“I’ve definitely been better. I think it would have been easier to ride bareback, than to sit another mile in this wagon.”
Amy laughed at the rosy-cheeked blond and offered her a hand down, but Randy came and easily lifted Betsey up and out, placing a loving kiss on her forehead before he set her feet on the ground. At the site of her father offering kisses, Dolly reached out her arms, and said, “Me, too!”
Everyone laughed, but Randy leaned over and gave Dolly a peck on the cheek. “Now, Lilleth Carmichael, I expect you to mind your manners today.”
The little girl cocked her head to one side, as if confused by the use of her Christian name, instead of the nickname her brother had given her. Then four years old, Petey had been unable to pronounce Lilleth, and so he announced that he would call her “Dolly,” because she looked just like a baby doll he’d seen in Smith’s General Store. From that point on it had been official, and Lilleth became Dolly.