Winter Is Not Forever (8 page)

More Decisions

I
WAS SO BUSY
that spring and summer I scarcely even got to town. If it hadn’t been for Sundays, little Sarah Jane would have grown up without me even seeing her. As it was, she seemed bigger and stronger and a little more attentive each time I saw her.

She soon learned to smile when she was talked to and to coo soft little bubbly noises. Soon she was content to lie there and talk. Her dark hair got lost somewhere, and when her new hair thickened and lengthened, it was a soft golden brown. Her eyes changed, too; they weren’t as dark now and were showing definite blue.

As Sarah was growing physically, Mary was developing spiritually. Willie still picked her up for church, but now he was bringing her ma along, too. Mary was really excited about that, and Mrs. Turley seemed to enjoy the church services.

Willie was all excited about leaving in the fall for school. He kept getting letters telling him about the courses and what he was to bring, and every time he got one he’d rush right over and show it to me. He’d usually bring it out to the field where I was planting or cultivating or cutting hay.

We kept talking about fishing but we never did get around to going. There was just so much to do that we never had time. When I finished one job I was already behind in taking on the next one. I hadn’t realized that farming kept a man so busy.

Grandpa said I should slow down a bit, but I kept seeing things that needed to be done. I hadn’t been around long before I realized that some areas had been rather neglected in the last few years. I guess the farm had become too big a job for Grandpa and Uncle Charlie. I could remember a time when neither of them would have let such things go unattended.

Aunt Lou and Uncle Nat were pretty busy with church affairs and didn’t get out to the farm too often. One Friday night they joined us for supper, and Aunt Lou did the cooking. Boy, was it good, too. Uncle Charlie did his best, but his meals were mostly boiled potatoes and meat.

“How’s the work coming, Josh?” Uncle Nat asked after I had finished off a second piece of lemon pie.

“Good,” I said, feeling kind of grown up and important. “We’re haying now.”

“How’s it look?” Uncle Nat had been in a farming community long enough to know how important a good hay crop was.

I sobered a bit then. “Not as good as I had hoped,” I said honestly. “Don’t really understand. We got lots of rain, but it still looks a bit skimpy.”

Grandpa entered the conversation then. “Soil’s getting a bit tired,” he offered. “It’s been planted for a lot of years now. That hay field has been givin’ us a crop for nigh unto forty years, I guess. Deserves to be tired.”

“Could you use some help tomorrow?” Uncle Nat asked. “I could spare the day.”

“Sure,” I grinned at him. “I sure could use someone on the stack.”

“I’ll be here,” he promised.

“I’ll send the lunch,” promised Aunt Lou. “I’ll need to get rid of the rest of this chicken somehow.”

I looked forward to the next day as I climbed the stairs to my room that night. It would be good to have Uncle Nat’s help. But more than that, it would be good to have his company.

The day was a hot one; both Nat and I sweated in the midmorning sun.

When it was time to take a break for lunch, we decided to slip into the shade of the trees on the creekbank to have our meal. We gave the horses a drink from the stream, then tied and fed them and lowered ourselves to the cool grass in the shade of a large poplar.

After Uncle Nat asked the blessing on the leftover chicken and Aunt Lou’s other good things, we chatted small talk for several minutes. At length Uncle Nat looked directly at me and asked candidly, “How’s it going, Josh? You liking being a summer farmer?”

“Sure,” I answered. “Like it fine.”

“Are you any nearer an answer?”

I hesitated. “You mean, about what I should do?” Uncle Nat nodded and I shook my head. “Still bother you?”

“I guess it does,” I answered honestly. “If I let myself think on it, it does.”

“You planning to go to school somewhere this fall?”

“That’s the problem,” I said quickly. “I’d thought that I’d just come on out and help Grandpa get the crop in and then I’d stay long enough to help with the hay. But as soon as haying’s over it’ll be time to cut the green feed, and then harvest— and on and on it goes. There doesn’t seem to be a good time to leave.”

Uncle Nat nodded.

“Another thing,” I said confidentially. “Things need a lot of fixing up around here. I hadn’t realized it before, but I guess farming is getting too hard for Grandpa and Uncle Charlie.” I hoped with all of my heart that Uncle Nat would understand my meaning and not think I was being critical of the two men. After all, I was still smart enough to know that they knew far more about farming than I did.

“I’d noticed,” said Uncle Nat simply.

I took heart at that and dared to go on. “This hay crop, for example. I think Grandpa is right; the land is tired. But it’s gotta do us for years and years yet. There isn’t any more land than what we’ve already got, Nat. We’ve gotta make this do for all the years God gives us. What do we do about it? Do we just wear it out?”

It was a hard question, one I had been thinking on a good deal lately.

“There are ways to give it a boost,” said Uncle Nat, reaching for another sandwich.

I perked up immediately.

“Like what?”

“Well, not being a farmer I don’t know much about it,” Uncle Nat went on, “but I know someone who does.”

“Who?”

“There’s a fella by the name of Randall Thomas who lives about seven miles the other side of town,” went on Uncle Nat. “I was called out there to see his dying mother. She wanted to talk to a preacher. Don’t know why. She had things to teach
me.
A real saint if ever I met one.”

I wasn’t too interested in the saintly woman who probably had gone Home to glory by now. I wanted to hear about the farmer.

“Well, this farmer has been busy studying all about the soil and how to—what did he call it?—‘rotate’ crops to benefit it. Real interesting to talk to.”

I was all ears. So there
was
a smarter way to farm the land!

“You think he’d talk to me?” I asked, very aware of the fact that I was still only a boy in some folks’ thinking.

“I’m sure he would. Said if there was ever anything that he could do for me in return for calling on his mother, just to let him know.”

I took a deep breath.

“So when do you want to see him?” asked Uncle Nat. “Well, I don’t know. Hafta get the hay off, and then the green feed—”

“And then the harvest,” put in Uncle Nat.

“But I would like to talk to him,” I continued. “I’d like to get the crops planted right next spring an’—”

Uncle Nat was looking at me.

“So you plan to farm again next year?”

I shrugged. “I guess so. I mean, I still don’t know what else I’m supposed to do, and Grandpa still needs me an’ …” It tapered off. There was silence for a few minutes and then I found my voice again.

“Do you think I’m wrong? Do you think that I should be tryin’ harder to find out what God wants me to do with my life? It’s not that I don’t want to know, or don’t want to obey Him.”

“Are you happy here?” Uncle Nat asked me again. “Yeah, I guess I am.”

“You don’t feel uneasy or guilty or anything?”

“No.” I could answer that honestly. I was still puzzled, still questioning but I didn’t feel guilty.

“Then, Josh, I would take that as God’s endorsement on what you are doing,” said Uncle Nat. “For now, I think you can just go ahead and keep right on farming. If God wants to change your direction, then He’ll show you. I’m confident of that.”

It sure was good to hear Uncle Nat put it like that.

We tucked away the empty lunch bucket and moved to the creek for a drink of cold water.

“And, Josh,” said Uncle Nat just as we turned to go for the horses, “while you are here, you be the best farmer that you can be, you hear? Find out all you can about the soil, about livestock, about production. Keep your fences mended and your buildings in good repair. Make your machines give you as many years of service as they can. Learn to be the best farmer that you can be, because, Josh, in farming, in preaching, in any area of life, God doesn’t take pleasure in second-rate work.”

I nodded solemnly. I wasn’t sure how much time God would give me to shape up Grandpa’s tired farm before He moved me on to something else, but I knew one thing. I would give it my full time and attention until I got His next signal.

C
HAPTER
8

Sunday

W
ILLIE CAME OVER TO SAY
goodbye before boarding the train that would take him away from our small community to the far-off town where he would continue his education. He was so excited that he fairly babbled, and for a moment I envied him and his calling. I would sure miss him, I knew that. It wouldn’t be quite the same without Willie.

“You’ll write?” Willie asked. “

’Course I will.”

“I’ll send you my address just as soon as I’m settled,” he promised.

“Let me know all about your school.”

“I will. Everything,” said Willie.

“What happens now—with Mary?” I asked suddenly, feeling concern for Mary and her mother.

“What happens? What do you mean?”

“For church? How will they get to church?”

“Mary is going to drive. I suggested that you might not mind picking them up, but Mary insisted that she’d drive them.”

“Good,” I said, and then hastily added, “but I sure wouldn’t have minded taking them.”

“I was sure you wouldn’t, but Mary is quite independent.” We were quiet for a few moments; then Willie broke the silence. “Take care of her, Josh. She’s a pretty special person.”

I looked at Willie, my eyes saying, “I told you so,” but Willie didn’t seem to catch the look.

“She’s my first convert, you know,” he went on, and then added quietly, “She often surprises me. She knows some things about being a Christian that I still haven’t learned in all my years of trying to live my faith.”

I nodded. Mary certainly was putting many of us to shame.

“I saw Camellia off yesterday,” Willie said, and my head jerked up. I had hoped to learn of Camellia’s parting date so that I could see her off myself, but I had been so busy with the farm. A funny little stab of sadness pricked at me somewhere deep inside. I couldn’t even answer Willie. “She sure was excited,” Willie went on. Yes, Camellia would be excited.

“Her pa seemed excited too, or proud or something, but her ma didn’t seem to be too sure that they were doing the right thing.”

I wanted to ask Willie how Camellia looked, how she was wearing her hair, what her traveling dress was like, all sorts of things so that I could sort of picture Camellia in my mind, but I didn’t.

“She had more trunks and baggage than would be necessary for ten people,”Willie was laughing. “I think her ma even packed her a lunch.”

I still said nothing, and Willie thought that I’d missed his point. “They feed you on the train, you know.”

I hadn’t known. I had never traveled by train in my life, but I didn’t admit my ignorance to Willie.

“She hasn’t decided if she will get home for Christmas,” Willie went on, answering the question that was burning in my mind.

“Will you?” I asked, making it sound like that was the most important thing in the world to me at the moment.

Willie shook his head slowly. There was concern in his eyes. “I wish I could, but it’s far too expensive to travel that distance. I’m sure I will be ready for some familiar faces by then. Four months away is about long enough for the first time from home, don’t you think?”

I nodded.

“Well, I’d best get going.” Willie reached to shake my hand. I extended mine, and then we both forgot that we were grown men saying goodbye to each other. We remembered instead that we were lifetime buddies, and the months ahead would be very long. Before I knew it we were soon giving each other an affectionate goodbye hug.

After Willie left I tried to get back to work in the field, but it was hard. Seeing my best friend riding off down the road, knowing that he would soon be on his way to Bible school, gave me an empty feeling in the pit of my stomach. Besides, Willie’s news that Camellia had already left on the train for New York without my having the chance to tell her goodbye didn’t do much to cheer me up. I had never felt so lonesome in all my life.