Katie's Dream (3 page)

“He's bein' odd. I guess he likes to be odd.”

“He can't help it,” Joe added. “That's what the schoolteacher said.”

“Better to be odd than lazy or disrespectful,” Samuel told them. “I've been accused of being odd a time or two myself.”

“Really?” Franky asked. “When?”

“Yeah, when?” Rorey echoed from beside me. Harry stood up again, and Joey pulled him down.

“Not so long ago. When we first came here. But even before that, when I was a boy.”

I leaned forward. It was so very seldom when Samuel said anything at all about his childhood. But he stopped before he got the story told. “None of that matters. The point is, people have opinions, and they express them often enough, but it doesn't have to have any bearing on what you make of yourself.”

“Like Miss Hazel,” Joe pointed out. “I guess she figures we're all a bunch a' losers.”

“But we know better. And it doesn't have to bother us.”

We turned at Hunter's Corner, and I reached across Sarah's back to find Samuel's hand.

“Bessie had fun today,” Sarah said about her doll.

“Lacey too,” Rorey added, jumping her little doll up to whisper something to Sarah's Bessie-doll.

“We should take 'em swimmin' tomorrow,” Rorey said. “Is that all right, Mrs. Wortham?”

“Goodness, not in the pond, Rorey, if that's what you're meaning. You'd scare all the fish the boys are trying to catch. And besides, they'd get filthy.”

“Well, how 'bout in the washtub, then?”

I could picture that easily enough, having done it once myself as a girl. But oh, what a mess I'd made of my doll! Her yarn hair coming loose and her pretty dress all a shambles. Grandma Pearl had to fix her nice again for me. “Rorey, honey,” I told her with a shake of my head, “it's not good for cloth dolls to be played with in water. You want to keep her looking nice.”

“We'll just
pretend
they're swimming,” Sarah decided. “That's better than real anyhow, 'cause you can imagine the whole ocean and ride on whales and stuff.”

They whispered back and forth across my lap as Harry started fidgeting again. “We're goin' near thirty miles an hour,” Lizbeth told him with alarm. “You can't be standing up in the back of a truck.”

Harry sat down and folded his arms in disgust. Sitting still was never easy for him. But Franky was staring out over the closest field again, quiet as the sky above us. What a difference between these brothers.

I looked at Samuel, wondering if he thought as much as I did about tomorrow. He used to be the one so troubled
by our lack, but now I probably fretted more than he did. I knew I shouldn't. God had been so good to lead us here, to give us a home and a dear friend in Emma Graham. And I'd been strong to believe that God would always provide. But last winter struck me down, shook me terribly, as it did all of us. Losing Emma and Wilametta Hammond at the same time was the worst thing I could ever have imagined. Except losing Samuel. And ever since then, trusting was a little harder.

What would we do from here on out with no money at all? Even with Emma's beautiful farm, how could we manage? George was worried about the crops, we knew that, but there was nothing we could do about it. Our garden was bearing, but not like I'd hoped. There were no jobs for miles, if anywhere, in times like these. Seemed like everybody was looking. Samuel tried so hard to find anything at all. Barrett Post had worked him for a while, but not even the Posts were hiring help anymore. And we had so many mouths to feed. For months now, George and Samuel had been working together, sharing everything alike, from both farms. But it wasn't enough. With winter coming up, what would we have? It didn't look like there'd be enough of anything to store away for the cold weather that was sure to come.

I thought of Emma singing hymns on the way home from church so many times, whether she felt well or not. Whether she had a dime in her pocket or not. She was always being blessed by the littlest things.

I tried to be like her. I tried to be the saint people needed to have around in her stead. But I fell short. I knew I did. In so many ways.

“God will provide.”
She'd told me that so many times. I used to say it myself, back when we'd had nothing to eat but what I could pick growing in the timber somewhere. What had happened to me? At least we had a roof over our heads. And more family than Samuel and I put together
had ever had before—with the Hammonds, the Posts, and all the church folks. But still, the weight of uncertainty was heavy tonight. At least for me. I knew everything would be all right, and yet I didn't know, all at the same time.

“I don't guess the Lord wants us to have all the answers yet,” Franky said suddenly, and I jumped. It was like God speaking directly to me, though I knew the child was probably just talking about what he'd been asking before.

“If we knew ever'thin' already, maybe we wouldn't have nothin' to talk to him about, nor look forward to,” he said.

And I marveled. At God and at Franky.

“As high as the heavens are above the earth,” Samuel quoted. “So are his thoughts above our thoughts and his ways above our ways.”

“Ain't that somethin'?” Franky added. “I guess that means there's a lot we can't figger out.”

Why didn't Franky's teacher or his father or his brothers see what a marvel he was? All they seemed to notice was that the poor kid couldn't read and kept to himself a lot. We knew his eyes were fine, so they took him for an oddity, or worse, an idiot.

“What's that mean, 'bout his thoughts above our thoughts?” Rorey suddenly asked, lifting her head. She and Sarah were alike in that. They always heard, even if it didn't look like they were listening.

“It means God knows better than we do,” Samuel explained.

“Oh.” Rorey turned her attention back to Sarah and the dolls. “I knew that already.”

The rest of us grew quiet, and my eyes rested on Franky. He liked to sit and think more than anybody I knew, adult or child. He was obviously bright, able to quote the preacher's sermons or most anything else he heard. Young as he was, he'd loved it when I read
Pilgrim's Progress
to him over the winter, and I knew he understood it better
than many grown-ups because of the things he had to say. How could anyone consider him slow, though he still struggled and continued to fail at trying to decipher even the simplest written word?

“He doesn't seem to be learning anything,” the schoolteacher had complained to me once. “Doesn't even know an
A
from one day to the next. I just don't know that there's much hope for him.”

We'd tried him out at threading needles and sighting birds in the trees. He could see just fine. But he still couldn't read his own name.

So maybe there was no hope for him in that one-room schoolhouse with kids of every grade level right there to watch and laugh as he tried so hard but continued to fail. Lizbeth and I were already planning to keep him at home when the next school term started and do the best we could with him ourselves. It had been the teacher's suggestion. And Lizbeth, who wanted to be a teacher herself, was looking forward to it, though I wasn't sure how she could concentrate on that and keep up with her own studies.

“Mommy, Bessie wants a lullaby.” Sarah looked hopefully at me in the moonlight, calling my thoughts back to the bumpy truck ride. “Please, please, Mommy, sing her the sleepy song.”

I squeezed Samuel's hand. The sleepy song. I'd made it up a few months back when trying to soothe baby Emma Grace through a bad cold; I hadn't wanted to leave it all on Lizbeth when she was studying for a recitation. George and Samuel had been planting then, putting in long hours, and I'd had most of the children, particularly the younger ones, with me almost every evening.

I took a deep breath, and Sarah brought her dolly closer to me. Sarah was the sleepy one, I knew that. Bessie only needed a lullaby when Sarah was feeling tired but too big to admit it. I patted my little girl's hair. My little angel. She
never seemed to mind how much attention I gave to the Hammond children. She'd understood it all along.

“Sing, Mommy,” she whispered.

I touched her hair again, and she and her dolly settled across my lap.

Sleep, baby, sleep, baby, close your little eyes.
Sleep, baby, sleep, baby, quiet those cries . . .

I sang the whole song, marveling at how it stuck in my memory and in Sarah's fancy. It was nothing special, though Emmie Grace had liked it too.

Rorey snuggled closer against my leg. Both girls were very still. We turned the corner past the Muellers', and I hoped the little ones would drift off to sleep in the short time we had before getting home. Berty and the baby were so quiet that I figured they were probably asleep already, and even Harry had finally leaned his head back against Joe's chest. The older boys wouldn't sleep. I knew that. But just to have some of the kids down already would make it easier when we got home. I still didn't know how many we'd have over with us and how many would be going on home to George. But that really didn't matter. Once they were all asleep, Samuel and I would be alone in the quiet.

Lord, here we are at the end of another day. Guide us, provide for us, tomorrow and all the days to come . . .

I leaned back against the bumpy truck rail until we were on the lane leading up to Emma's old house. I always thought of Emma when we came home from anywhere. She used to say that just getting home was one of the finest blessings this world had to offer. And she was right. In so many ways, we were blessed.

I took a deep breath and thanked the Lord for a house to come home to. I was looking forward to a splash of cool
water on my face, a breeze blowing through our window, and Samuel lying beside me.

Whiskers was barking as we came upon the house, and a car, small and dark, was parked to one side of the driveway, almost surely on Emma's coneflowers. Somebody was there on our steps, sitting in the moonlight as still as a statue. I could feel myself tense up. Somebody was waiting for us, at so late an hour. Something was wrong.

TWO

Samuel

Young Sam parked the truck under the sweet gum tree, just in front of the old Ford someone had driven in. The dog got quiet and came running out to greet us.

I could see the man, whoever it was, as he stood up tall and lean. And for a moment my heart pounded irrationally. The dream I'd had in the park was floating over me again. It could almost be my father standing there, the build was so much the same.

I tried to shake the dream away, to meet the present and whoever it was who had come out so late to greet us. But before I could say anything, a booming voice floated across the yard, out of my past, and set my mind spinning again.

“Is that little Sammy there? Huh? Sammy Wortham?”

He sounded like my father, but I knew it wasn't. Father was dead. It was Edward. My brother. Never in a
thousand years would I have expected him to show up at my door.

“Do you know him?” Julia whispered. Dear Juli. She didn't know Edward, except for the little I'd told her. He'd been in the penitentiary most of our married life. She'd never even heard his voice. And I hadn't known he was out.

“It's my brother,” I said.

Juli became still as a stone beside me. But Edward was approaching, so I jumped from the truck to face him. “Edward. This is quite a surprise.”

“Yeah. I figured it would be.” He laughed. “What are you doing in the back of the truck? You come so far up in the world that you got somebody else driving for you?”

“The neighbor boy enjoys it once in a while, that's all.” It had been so long, I didn't know what else to say to him. And I didn't know why he was here. Was he just longing to see family again, after all this time?

“Not very talkative, are you, Sammy, old boy?”

“I'm sorry. You caught me by surprise.”

“You said that already. Aren't you going to introduce me to anybody? Or ask me in? I'll tell you, that's a long drive. I sure could use a drink and a smoke.”

“We'll get you some coffee. But I don't smoke anymore, Edward. Can't help you there.”

“Should've had you figured for that. Too good for it, aren't you, Samuel? Mother says you're out here trying to be some kind of saint.”

This wasn't starting off very well. Robert got out of the front seat but didn't say a word. Juli climbed down and stood beside me.

“Edward, this is Julia,” I said, far from comfortable. What would it mean to my family to have their Uncle Edward here? Already I wondered if my brother had changed at all, and if he would be staying long.

“Good evening,” Julia said politely. “It's good to meet you.”

“That's generous of you,” Edward said with a laugh. “Hard to say what all you've heard.”