Damaris felt hands on her shoulders gently lift her, and then someone wrapped something warm around her. She hadn’t realized how cold she was until she felt the warmth.
“Damaris, are you all right? You are chilled through. I’m getting you to Mother.”
Damaris tried to protest, but her chattering teeth wouldn’t allow her to say anything. She needed to get back to the children. She had no idea how long she’d been out in the cold.
But she could not resist when Gil lifted her in his arms and started back through the tangled brush toward the house and the waiting wagon. He deposited her gently on a fur robe on the floor of the wagon box.
“The—the babies—” she finally managed to utter.
“They will have help soon. Lots of help. People are coming from town. The sheriff went to get them. The family will be moved to various households for care,” Gil assured her.
Damaris felt relief. She closed her eyes and ached to go to sleep.
The bumpy wagon ride did not take long and before Damaris could move to leave the wagon, Gil was down from his seat, beside her, lifting her down, and carrying her again. Damaris was still shivering. Her whole body quivered with cold.
“Bring her in here—to my bed,” Damaris heard Miss Dover order Gil. She wanted to protest again. Miss Dover had only one bed. She did not wish to take it from her.
But Gil did as Miss Dover instructed him. He lowered Damaris to the warmth of the bed and then left the room, closing the door as he went. Miss Dover stayed behind and slipped off Damaris’s high-top shoes and tucked the blankets up around her trembling chin.
“I’ll be back in just a minute,” she said softly. “You try to rest.”
Gil returned almost as soon as Miss Dover had left. “Mother is getting some tea,” he informed Damaris. He took her hand and began to rub it between both of his, coaxing warmth and life back into it.
“Tell me—” began Damaris.
“You must rest,” said Gil.
“Tell me—about the family,” insisted Damaris.
Gil held back no longer. “Mrs. Rudding and little Tootles have been taken to the MacKenzie’s. They are nursing them there. Willim—it’s really William—is at the Taylors’.”
“Abbie?” asked Damaris faintly.
“Abbie is over at the Jaspers’.”
“All alone?”
“Well—she is with the Jasper family. They have three near-grown girls.”
“But she’s all alone?”
“I—I guess so. No family—of her own—with her.”
The arrangement disturbed Damaris, but there was little she could do. Silence hung heavily in the room for some minutes before Damaris spoke again. “The baby?”
“They—they are having a—a service tomorrow. The sheriff is looking after the details.”
“Does—does the—the mother know—yet?”
“No,” said Gil.
A tremor passed through Damaris, and Gil put a hand on her shoulder.
“They are trying to locate the father,” he said.
Damaris shuddered again.
There was another heavy silence. Then Gil leaned toward Damaris.
“There’s more to this, isn’t there?” he asked.
Her face paled and she refused to open her eyes to look at him.
He waited a few minutes and then spoke again.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
Damaris started to shake her head and then changed her mind. Her face wrinkled up as though she were going to cry again, but she bit her lip to gain control and gulped once or twice to calm herself.
Gil stroked the hair back from her face.
“It’s the—the drink,” choked Damaris. “I—I know what it’s like. I know. I’ve—I’ve lived through that—that terror. My—my pa—”
Damaris could say no more. She turned away from the gentle hand that stroked her head and buried her face in her pillow.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” Gil tried to comfort her. “I didn’t know. I—I shouldn’t have made you talk. We won’t talk of it again—unless you want to.”
She did not cry for long. By the time Miss Dover entered the room with the tea tray, Damaris had blown her nose and wiped her eyes.
———
Damaris was determined to be up and about the next day. The whole town seemed to be abuzz with news of the family’s peril that had developed right on their doorstep. Everywhere Damaris went she heard more stories—some of them dreadfully exaggerated accounts.
She tried to close her ears to each new version. The truth was bad enough.
The baby boy was placed in a small wooden coffin and buried in the cemetery on the hill overlooking the town. Most of the town folks were there to take part in the simple ceremony performed by the sheriff. Whether concern or curiosity brought them was a matter of opinion.
The woman still clung to life, but tenuously. Mrs. MacKenzie shook her head sadly when she greeted Damaris at the store. On the third day a message came by wire from a neighboring town to the sheriff. A man bearing the description of Sam Rudding had been killed in a brawl a couple weeks earlier. It seemed that the children were without a father.
Damaris felt no regret when she learned of the man’s death, but then her conscience began to upbraid her.
“He is lost and
doomed
to hell,” a voice said.
“And I can’t think of anyone who deserves it more,” her own bitter voice answered.
“Is that a Christian attitude? Would Jesus have responded in such a manner?” asked the first voice.
Damaris did not answer. Though she knew what the answer would be.
That night when Damaris knelt beside her bed to pray, her soul was heavy.
“God, I need help,” she whispered, tears coursing down her cheeks. “I can’t carry this load anymore. I can’t. Bitterness weighs down my soul. It will destroy me if—if something isn’t done. But I can’t let go. I can’t. I’ve tried. I can’t let go.”
Damaris cried into her pillow again, but her heavy burden was not made lighter.
———
Gil brought the sad news to Damaris and Miss Dover. Mrs. Rudding had passed away.
“What’s going to happen to the children?” Damaris asked quietly.
Gil shifted his weight, his face drawn. “They are to have a hearing sometime next week to decide,” he answered.
Miss Dover daubed at her eyes with a lace hankie and then blew delicately. “Poor little souls,” she said with deep compassion.
Damaris reached for her shawl. “Do you mind?” she asked Miss Dover, her hand trembling. “I think I need a little walk.”
“Go ahead, dear,” responded the woman with an understanding nod.
Damaris did not allow her eyes to lift to Gil’s. She passed him as quickly as she could. She wasn’t sure where she was going but she needed to get out. To think. She walked the length of the town street with brisk steps. Something had to be done but she had no notion of what it was. Into her mind came the face of little Abbie, eyes big with pain and grief. And then there was William, skinny and undersized for lack of nourishing food. And little Tootles, still confused and whining for her mama.
Life seemed so unfair. Damaris might have gone under with the cruelness of it all had she not had two years of walking and talking with her Lord. Even now, she was deeply troubled.
“What’s the meaning of it all, God?” she asked, her face lifting to the sky. “Why is the world so heartless? So painful?”
Damaris was surprised when she looked up to find herself a few yards from the broken-down shack that had belonged to the Rudding family. She hesitated, not wanting to go near, and then moved forward slowly, as though compelled.
So much clutter. So much—mess. Mess. That was it. The whole place was a mess—inside and out. Just like the lives of the people who had lived there.
Damaris lifted her skirts so as not to drag them through the debris and found a large rock at the back of the property. She sat down and studied the scene before her. She still could not think. Could only pray in broken, disconnected thoughts and sentences. On her heart was one thought.
What will happen to the children?
Their mother, father, and baby brother were all gone. What deep and painful scars would be left on their young lives?
Damaris prayed and cried by turn, but she got no closer to a solution.
“May I?” asked a male voice behind her.
Startled, Damaris jumped.
“Sorry,” apologized Gil.
“That’s all right. You just caught me off guard,” she explained.
Gil moved forward and took a seat on the ground beside her. He said nothing. Just let his eyes gaze over the wreck of a house before them.
“I wonder who lived here,” said Damaris after several minutes of silence.
Gil turned quickly to look at her. His eyes asked the question he was afraid to put into words: Had all the distress caused her to block the Rudding family from her mind?
Reading the question on his face, Damaris explained, “I—I mean—before. Before the Rudding family moved in. They haven’t been here that long, you know. And nobody seems to know where they came from.”
Gil nodded. “Well, I remember a widow living here. She had about ten kids—or so it seemed. And a big garden. The place looked much different then. Neat and trim with a little picket fence out front. And chickens. I remember chickens. Some of those fancy little ones that strut around and make all the fuss.”
“Bantams?”
“Bantams. That’s it.”
Damaris laughed in spite of her heavy thoughts.
“Ten kids?” she asked next. “Where did she put them all?”
“Well, it seemed like ten. Actually there might have been only three—or four,” answered Gil truthfully.
Damaris laughed again.
Her eyes drifted over the wreck of a house and yard. “Was it kind of cute then?” she asked wistfully.
Gil studied her face for a moment. “I guess so,” he answered. “I never really gave it much thought. But it was neat. Boy, those little rascals had to work.”
Damaris smiled—but laughter did not come. When she spoke again she surprised herself with her daring question. Really she had no right to ask for the information.
“Miss Dover said you grew up in an orphanage. What was it like?”
Gil’s eyes darkened for a moment; then he turned to her and answered candidly, “Not nice. We each had our own little bed, our own shelf area for our one change of clothes, our own dish at the table, our own second-hand pair of shoes.”
He paused.
“But that wasn’t the hard part,” he went on. “The hard part was not having anyone on your side. All of the kids stood alone, like we were afraid to stick together. Each individual against the entire force of—of disciplinarians.” He paused longer this time.
Damaris was busy with her own thoughts. Then Gil went on. The words seemed hard for him. “I—I’ve always wondered—in the back of my mind—if I have brothers or sisters—somewhere.”
Damaris looked at him and saw the pain in his eyes and the working of his jaw. He picked up a small stone and tossed it at an old tin pot lying half-buried several feet away. Then he went on. “They called it a ‘home.’ But it wasn’t. Not in any sense. The rules were rigid. The discipline tough. We were not even allowed to cry.”
Damaris shuddered. She didn’t even want to think about it.
“So I ran away,” he said frankly. “Just as soon as I found the opportunity.”
There was silence again until Gil picked up a twig of wood and snapped it between his fingers.
“I ran away, too,” said Damaris.
Gil did not even look up. He broke another piece of the twig and nodded in understanding.
“But it wasn’t from an orphanage. It was from a—a home. And I wasn’t alone. Not really. I had my—my mama. We sorta—stood together—though we never talked of it. Never.”
Gil nodded again and waited for her to go on.
“Looking back now I realize—I realize that Mama sorta told me to go. Oh, not in so many words, but she put the idea in my head. I—I think she wanted me to get away from it. I don’t think she wanted me—wanted me locked into what she had endured for all those years.”
“Have you heard from her?” asked Gil.
“No,” said Damaris sadly. “I haven’t even dared to write for fear it would make more trouble for her with Pa.”
“The whiskey?”
Damaris nodded, her eyes misting.
They sat quietly for a few more minutes and then Damaris broke the silence.
“Are you bitter?”
Gil’s head came up and he looked directly into the deep brown eyes. “Bitter? Why?” he asked frankly.
“Well—about life? About your circumstances? I mean—you had nothing to do with your folks dying. Just like I had nothing to do with my pa drinking.”
Gil waited to answer. Then he spoke softly. “Guess I was. Once. Before I met Miss Dover. Then after—after she finally broke through the barrier I had put up, and taught me from her Bible, well, after I had accepted God’s Word as truth and asked for forgiveness for my own wrongdoing, then I was slowly able to forgive others too.”
“I can’t,” admitted Damaris. “I still can’t. I’ve tried—but I just can’t.”
“I don’t suppose we ever can—on our own. Only God can work that miracle.”
“But how? How do you let go?”
“I suppose each person has to work it out in his own way,” said Gil slowly. “For me—it was—well, the realization that all things happen for good. Oh, not the orphanage really, or the drink, either. That wasn’t part of God’s plan. But even the bad in life has a purpose, I think.”
“A purpose? What good can possibly come from—from so—so much bad?”
“I’m not sure how to—how to say it. But thinking of it like that—it helped me get over my hurt. I—well, I said to myself—that if I accepted my past—put it to use in my life—then it wouldn’t be wasted. I mean—it seems to me that painful experiences can be used to better prepare us for heaven. You see, if we let it, even pain can shape us—make us better people—get rid of some of the ugly parts of our humanity.”
“It only strengthened my ugliness,” confessed Damaris.
“But it doesn’t need to,” insisted Gil. “It can make us stronger, more compassionate, more understanding—more like Jesus—if we allow it to. And the more clutter we get rid of in our life here—the more we will be able to enjoy heaven—when we get there. So, pain can have a purpose.”