Logan looked so surprised at Ruth’s cool tone that Adria had to cover her mouth to hide her smile. He recovered quickly. A man quick on his feet.
“I came by to thank you, Mrs. Harmon. That sawbones you directed me to was a right fair doctor. Stitched me up neat as anything.” He touched the cut above his eye. “He should have been a tailor he’s such a hand at stitching. But then I come around your house to hear somebody calling my name.”
Pastor Robertson stood up to shake Logan’s hand. “I had commented on you being at church yesterday, Mr. Farrell. We were glad to have you there.”
Ruth relented then. “Adria, why don’t you get Mr. Farrell a glass of lemonade and a piece of pie?”
“I wouldn’t want to put you to any trouble, but that does sound good.” Logan leaned back against the oak tree.
“I’d be glad to,” Adria said. “But I did promise Mr. Billiter I’d come in to work after the funeral.” She should have already headed for the store. They couldn’t activate their plan today anyway. People wouldn’t be ready to contribute to a fund to buy Louis until they were absolutely sure the family intended to put him up for sale.
Logan pushed away from the tree. “Then forget the lemonade. I’ll walk you to the store.”
“You’re not walking my girl anywhere.” Carlton burst around the corner of the house and glared at Logan.
Logan didn’t flinch. “How many girls do you have, Damon? Seems you were with someone else Sunday morning.”
Pastor Robertson stepped between the two men. “Come, gentlemen. Best keep your wits about you in front of the ladies. Ladies who have the privilege of deciding with whom they keep company.”
Logan’s smile didn’t waver while Carlton looked like a storm about to happen.
“It was nice of you to stop by, Mr. Farrell.” Adria flashed an apologetic smile at Logan as she stepped over to take Carlton’s arm. “And you too, Carlton. If you have a few minutes, we can talk while you walk me to the store.”
Carlton gave Logan a look. “It appears the lady has made the wise choice.”
“Perhaps so.” Logan laughed with no indication he was bothered in the least. “But I’m no sore loser. I’ll see you on down the road, Miss Starr. Mrs. Harmon. Reverend.” With a nod, he was gone.
Adria had the sudden urge to drop Carlton’s arm and run after Logan. But she needed Carlton’s help with their plan for buying Louis’s freedom. She couldn’t afford to alienate him now. Not to run after a man she barely knew.
Twenty-one
Will had stood up ready to intervene when young Damon came around the house with his angry words. Love could make a man do foolish things, especially when green-eyed jealousy took control of him. Will was thankful that was something he’d never known personally, since Mary had never given him the first reason to doubt her faithful love. From the time they met, they had been sure the Lord was instrumental in their paths crossing.
Things didn’t seem the same for young Miss Starr. Not with the way her face had brightened when the first young man appeared. She might have walked away with Carlton Damon, but her eyes had lingered on Logan Farrell at the same time. Much better to be sure of one’s romantic path, as he had been with Mary.
“I apologize for that, Pastor.” Ruth Harmon wrung her handkerchief in a knot as she peered after the departing young people.
“No need, Mrs. Harmon. It’s not the first time I’ve seen a man angry at another man he feared might steal his sweetheart’s affections.”
“Yes. Adria can’t seem to make the commitment Carlton wants.” Ruth sighed and started stacking up the dishes. “He is a wonderful young man from a fine family. She would never want for anything if she married him.”
“When one is choosing a life partner, I would advise considering more than simply the prospect of a comfortable life.” Will handed her his empty plate.
She looked surprised at his words as she took the dish. “But there are necessary things in life. Shelter. Food. Clothing.”
“Indeed. But would you consider those more necessary than love?”
“You must be a romantic, Pastor.” Her smile lightened the blue of her eyes. “I should have guessed that about a man who loves poetry.”
“I do think the Lord intends us to be happy. Don’t you agree, Mrs. Harmon?”
Interestingly enough, Will noted a lightness of his own spirit when the woman in front of him smiled. No doubt she was expecting him to follow the others and be on his way, but he really didn’t have anywhere to go except to his house. While he could certainly profit from more study of the Scriptures, the empty house with its deafening silence wasn’t appealing. Hadn’t he just said the Lord wanted his people to know happiness? So Will made no move to leave as he waited for Ruth’s answer.
Her brow wrinkled as she considered his question. “I don’t know. I’ve always been sure he wants us to be good, or at least as good as we humans can be. Then obedient to his will and with generous hearts to care for others. That’s part of loving our neighbors. But I’ve not seen a command about being happy.”
“All those things you mentioned, if we do them, can lend to happiness. In Proverbs 17 a verse says, ‘A merry heart doeth good like a medicine, but a broken spirit drieth the bones.’”
“A merry heart.” She echoed his words. “Sometimes I wonder if the cholera epidemic took my chances for merriment.”
“Are you never happy?” Will studied her face. He asked her the question, but at the same time, he wondered if he had let his broken spirit dry up his joy.
“Am I happy?” She paused a moment before going on. “While I have walked through some dark valleys, there has always been the promise of light ahead. Yes, I am often happy.” She tilted her head and stared up at him. “What about you, Pastor? I know you’ve experienced grief, as I have. And if I may be so bold to speak, sometimes your smile seems reluctant to lift from your lips to your eyes.”
Then before he could fashion an answer, she appeared to lose her boldness as a blush warmed her face. She lowered her eyes. “Forgive me, Pastor. I don’t know what came over me. I don’t normally speak so recklessly.”
“Nothing to forgive, Mrs. Harmon. I am pleased you feel comfortable enough with me to speak so plainly. Many don’t, you know. They seem to think a preacher is somehow not a normal person, but rather someone who doesn’t face the same challenges as they and thus does not feel the same grief and disappointments. But we are men far below saints and in need of grace the same as those in our congregations.”
“Even so, that’s no excuse for my rudeness.” She kept her head down as though embarrassed to look at him.
He wanted to tip her face back up so he could look into her eyes. He shoved his hand in his pocket. “Actually, you are right in what you’ve surmised. I do often let my broken spirit overpower my merry heart. My Mary, that was my wife, she was the one with the merry heart. A smile ever ready on her lips. One that shone from her soul, if you know what I mean.”
She looked up at him then. “I do. My Peter was the same way. So generous in his spirit. Much more than I.”
He stared down at her, and though Mary smiled in his memory, he was glad to see Ruth Harmon’s smile in front of his eyes. His next words rose up inside him almost without conscious thought. “If you don’t have a busy afternoon planned, I would appreciate you taking a ride with me.”
She looked more than a little surprised by his invitation. Truth be told, he was surprised by his words. He rushed on before she could refuse. “Merely to help familiarize me with the area around Springfield. That would be of immeasurable help in my service to the church.”
She frowned slightly. “But you don’t have your buggy with you.”
“That could pose a bit of a problem.” He had gotten so carried away by her smile he forgot about walking to the funeral. Certainly if he had looked down at his dusty shoes, he would have remembered.
“You didn’t misplace your horse and buggy at the hotel, did you?” A smile
twitched the corners of her lips. “They are rather large, after all.” The smile won out. “I do once again apologize, Pastor, but you have to realize I have taught school for many years. My students have lost almost everything you can imagine, including a horse from time to time. But so far none of them have ever lost a horse attached to a buggy.”
“I can understand why,” he said. “One would have to work hard to accomplish that.”
“It would take proper talent.” In spite of the fingers she pressed against her lips, a giggle bubbled out. That seemed to break down her rules of propriety and laughter spilled out. A merry heart indeed.
Merriness that must be contagious, for he started laughing with her. Laughter that surely burst from every line of his face, and it felt good. After a moment, he said, “A talent I lack, thank the Lord. But I can walk back to the parsonage and get my horse and buggy and return if you would consider showing me around the town.”
She was no longer laughing, but her eyes were still definitely merry as she looked up at the sky. “It does look like a lovely afternoon for a buggy ride should you wish to return with your found buggy.”
“Barring unforeseen circumstances, I shall do so.”
It had been a long time since his feet felt so light as he hurried back toward his house. At the same time, he walked purposely without making eye contact with those he passed, for fear they might want to engage him in conversation.
Now why had she agreed to go riding with him? Lovely afternoon or not. She had cakes to bake and a book she longed to read once she finished her chores. Ruth stared at the place where the preacher had disappeared from sight.
What would it hurt to go for a ride with her preacher? The baking could wait a couple of hours and a church member was obligated to help her pastor. That’s surely all it was. His way to learn about the town. Just as he said. But she had noted a certain jauntiness in his step as he left. And the laughter.
A smile came back to her face now as she carried the dishes into the kitchen and placed them next to the dishpan. She’d felt like a schoolgirl overcome by the giggles. And had acted like one too. What must the man think of her? But he had laughed with her. Both of them finding amusement in something as nonsensical as him forgetting he hadn’t come to her house in his buggy.
The cake pans were lined up on the cabinet. The fire was banked awaiting more wood for her baking. But the afternoon stretched out in front of her and she was feeling younger than she had in years. She turned from the pans and hurried to her bedroom to change out of her funeral clothes. A summer dress would be more appropriate for a buggy ride. And a hat with a blue ribbon.
She’d wait to put on the hat until the preacher returned. After all, he might not. Something unforeseen might delay him. A pastor had to deal with the unexpected happening among his church members at any time. His job was to be there when they called upon him. But as she slipped on the light blue dress and tied the ribbon sash, she hoped no one was at his house waiting for his help. She hadn’t taken a buggy ride with a gentleman since Peter died.
That thought gave her a moment’s pause as she remembered showing Peter the area when he was a newcomer to Springfield just as Pastor Robertson was now. She picked up Peter’s Bible from her desk and opened it to Proverbs to find the verse the preacher had quoted. Proverbs 17, he had said. She ran her finger down the page and there it was. A merry heart doeth good like a medicine.
She closed the Bible and hugged it close. Perhaps it was time to let her heart be merry again. Peter would understand. His merry heart had brought happiness to those who knew and loved him. And oh, how she had loved him.
But love was like a candle, he had told her once. No matter how many candles you light from the first candle, the flame never goes smaller unless the wick is faulty. She didn’t want anything to be wrong with her wick to lessen her flame of love, and sometimes in the years since Peter died, she wondered if that might be the case.
Even with Adria she had always held something back. Not that she didn’t love Adria. She did, but taking in an orphaned child hadn’t been how she planned to have children. Could she yet have the family she had once so desired?
The very thought made her cheeks burn. The man had merely asked her for a buggy ride and that only to help him learn about his church field. She needed to rein in her imagination. Nobody was thinking anything about love. At least nothing more than Christian love for one’s neighbors.
She busied herself in the kitchen, measuring out the ingredients for her cakes and trying not to listen for the clock on the mantel in the next room to strike the hour. She was just deciding on how much longer to wait before she started mixing the eggs and milk into the dry ingredients when a horse whinnied.
She moved to the sitting room doorway to look out the front window. The preacher was stepping up on the porch. In spite of her stern words to herself earlier, her heart gave a little jump. Oh dear. Perhaps she should claim a headache and send him away. People would see them together and imagine all sorts of things. None more far-fetched than the ideas trying to sneak into her head.
She jumped at the knock on the door. “Pull yourself together,” she whispered as though she were talking to a recalcitrant student. “He’s a preacher. Not a suitor.”
But hadn’t he just told her earlier how preachers were men like any other with the same hopes and dreams? Same griefs and sorrows too. He could be a friend as well as her pastor. A friend first. If the friendship grew, then would be the time to pray for answers about love.
She grabbed her hat off the hall tree and opened the door. His smile was as warm as hers radiating out to him. “Give me a minute to put on my hat, Pastor, and I’ll be ready.”
She turned to the small mirror on the hall tree and adjusted her hat quickly. She glimpsed him in the mirror behind her and her cheeks warmed yet again at the way his smile lingered as he watched her.
“There.” She stuck in a hat pin and turned back toward him. “I’m ready.”
“You look lovely,” he said. “Like a fresh breath of spring.”
She wasn’t sure how she should respond and simply nodded a bit in acknowledgment. Then as he continued watching her, she decided he must be waiting for words. “Thank you.”
“Could I ask you a favor, Mrs. Harmon?”
“Certainly.”
“I know you may think it forward of me, but I really would consider it a favor if you could bring yourself to call me by my given name. Will.”
“Will?” Her heart sped up. Surely that wouldn’t be proper.
“Yes. Most people assume my full name is William or Wilhelm, but that’s not the case. My mother had some interesting ideas and one was that what she named me would serve as inspiration in my life. Will. As in ‘please, Lord, give this son of mine a strong will.’ She had hopes the name would give me an advantage.”
“Does it?”
He laughed. “Not really. Just makes me have to explain again and again that, no, I am not named William. But I treasure the name anyway, since it was a gift from my dear mother.”
“I can understand why.”
“But do you think you can bypass social formalities while we enjoy our ride together? Let me be Will and you Ruth. Just two people exploring the town and becoming friends.” After the barest of hesitations, he added, “Ruth.”
She threw caution to the wind. “I don’t see why not, Will.”
“Excellent.”
When he held out his arm, she tucked her hand through his elbow and walked with him outside and down the walk to his buggy. He matched his steps to hers, even though his legs were surely twice as long as hers. That was what a friend would do.
Twenty-two
The first notices about the sale of George Sanderson’s property, including his slaves, went up at the hotel before the week was out. The talk at Billiter’s Mercantile was that the Sanderson sons were in a hurry to divest themselves of their father’s property in Springfield in order to return to their lives in other to
wns. Neither they nor the daughter had any interest in keeping the hotel going.
Adria listened to all the talk at the store but kept her silence. Ruth and Pastor Robertson both thought it best to wait until the town was sure Louis was going to be sold before starting a campaign to buy his freedom.
She had talked about it to Carlton that day he’d walked her to the store after George Sanderson’s funeral. He had been on his best behavior after showing his jealousy in front of Pastor Robertson. So he hadn’t spoken against the truth that the town owed Louis his freedom for what he’d done during the cholera epidemic, but she feared he was merely indulging her. He probably thought trying to procure Louis’s freedom was simply a bizarre idea she would eventually forget. Sometimes Carlton acted as though he didn’t know her at all.
Perhaps no one could really know a person completely. Even Ruth looked at Adria at times as though she wondered about the woman she had become. But at least Ruth had gathered her courage and stopped worrying about what the townspeople might think. She was ready to stand up for Louis. The pastor’s support had made a difference there. Pastor Robertson didn’t know Louis, but he was willing to risk his pastorate at Mount Moriah to help this worthy man.
“We need to make it all about Louis,” Ruth insisted at breakfast the day after the notices were posted. She put her teacup down and gave Adria a steady look across the table. “If you flaunt any abolitionist ideals, people might be turned against helping Louis.”
“But slavery should be abolished.” Adria looked up from the bread she was buttering. “It’s a blight on our state. On our country. Our very constitution proclaims all men created equal.”
“I don’t disagree with any of that.” Ruth held up her hand. “So spare me the lecture. But if we want this to work and find a way to free Louis, we have to be realistic in our thinking. While we may believe slavery is wrong, there’s little we can actually do about it when the laws in our state make such legal.”
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