Gingham Mountain (26 page)

“Pa.” Marilyn came up behind him while he leaned over Benny’s book. “The fabric’s cut now and the basting done, so while Sadie is busy sewing, I think I oughta cut your hair.”

“Cut my hair?” Grant whirled around to face his daughter. The gleam in her eyes near to set him running out of the house.

“I need to practice on a man, since I’m getting married soon and all. Just turn around and sit still.” She opened and closed the scissors with an ominous snip.

Grant glared at the little troublemaker.

She glared right back.

Finally, rolling his eyes, he turned around and ignored her to the best of his ability. . .  while she scalped him.

G
rant had put up with the new clothes and a haircut, but now it was eating him alive.

He ran his hands through his stumpy hair, wishing he could sleep. Lying on the kitchen floor, listening to the sound of his children breathing, living, fed and warm and safe, there was no way to explain to them the desperate burden he felt for unwanted children. He’d had Parson Babbitt tell him once that he needed to trust God to care for His sheep. That Grant, try as he might, couldn’t care for them all.

Grant wrestled with the worry. He could feel those children, cold and hungry, out there, begging for a coin, just enough to keep the front of their stomachs from rubbing against the backs. The hard wood of his floor was a reminder of the hard life of a child who had no one to care if he or she lived or died.

He could still remember little Sadie when he first laid eyes on her. Her body shivered so hard in the cold, the skirt of her thin little dress waved back and forth. It haunted him to think of all Sadie had suffered before she’d come to him.

As he lay there, the clothes the girls were making started to bother him more and more. That cloth was wasted being cut and sewn into something for him. Anger burned low in his belly until he was furious thinking of it. But the children were right. It was a kind of foolishness to wear rags, thinking it would feed one hungry child.

“Trust,” the parson had said. “God is in control.”

If God was in control, then why had He given Grant a tiny glimpse of family? If God was in control, why had Grant’s parents died? If God was worthy of trust, then Grant had to accept that He wanted children like Libby to be frightened beyond their ability to speak.

Sadie, cold and shivering. Grant opened his eyes and ruffled his short hair. He stared at the dark ceiling, the nightmarish image of his freezing daughter. Her skinny little bare knees shaking beneath a skirt that she’d grown out of years before. Rolling onto his stomach, he wondered how many nights in his life he’d been left sleepless with this torment.

God, why would You make a world where children lived, hungry and cold, in an alley? How can I believe You’re in control when the innocent suffer like this?

It was a sin to spend money on himself for new clothes. And new boots were a foolish waste while children froze.

He listened to the wind whip around his ramshackle cabin and knew it was so much better in here than out there. There were more children out in the cold. He couldn’t go to New York and get them without abandoning his family, but what if some were close to hand? He’d found Joshua and Sadie in Houston. It was a long trip, but Grant should be looking for them, bringing them home. He had six, but there was room beside him on the floor. He could squeeze in six more if he tried.

He rolled back to stare at the ceiling, and his heart cried out to God for sleep and peace and for a chance to take care of all the cold, hungry children who needed a home.

A creak on the ladder to the loft pulled him out of his worry. He saw Charlie backing down the steps, as silently as possible. “What are you doing?”

Charlie froze and looked down. Even in the barely existent light from the fire, Grant saw
Charlie’s guilt. What was going on? Grant was afraid he knew.

Charlie’s rigid muscles relaxed and he climbed on down. “Just. . .  uh. . . couldn’t sleep.”

He was running away. Grant had seen the guilt in Charlie’s eyes when he’d realized Grant didn’t have a room. Between the anger the little boy carried around and the desire to leave before he got left, the boy would use this as an excuse to move on. Probably planning to steal a sack of food on his way out the door.

“Pa?”

Grant sat up and leaned forward. He turned so his back leaned against the table leg. “Yeah, what is it?”

“I’m just restless is all. The wind is keeping me up, I suppose. A cold wind makes me think of bad times I had before I came here.”

Pa pushed his bedroll aside. He rolled to his knees and grabbed a couple of logs and threw them onto the fire. Charlie dropped down in front of the licking flames, and the two of them watched as a friendly, reassuring crackle lit up the room.

“Did I wake you?” Charlie asked.

“I wasn’t asleep.”

“Are you sure?

Grant shrugged. “I don’t think so. Maybe I dozed off. The night can trick a man.”

Grant rested his palm on Charlie’s shoulder, and Charlie flinched like a child might who’d been treated harshly by a man’s hand.

“It sure enough can.” The boy sat frozen under the touch.

“It can trick a man into thinking only dark thoughts. It can trick a man into making some small thing into something large without the light of day to shine on his worries.” Grant felt Charlie’s fear and tension and let go of him. Turning around, Grant rested his back on the stones that framed the fire. Charlie visibly relaxed and leaned closer to the warmth of the crackling fire.

Grant decided the boy wasn’t going to say anything more. “I was
awake because. . . I don’t. . . need new clothes. I want to be ready in case there are children who come along. I shouldn’t have let Sadie talk me into those duds. I should leave Joshua in charge and go see if there have been any children abandoned nearby.”

“And leave the family alone?”

“No, I can’t do that.”

A silence stretched between them as the smell and warmth of the fire soothed and eased the knots tying up Grant’s thoughts.

“Pa, it’s not the new clothes that are bothering you. It’s not even thinking about children who might need you.”

“Yes, it is.”

“It’s the devil.”

“What?” Grant sat forward. He hadn’t expected to hear that from the boy.

Charlie, crossing his ankles, propped his elbows on his knees and rested his chin in both hands. “The devil is who torments good folks in the night. He whispers doubt in your ear. He stirs up anger. He picks at any little mistake you’ve made, or thinks you’ve made, and blows it up big. That’s Satan, stirring and stirring trouble, like a pot he’s trying to boil over, hoping he can spill sin through your soul and slop it all over the people around you.”

Grant’s eyes narrowed as he considered that. “I reckon you’re right, son. When I’m up and about, busy with you kids and life, I know I’m doing God’s work. But if you could have seen Sadie when I found her. . . ” Grant couldn’t go on for a minute. He scrubbed his hands over his face and combed his fingers through his short hair.

When he was sure his voice wouldn’t break, Grant continued. “I remember other little children when I ran the streets of New York. I saw them die, run down by carriages. I saw older children beating on them. I saw them dead from the cold. They beat on me, too.” Grant paused. “I saw the younger ones grow up and turn mean and get in trouble. I was right along with them. I’d spend time in an orphanage,
then I’d run off, then the police would catch me doing something and send me back. I felt my own innocence die, replaced with anger and cruelty. As I got older, I saw new little ones show up. I knew what was ahead of them. I couldn’t do anything for them then when I was young. But now I can.”

Grant leaned toward his troubled son. “I want you here, Charlie. If I found others in need, I’d bring in ten more. I’d find the room for ’em. Maybe I should build a great big house and, who knows, maybe find room for a hundred. They could stay here until they’re grown and. . . ”

“You can’t be a real father to a hundred children at once, Pa. You couldn’t even feed them. And you could never give them a father’s love, not enough to change their lives.”

“Maybe I could. I’m glad I’ve had each one of you kids.”

“Even if we’ve done bad?”

Charlie was talking about the knife. And maybe some other things Grant hadn’t caught the boy at. “The funny thing is I seem to love the one who’s going through the hardest time the most.”

Charlie sat up straight. He and Grant studied each other. Grant didn’t want to force a confession out of the boy. Instead, to make it easier, Grant said, “I saw the knife. If you give it to me and tell me where you got it, I’ll slip it back. No one needs to know it was stolen.”

Charlie sat silently for a long time. Grant gave him as long as he needed.

Finally the boy fished into his pocket and handed the knife to Grant, then reached in again and brought out a handful of coins. “I took it from the Stroben’s Mercantile. Some money, too.”

Grant nodded. “Things stuck to my fingers when I was young. It’s not right. But when you live like we lived, sin starts to look like the only way to survive.”

Grant patted the boy on the back, careful to be gentle. “I look back now at the food I took and the clothes and other things and I know it was wrong, but I know I’d do it again to live.”

This time Charlie allowed the touch.

“But you don’t need to do that anymore, Charlie. I don’t have a lot of money for a knife and to give you young’uns spending money. But you’ll never go hungry. You’ll never be cold. And I think, if you asked, they sometimes hire help at the mercantile, delivering supplies in town. You could earn the money for this knife if you really want it.”

Charlie slouched again. “No one’s gonna give me a job. I’ve tried that before.”

“You might be surprised. Harold’s a good man. He’d make you work hard, but he’d pay you fair.”

Charlie’s eyes lit up in the flickering fire. “You think so?”

“I could ask him for you. Or, if you felt brave enough, you could take this knife back to him, tell him what you did, and ask permission to work off the cost. I think Harold would respect that. I know God would.”

“Why do you suppose God lets children live on the streets? Cold, hungry, hurt?”

Grant sighed. The exact question he had been wrestling with for years. He knew the truth. It just wasn’t easy to accept. “I think, Charlie, that God doesn’t really care that much about our bodies.”

“What?” Charlie seemed upset.

Grant tried to explain himself. “Oh, He does care. He loves every one of us so much. He knows the numbers of hairs on our heads. But I think God sees inside us, and what’s in there is more important than food or clothes or good health. God cares about souls. He cares about us, one soul at a time. If a child dies, cold on the street, but he knows the Lord, then there is rejoicing in heaven. And a lot of street kids do have a beautiful, childlike faith in God.”

“A lot don’t.”

“A lot of warm, well-fed people don’t, either. God loves people one soul at a time. And His truth is written in all their hearts so every child has a chance to believe.” Then Grant added, as much to himself as to Charlie, “I can only help the children God puts in my path, and I’ve
done that. If God wants me to have more children, He’ll send them. All those years ago, Will didn’t try to pick my pocket by accident. He and his friends were sent into my path by God. It wasn’t an accident that little Benny got put on an orphan train at such a young age. He was mine and God got him here. Marilyn didn’t just happen to show herself at the exact instant I took a shortcut through an alley. It’s not a coincidence Mrs. Norris broke all the rules for Libby by letting her join the other orphans. I know each of you children was meant to be mine. That includes you.”

“And any other children that are meant to be yours will be sent here.” Charlie was clearly visible by the now-roaring firelight. The crackling wood, the comforting smell, and the soft whoosh of heat coming from the hearth seemed to mute the howling wind outside, or maybe the wind had died. Or, Grant thought, maybe Satan had been vanquished, at least for tonight.

Charlie yawned.

“You’d better get yourself to bed, boy. Morning comes almighty early around this house.”

Charlie nodded. “It’s long past time for rest, and that’s a fact. Uh. . . Pa?”

“Yes?”

“I think God wants you to let the girls dress you up. I think this is something you should do for them and not fight it. Your reasons not to spend money on yourself. . . I understand them, but now and then it’s okay to have a new pair of boots if your feet are really cold.”

Grant nodded. “I reckon that’s a fact.”

“If you’ll give me back the knife and money, I’ll go have a talk with Mr. Stroben tomorrow after school.”

“I’ll come with you if you want.”

Charlie was silent for a long time. Grant though he saw the boy’s shoulders trembling. At last he said, “Yeah, I guess you’d better, in case he calls the sheriff.”

Grant gave Charlie a gentle squeeze on the back of his neck. “He won’t. I’ll come by the school and walk over with you.”

“Thanks.” Charlie climbed back up the ladder.

Grant lay awake until he heard soft snoring coming from overhead.