Family Lessons

When Rebecca hesitated, Holly took her by the arm. “I’m sure Charlotte will send for us if any of the children need you. You need rest, and tomorrow’s tasks will come soon enough.” She was sorry to have mentioned tomorrow’s sad tasks, for she saw Rebecca’s eyes well up. The poor woman had been holding back tears all day. Holly felt like crying herself, still feeling the pull of nerves wound tight.

Rebecca looked back at the schoolhouse twice during the walk across the yard, but allowed Holly to bring her into the tidy frame teacherage that sat across the school yard from the classroom. Home had never felt more wonderful. Holly loved her home, took comfort in the familiarity of her things. She’d always felt the house’s contents gave her a measure of strength and stability after venturing out into the prairie to help meet the need for frontier teachers. The teapot and the pretty china cups that had been her grandmother’s, the rows of precious books, all these things seemed to offer a welcome embrace as she pulled the door shut. The house was warm and cozy, for she had remembered to duck in and start the stove—not to mention start some water warming—just after supper on the square. “I think some tea and a wash up will do wonders, don’t you?”

Rebecca gave a silent nod. She clutched a handkerchief in a white-knuckled fist, rosy lips set thin and tight. Hanging on by the thinnest of threads, she was. Holly couldn’t blame her one bit—out here in the middle of nowhere, alone to face such a daunting task. Holly’s big trip to Newfield had felt so large and important yesterday; now it felt small and inconsequential. She laid her hand over the woman’s delicate fist. “It will be all right.”

“How?” It was more a hopeless groan than a question. Rebecca’s eyes overflowed, and tears slid silently down each of her flawless cheeks. Holly felt the lump in her own throat grow larger and thought about how the horrible gray morning after the flood had seemed to snatch away every good thing in Evans Grove. She’d stood that morning and watched the sun fail to rise over Fourth Street, fail to part the gray that cloaked the battered homes. Houses of folks she knew and loved looked like piles of strewn kindling. Soaked and bone tired, Holly had asked the same question of Reverend Turner.

Holly now gave Rebecca the same answer the Reverend had given her. “That’s not ours to know tonight. Let’s hand it over to the Almighty for a while so we can sleep.”

Rebecca shook her head. “Lord only knows what will happen to those children.” She dabbed her eyes. “I’ve lain awake praying that God would find them homes even before Newfield. Nothing’s come of it. These children have been passed over stop after stop. I’ve been delighted to see so many of the children we set out with find spots in good homes, but I never expected these last ones to pull on my heart so much. The whole point of the Orphan Salvation Society is to take these boys and girls out of the grime of the city and give them a hopeful future. I know a foster family isn’t the same as an adoption, but it’s close. Only we haven’t come close for these children at all. Greenville is our last stop. If they’re not placed, I’ll have to take them back to New York unplaced...” She clenched her jaw to stop a sob. The desperation in her voice told Holly that whatever waited in New York wasn’t good.

“Shush now. All of that can wait for daylight.” Holly pulled up one of her mama’s favorite sayings from memory. “God hasn’t closed his eyes, but you ought to.” She checked the kettle. “Evans Grove is full of good people who’ll help you get over this rough patch, you wait and see.” Her mind cast back to the ragtag handful of children. They were neither strong nor pretty; surely not the kind to be caught up by families at first sight. Still, the teacher in her could already see bits of character and personality that made them special—even if they didn’t know it themselves. All God’s children were worthwhile, were deserving of love and security. “God’s watched over them today, hasn’t He?”

Rebecca voiced the thought that came immediately to Holly’s mind. “And how has God watched over Stuart Arlington today? I can’t see the point in something so senseless. Those men had no reason to shoot Mr. Arlington. None at all.” She began to cry harder. “So much has been lost.”

Holly put an arm around the poor woman. “Now don’t go thinking such things. We just can’t know the Lord’s hand in something like this. He’s mightier than those horrid men, even if it’s hard to see at the moment.” She was talking to herself as much as Miss Sterling. “Sheriff Wright will see that justice is done. He saw to our safety, even risked his own life to do so. Why, he even got back your bag and jewelry, didn’t he?” It seemed a poor consolation, but Holly was grasping for any silver lining.

“Baubles,” Rebecca said bitterly. “Trinkets.”

The kettle whistled, and Holly turned to tend to tea, taking comfort from the warm scent of the brew as it filled the home. “A good meal and a cup of tea. Some of the best medicine for a heavy heart I know, short of prayer.”

Rebecca laid her chin in her hand. “I fear I’m plum prayed out.”

Holly set a cup in front of each of them and sat down. “Of course you are. I’m down to just groaning toward heaven now. Still, God hears every groan. I like to think He hears the groans especially. Sugar?”

“Thank you, yes.” The woman’s elegant fingers traced the china handle. “They are lovely teacups.”

There, for just a moment, was the refined lady Holly had admired on the train. “They belonged to my Grannie Hollyn. I’m named after her. She loved pretty things like this.”

Rebecca’s blue eyes looked straight into Holly’s. “You are so kind.”

Holly’s conscience pinched at the way she’d envied Rebecca on the train. I’m not proud of that. Forgive my unkind spirit, Lord. I was so very wrong. “They’re dear children, the lot of them. They deserve a happy ending, and we’ll just have to find one in all this. Now finish your tea and let’s get you cleaned up. I expect you’ll fall asleep as fast as the rest of them.”

Rebecca smiled and drank her tea, but Holly knew it was more likely that neither of them would sleep soundly. Tired as she was, too many things piled into her memory every time she closed her eyes. It would be hard for sleep to befriend her tonight.

* * *

An hour later, Grandpa’s clock on Holly’s mantel chimed ten as Holly slipped under the familiar coverlet and felt her body sink into the mattress. Every inch felt tied in knots; every joint seemed to groan. Dickens, her shy calico who’d stayed hidden under the bed during Rebecca’s visit as he always did on the rare occasion Holly had company, jumped up to curl against her side. “What a day, hmm, Dickens? Mama was right; one should never pray for excitement.”

Dickens offered only a low purr in reply. Holly stroked the black and brown patches that covered his back, seeking solace in his large yellow eyes. “I’m safe,” she said to the both of them, aloud so she’d believe it. “I’m safe, thank heaven.”

You’re safe. Those had been the words Mason Wright had said to her as he led her away from the spot where Stuart Arlington’s body lay bleeding into the Nebraska soil. She didn’t feel it yet—she mostly felt alone and lifeless. Help me, Lord, she prayed as she stroked the cat and waited for sleep to wipe the day from her bones. I want to trust You, but it’s hard to see how You’d want any of this. Rebecca and Mr. Arlington were trying to do right by those children. Those men were only out for greed. I know you still brought our funds to Evans Grove, and You brought them more quickly than we’d dared to hope, but this? Why such pain when we’ve already known so much loss?

Her eyes grew heavy enough so that even the specter of Mr. Arlington’s lifeless eyes could not fight off their closing. “Now I lay me down to sleep,” she recited the childhood prayer, somehow needing the peace of her youth, “I pray the Lord my soul to keep.”

She left off the final couplet. The Lord had taken enough souls today.

* * *

“You’re serious.” Reverend Turner looked shocked—but not unpleasantly so—when Holly knocked on his door far too early the next morning. She was unable to wait one minute longer to tell him of her idea.

Holly pulled her shawl closer against the morning drizzle. “I shot up out of bed wide awake sometime near four. The whole thing came to me just that quick. Just that strong.”

Poor Reverend. Holly had been dressed before dawn, had bolted out of the schoolhouse the minute Charlotte and Amelia Hicks had come to tend to the children’s breakfast. She’d barely been able to keep her idea from Rebecca, knowing Reverend Turner was the first person she must tell. Still, the children’s waking faces sealed her determination, as if the idea was doubling in size and strength every moment she delayed. She’d practically run through the fine morning rain to the Reverend’s house to knock down his door with her plan.

Holly grabbed his arm. “Reverend Turner, I don’t see how that could be anything other than the work of the Spirit, don’t you?”

He stifled a yawn. “It very well could be.”

Holly reined in her exasperation. “Of course it can, Reverend. It must. These children could so easily stay here, find homes here among our families.”

“It’s possible.”

Reverend Turner’s wife, Mary, called from behind him. “For goodness’ sake, James, don’t make Holly stand in the doorway like some kind of stranger.” Mary affectionately nudged her husband out of the way to pull Holly into the warm room. “How are you, dear? Such a horrid episode. Curdles the blood to think what you all went through and those poor, poor children.”

“Holly has had an idea about those young ones.” Reverend Turner shut the door and adjusted the suspenders he’d thrown on in a hurry. “She thinks they ought to stay.”

“So I couldn’t help but hear.” Mary’s eyes narrowed as she turned the thought over in her mind. After what seemed like a decade, the minister’s wife looked up at her husband. “Why not?”

“Well,” Reverend Turner said, tucking his hands in the suspenders he’d just adjusted, “there might be very complicated reasons why not. I’ve no idea how these things with such agencies work.”

Holly knew better. The minute the idea pulled her head up from the pillow, she knew it was the right thing. Knew like she’d never known anything else. A truth even harder than fact, if such a thing were possible. “It won’t be complicated,” she asserted without any such facts to back it up whatsoever. “It’s the simplest thing, I’m sure of it. Miss Sterling said she’s been praying these children find a home, and Greenville was their last chance. They won’t need a last chance in Greenville if we give them homes here. Can’t you see? We’re the answer to those prayers.” Holly had to stop herself from grabbing the Reverend’s arm again and shaking it.

Mary came up beside her husband. “James, didn’t you tell me just last night Evans Grove needed something to spark hope back into it?” The love of Mary’s twelve grandchildren—most of whom lived in Denver and Iowa now and only came in for holidays—played across the woman’s face. “What’s more hopeful than children?”

“I’ve said prayers over far too many graves this past month,” the Reverend admitted as he turned from them to pace his front room floor with pastoral seriousness. Mrs. Turner laid an encouraging hand on Holly’s arm and smiled her agreement. Still, the Reverend pondered Holly’s proposition for what seemed like a century. Finally, he turned back to the women. “Well...” he said, eyes narrowed and face so unreadable it made Holly want to burst.

“Well what?” Holly nearly yelled. She’d left her patience and good manners back in the teacherage. The moment she knocked on the Reverend’s door, some bit of her heart resolved she would not leave without his consent. This was to be and it was hers to make it so.

“Well, I think I ought to thank God for answering my prayer through you. I don’t know if it can be arranged, but if God wills it, I think these children should find homes in Evans Grove.”

“He does!” Holly proclaimed, grabbing the Reverend’s arm.

“So quick to presume the Lord’s perfect intent, are you?” His words were scolding, but his eyes twinkled in amusement.

“I believe He does,” Holly corrected. “Truly. I tell you I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life.” All the strain and sorrow of yesterday had evaporated in the brilliant light of this idea. It seemed no surprise at all that the sun was peeking out through the gray clouds as she pulled open the Reverend’s door. “I’ll go tell Rebecca—Miss Sterling—right away. Surely she knows what needs to happen in order for the children to stay here.”

“I’ll tell you what,” Reverend Turner said. “I’ll go talk to Mayor Evans and Miss Ward. They’ll need to be in on this if it’s to be successful. Why don’t you talk further with Miss Sterling and we’ll meet back at eleven? We’ll see how it goes from there.”

Holly stepped out into the brightening morning and dashed down the block to the schoolhouse. She didn’t bother to step around puddles or even care about whether her wrap stayed straight.

She didn’t bother to look around at all. This was why she went to Newfield. This was why yesterday’s horrors could be laid at God’s feet. This was why Stuart Arlington could rest in peace. Holly didn’t have to see “how it would go from here.” She already knew.

* * *

Mason was just stepping off the green onto Second Street when Holly Sanders slammed into him. “Whoa, there!” Short as she was, it surprised him she could muster enough force to knock him off balance. Had he not looked up the moment he did, they both would have found themselves smack in a mud puddle. As it was, he had to grab her and hang on for dear life to keep the pair of them upright.

“Oh, my!” She was nearly giddy, and he found he couldn’t quite summon the impulse to release her tiny waist. “I’d have surely fallen. Oh, my.” Her fluster amused him too much to be sour at the jolt. “Good morning!” She looked up at him with doe eyes.