Damaris still looked puzzled.
“Well, I know I don’t explain it well—but—say—say two people are going on a journey. One prepares. He buys the right clothing for the climate. He reads all he can to learn about the area. He studies about the people. Learns the language. He gets himself prepared the best he can. The other fella—he just goes. They both get there—to the same place. But which one do you think will enjoy it the most?”
“I s’pose the one who prepared,” admitted Damaris.
“Exactly. I think that is why—why God allows hard things in life. To prepare us. To knock off rough edges—pride, bias, envy, selfishness—so that when we get to heaven we will be more in tune—more able to enjoy the beautiful things we’ll find there. Maybe that’s what the rewards will be. A deeper appreciation of what we are given—what we are a part of. Do you understand what I am muddling through?”
Damaris nodded her head slowly. “I—I think so,” she answered.
“Well, I don’t know if it makes any sense to anyone else—but for me—well, it gives a special purpose—a meaning for suffering. If we take it right—let it shape us and cleanse us—then we are better prepared to enjoy the glories of heaven.”
Damaris sat silently, thinking on his words. She had not allowed suffering to do any refining in her life. She was still filled with bitterness and anger. If she didn’t give it up to God, the whole thing would defeat her. She didn’t want that. She wanted to turn it around. To make it produce something of worth in her life.
“You’re right,” she said at last, a tear coursing down her cheek. “Do you—do you mind if I spend some time alone?”
Gil stood. “Of course not,” he whispered.
“I just need to do some praying,” Damaris said.
Gil reached a finger to wipe the tear from her cheek. “Mother and I will be praying too,” he told her, and then he was gone.
———
Damaris did not spend long in her prayer time. It did not take long. She was weary of her heavy burden of bitterness. She wanted to make her past, with its pain and disappointments, into a stepping-stone for growth in her life.
“Take it, Lord,” she prayed. “Please, take it from me. Cleanse my heart and help me to forgive. Might I be able to use my experience to be more understanding, more compassionate, more loving. Might it make me a better person so that—so that I might appreciate heaven more when I arrive. Make me more like you, Lord Jesus.”
After a time of unrestrained tears and earnest prayer, the terrible burden lifted.
“Mama—I love you,” Damaris whispered softly, even though she knew she was all alone. “I—I wish that I would have told you so. I—I hope you know.”
And then Damaris had a new thought. She never stopped to reason it through before, but her heart swelled with the knowledge of it now. Her Mama loved her. Yet her mother had never spoken of it either.
“That’s why. That’s why you—you gently urged me to go. You loved me. You didn’t want me to be the victim anymore. You—you decided to take it all—yourself.”
Damaris leaned her head into her hands and cried harder.
“If—if only Pa didn’t—” began Damaris, then stopped abruptly. “I—I guess he was a victim, too,” she said aloud. “I had never thought of that. Never wondered what made him who he is. Never even thought to ask him what kind of home he grew up in. I wonder if—if his pa beat him. I wonder when drink got such a hold on him.”
Damaris ran a shaky hand through her heavy hair that had come unpinned.
“Oh, God,” she prayed silently, “help me to love Pa. Help me to—to somehow forgive the terrible things he’s done. Help me to pray for him—like I pray for Mama.”
After a few more moments in tears, Damaris wiped her eyes on the hem of her dress and reached to pin her unruly hair into some sense of control.
“I must write Mama,” she reasoned. “She’ll be wondering if I am all right. I must tell her—and Pa—that I’m fine. I must send her my love.”
Damaris rose from the place where she sat and brushed her skirts.
“I’m a mess,” she observed, one hand stealing to her hastily pinned hair as her eyes dropped to survey her wrinkled dress—and then she smiled. “But I’m in better shape on the inside than I have ever been.”
She lifted her eyes to the clear sky above her and drew in a deep, contented breath, “Thank you, Father.”
Then Damaris started for home, anxious to find pen and paper so that the letter to her folks could be quickly posted.
She had seen Abbie only once since the death of the girl’s mother. Mrs. Jasper had come to the store and had brought the little girl with her. Abbie was clean. Even her hair had been washed and braided. But the hand-me-down dress she wore was way too big and the shoes on her little feet slopped with each step. She looked pale and troubled and ran to Damaris as soon as they entered the building.
Damaris held her close, not trusting herself to speak.
“She’s such a solemn little thing,” said Mrs. Jasper in front of the child. “Never laughs or plays—only sits and looks woebegone.”
Damaris rose. She wondered how Mrs. Jasper could expect anything else from the child.
“Well, the hearin’ is tomorra—and then I’ll be done with it,” the woman went on. “We got no room in our house for another. Maude had to share her bed—and didn’t think much of it, either.”
Damaris still said nothing but felt a mixture of excitement and sadness. Abbie was not wanted by the Jaspers.
———
The problem of the children was spoken of freely by the town folk. Everyone who entered the store seemed to have a solution.
“I wouldn’t mind takin’ thet littlest one,” one woman observed. “But the boy—he don’t look healthy. Don’t know what one would ever make of him.”
“Thet littlest one,” someone else said, “she’s a real little whiner. Can’t stand a child who whines all the time. I’d rather have the boy. He might be skinny—but he keeps quiet.”
“Thet oldest—she’s kinda pretty—but by the time they get thet age they usually have picked up all the bad habits of the home.”
“Poor souls. Poor little souls,” another woman said, the tears running freely down her cheeks. “Just wish we had more room.”
Damaris wished to shut out all of the comments but she could not. Her heart became heavier and heavier as the day went on.
“Well, tomorra it will all be decided. Maybe they’ll have to load ’em up and take ’em all to the city,” said one unfeeling man. “There’s nothin’ of worth at the house to pay a fella fer their keep.”
Damaris walked home from the store with a heavy heart, but by bedtime she had made up her mind.
I’m going to ask for Abbie,
she pledged.
“I’m going to ask for Abbie,” she repeated as she prepared for bed. “I don’t know how I will manage, but I’ll find some way—with God’s help I will find some way.”
As Damaris knelt by her bed to seek God’s will in the matter, she could not block out the skinny face of little William, or the troubled eyes of tiny Tootles. “Oh, God,” she prayed, “may someone want them, too.”
She climbed into bed and began her reading of the Bible.
“I would have to pick that,” she said in annoyance as her eyes fell on the words of Jesus: “Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not, for of such is the kingdom of heaven.”
“That might be so, Lord,” whispered Damaris, “but we are still on the earth. It seems that not many folks feel that way in our little town.”
As Damaris closed her eyes to sleep, she still saw the words before her. “Suffer the little children to come….”
———
The day of the hearing dawned cold and bright. Winter was approaching and everyone could feel the sharpness in the air. It was another reminder that each one would be hard put to care for the needs of his own family members.
“If it were spring—with the promise of crops and gardens—people might feel more generous,” allowed Damaris as she walked the short distance to the sheriff ’s office where the hearing was to be held. “With winter—no one knows how difficult it might be to make it through. No one wants to take chances.”
Damaris was surprised as she opened the door and stepped into the room. Already the place was crowded with people. Perhaps there were more interested in taking the children than she had expected.
The three little ones were at the front of the room, clinging together on a little wooden bench. All three faces were pale. All eyes large with fright. William looked even paler and skinnier than ever, and Tootles cried until trickles from her eyes and nose streamed down her face together. Small Abbie held them both, a look of defiance on her baby face, as though she would challenge anyone who tried to take them from her.
They were a pitiful sight and Damaris had to fight hard to keep the tears from her own eyes.
The sheriff rose to his full height and cleared his throat. He looked dreadfully uncomfortable in his role. He refused to even look in the direction of the children.
“Ya all know the sad circumstances thet bring us here today,” he said. He rubbed his neck self-consciously before he was able to go on.
“We gotta somehow find these three little ones a place afore winter sets in—an’ the way it’s feelin’ this mornin’ we might not have long.”
Damaris felt her stomach twisting. She had wanted Abbie—had been willing to sacrifice for the little girl—but as she looked at the three all huddled together on the bench, she knew she had been wrong. They could not be separated. They could not.
“Now, I don’t know jest where to start. Maybe with the youngest one. Anyone here have a mind to take the little one?”
Damaris held her breath. “Oh, God,” she prayed. “Show me what to do. Show me.”
And then to her surprise she was raising her hand.
The sheriff looked at her in shock.
“You wantin’ her, miss?” he asked in disbelief.
“I—I want them all—sir—please,” said a hoarse voice that Damaris hardly recognized as her own.
“You—but—but you don’t have a—a h—”
Damaris was sure the sheriff had been going to say “husband” but he changed it to “home.”
“I—I know,” responded Damaris in a faltering voice, “but I thought the children might—might like to stay in their own home.”
“Their own home?”
“Yes, the—the house on the edge of town.”
“But it’s nothin’ more’n a shack,” spoke up someone.
“I—I know,” agreed Damaris, becoming bold in her fight. “But it was sturdy once. It can be—can be fixed up. Cleaned. I’ve been in it. I know it can be made—made quite—comfortable.”
The sheriff lowered his eyes and cleared his throat again. He seemed terribly uncomfortable with the situation.
“An’ how about—about carin’ fer ’em?” he asked.
Damaris knew he had to ask the question for the children’s sake.
“I—I have some money. A little.” Her cheeks flushed. She didn’t have much. Then a new thought came to her. “I can sew—at home.
There is far more sewing than Miss Dover can keep up to. And I can sew.”
Damaris saw someone in front nod in agreement. She took courage.
“If we make it through this first winter—and we will—then next year we can have a garden—and maybe some chickens—we’ll manage just fine.”
Sheriff Gordon fidgeted. Damaris knew he expected the proceedings to be difficult, but not this difficult.
“Miss—I admire yer—yer unselfishness in wantin’ to take in three little ones—but I am also responsible to see to their well-bein’. As much as I know yer good intent—knowin’ you like I do—I still don’t think it possible fer a mere girl to be able to provide fer three little ones on her sewin’. Iffen ya had some help now I’d not—”
“I’ll help,” offered a familiar voice from the back of the room. “I agree with her. They mustn’t be separated. I’ll help.”
Damaris wanted to run to Gil and express her thanks, but the crowd held her where she was. She could not even see his face.
“In what way?” the sheriff was asking.
“I’ll see to it that the repairs on the house are done, supply her with plenty of winter wood, and make sure they don’t want for provisions,” promised Gil.
Damaris knew that it was no idle, or easy, promise.
A murmur ran through the crowd. Everyone was talking at once. The sheriff lifted his hand for silence, and gradually order settled over the crowd again.
“Was there anyone who came here today with a mind to ask fer one of these children?” the sheriff asked in a voice that boomed out in the tight quarters.
No one responded.
The sheriff waited a moment, his eyes scanning the crowd.
“Then is there anyone who objects to Miss Damaris Withers takin’ on the three of ’em?” he asked.
Again no one responded.
“Then I have a few more words,” said the sheriff. “This tragedy has belonged to all of us. Iffen these two are willin’ to take on the sole responsibility fer these little ones—then I think we oughta all be askin’ ourselves how we can lighten the burden. A hand here an’ there an’ a full stew pot now an’ then would be in order.”
Then the sheriff turned to Damaris. “They’re yours Miss Withers—an’ God help ya.”
Damaris waited no longer. She sprang forward and scooped all three little ones into her arms. Then she buried her head against them and let her tears mingle with theirs. The enormity of the task ahead hit her fully, and she feared that she would never be able to fulfill it. But suddenly peace filled her whole being. She wouldn’t have to do it—not alone. She was sure that God had directed her to take all three of them. She had not even been prepared with arguments to uphold her claim on one. And yet she had them—all three—and even a house in which to raise them.
With the thought of the house, Damaris winced. There was so much to be done if she was to have it ready by winter.
“Come,” she said. “Let’s go home.”
She lifted herself just as the last of the crowd left the room and there stood Gil, looking at her and her babies, a pleased yet concerned look on his face.
“We did it,” she said, not really understanding her own words. “We got them.”
He smiled and nodded his head; then his face sobered. “What do we do now?” he asked.
Damaris was taken aback. “Well, I—I guess we take them home.”