Within the Candle's Glow (22 page)

“Thank you.” Her spirits lifted with his praise. “Things change, don’t they. Now, you’re married to Velma, and I live with you.” She ran her hand over the worn top of the oak counter. “I guess we never know the future.”

“God weaves wonders in our lives.” He winked. “Go home. I’ll close up. The first of the week, we receive the bulk shipment for winter. The driver is bringin’ it on one of his larger wagons. He said the new road up from Terminus lets him reach Dahlonega quicker. Grace is praying he brings some of it in crates. She hopes Konrad will make more cupboards out of them, now that Miles’s barn is ‘bout done.”

“She sews cute curtains for the fronts of her cupboards.”

“Yes, she does.” He smoothed his beard with one hand and stood to his feet. “I’ll be to the house shortly. I’m hungry. Whatever Velma’s cooking smells good.”

“Nettie brung in four woolen shawls for credit. She says she’ll have more the end of the month.”

“Thank you, Ella Dessa.”

She ran down the rear steps and escaped into the late afternoon sun. It gave no warmth, but it managed to peer over the slopes above her, even though the days were ending earlier. She angled for the large double pen cabin sequestered under heavy-limbed pines against the foot of the mountain.

“Come join us!” Agatha called from the messy table as Ella opened the door leading to the separate kitchen. Freshly shucked corn lay in stacks. “We’ve been discussin’ the pretty dress you sewed in less than one week. Who do you hope will ask you to the dance?” Her merry brown eyes sparkled with excitement. “Or has someone asked you? Come now. Tell us. The nosey old woman’s got to know.”

Ella stopped by the washbasin and removed her shawl. Warmth from the fireplace enveloped her. “Carrie and I will go together.” She shivered at the cold water in the basin.

“What?” Velma turned from the fireplace with a large wooden spoon dripping brown gravy.

“I said, ‘Carrie—’”

“I heard that part, but I knew nothin’ of it. I figgerd Samuel asked you, an’ Carrie were taggin’ along.”

“He
just
asked me.” She wiped her hands on her skirt. “I told him no.”

“Why?” Agatha and Velma asked in unison.

She moved to the side window and gazed out at the children. There were a total of eight, including little Adam and Agatha’s two girls. They had pulled the last of the corn stalks and stacked them along the rail fence. Carrie stood in charge. She fussed and directed their work as the early sunset tipped the westward mountaintop.

“Ella Dessa?” Velma questioned. “You didn’t answer.”

“Oh, I was watchin’ Adam try and keep up with the others. Should they come in out of the cold wind?”

Velma smiled. “I stepped out moments ago an’ tolt ‘em all to comes in. Adam’ll be tired tonight. Now, what’s this ‘bout Samuel?” She laid down her spoon, picked up a pewter candleholder, and pushed a new candle into place.

“I’m not goin’ with him.”

Velma frowned and lit the candle with a stick from the fire. “Surely, you jest. He must be heartbroken.”

“I’ve a problem.” She walked to the table. Her hands automatically reached for the last ears of corn still not shucked. She stripped one and dropped the roughage into a tall willow basket on the floor.

“We’re all ears.” Agatha held one ear of corn in the air.

“Ah, funny.” Ella sighed. “I won’t go with Samuel. Josh asked me weeks ago. I turned him down.”

“I see.” Velma frowned. “It’s strange how he went away and returned. You didn’t cares to go with ‘im?” She set the candle on the table. A thin wisp of smoke drifted away from the flame.

Ella shook her head and picked at silk on the ear of corn. “No. So now, I dare not say yes to no one else, ‘cause Josh knows I didn’t know of the barn dance—‘til he mentioned it.”

Agatha tapped her fingertips on the table. She appeared deep in thought. “But what’s wrong with tellin’ Josh you’ll go?”

“I don’t want to. It’s
that simple
.” She shrugged her shoulders.

“But … you’re the one he were so nice to, an’ he brought me the gold.” Velma chose an ear of corn and ripped downward on the green casing.

“He makes me feel uneasy. Prickly—like bein’ stabbed with a quill.”
Snatching another ear of corn, she attacked it, and tore off the outer layers. “I wish someone else had asked first. I couldn’t lie and say they had.”

Velma nodded. “Poor Samuel.”

Sighing, Ella decided not to say
Jim
was on her wish list.

Sophie has Jim.

“I know of a way to spend time with the boy you want to attract. Fix a basket. Slip a hint to him.” Agatha chuckled. “Sittin’ in a dark corner, sharing a meal and a warm kiss is far more fun than doin’ a group twirl around a barn’s dirt floor.”

“Why, Agatha.” Velma banged an ear of corn on the table. “I’m
shocked
at you!”

They all laughed and giggled, relaxing into the friendly banter they usually enjoyed.

Agatha’s bushy eyebrows wiggled as she winked at Ella. “Josh couldn’t argue against someone else payin’ for your basket. I hear they will have the men bid on them to raise money for the school.”

“I know, but—”

“You sometimes gots to go after the man you want. My poor Arnold said it was me chasin’ him that forced him to realize he
couldn’t
live without me.” She collected six ears of corn and tugged the green husks down on each one. “An’ then he died, left me to live alone.” Clumping the ears, she tied the husks into a bundle with a thin strip of peeled husk.

“There’s no one to say that to me.” Ella copied Agatha and arranged her own clump of corn, still on the cob. They would dry them for seed corn.

Agatha waddled across the room and lifted her bundle of corn to a wooden hook wedged between the boards to the loft. Six more tied ears hung beside them. “Ella Dessa, you want to avoid Josh?”

“
Hmm
, yes. I do.”

“Well, I always say there’s more than one way to sidestep a porcupine. Work up a fancy basket an’ let Samuel’s sister—the redhead—know which one it is. She’ll tell everyone, and more than one person will bid on it. At least you won’t have to eat with Josh.”

Ella sat in a straight-backed chair. As her thoughts played with the idea of fixing a basket for the barn dance, she untied her boots and pulled her feet from them. The cold floorboards could be felt through her stockings.

The door jerked wide open. Walter staggered in.

“Lyle Foster just rode from Konrad’s and said to pray! The teacher took a tumble off his uncle’s barn roof. Grace needs someone to look after the little ones. Lyle said Konrad’s unconscious. They carried him home.”

Ella was out the door before anyone could speak. She ran halfway down the trail to the teacher’s cabin on Branch Creek before she remembered she had no shoes on. Her heart hammered in her chest as she begged God to spare Konrad’s life.

She had just reached the Strom cabin when the loud rumble of a farm wagon made her turn. The wagon came fast—horses at a run—and dust boiled out behind. Granny Hanks sat beside Jim and clung with braced arms and feet. Her bonnet had slipped back, and her hair hung loose. Curly gray strands waved along her hunched back.

“Please, God,
please!
” Ella sprinted after the wagon and bowed her head to the rolling dust cloud. Her lungs ached as if they’d burst.

Grace enveloped her in quivering arms the minute she opened the front door. “Oh, Ella Dessa, thank you for coming.” Her oval face was wan and drawn.

“Is he—how is he?” She tried to catch her breath.

“He wasn’t moving when Josh found him. Lyle Foster and Miles brought him here on the wagon. He moans and won’t talk to me. Oh, I hate to hear his suffering.” Grace sank to a rocker and pressed the knuckles of one hand against her lips.

“Ella Dessa, come sit with us.” Leona spoke from near the fireplace. She rocked Grace’s four-month-old daughter in her arms. “Jim just happened to stop in with a new quilt Inez made for Quinn. He went for Granny.”

“He’s back.” Ella knelt beside Grace’s rocker. “They’ll soon be comin’ in the door.” She kissed the young woman’s damp cheek. “I’ll stay and help.”

Quinn toddled across the floor and grabbed his mother’s skirt. His face scrunched, and he started to cry. Ella scooped him in her arms and stood, just as Jim came through the door with Granny.

Grace bounded from the rocker. “This way!” She pulled the elderly woman toward the separate bedroom. “He’s in here.”

With only a backward glance at Ella, Jim followed them.

“I hope and pray Granny can help him.” Her legs shook as she sank into the rocker with the toddler in her arms. Quinn laid his head against
her breast and stuck a thumb in his mouth, seemingly content to rock.

Jim returned—hat in hand. Beads of sweat stood out along his forehead. He leaned against the doorframe. His gray eyes watched her rock Quinn. “Konrad looks bad,” he finally whispered. “He’s not breathing right.”

She closed her eyes and tried to snuff out the growing fear in her mind.
Oh, God, spare his life.

Was it only four hours ago she’d stood before Konrad and recited a required passage from the Bible? Her lips moved. She softly repeated some of the words from Psalm Forty-Six. “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore will not we fear, though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea: Though the waters thereof roar and be troubled, though the mountains shake with the swelling thereof …”

She hugged the toddler in her arms and gulped back tears.

Leigh Chesley arrived as Miles strode from the inner room. He nodded to the preacher and motioned him to the bedroom. “Go on in. He needs prayer.”

Rebecca and Lyle Foster came through the front door. “Miles, I spread the word through the cove an’ got back soon as I could.” Lyle removed his hat and ran a hand through his messy curls. “How’s he doin’?”

“He’s still not responding.” Miles touched Jim’s arm. “Jim, can you find a couple of short boards from my barn? We cut some for the end of a stall. And bring a handsaw. Granny says Konrad’s lower right leg is broke, and he probably cracked some ribs. She doesn’t want him moved for fear a rib might puncture a lung. We don’t know about skull damage.” He frowned. “Jim, get back as soon as possible. Take a lantern. You’ll need it on the return trip.”

“Jim, I’ll go with you.” Lyle kissed his wife’s cheek and followed Jim out the door.

Rebecca sat near Ella with her infant girl wrapped in a blanket. Just a tuft of sandy-colored hair showed. “I had to come.” She turned toward Miles, her large brown eyes wide with concern. “Lyle made a loop through the cove, passin’ the word for prayer.”

He nodded. “That’ll help more than anything. I feel sick over this. I wish he hadn’t come to my place to help.” He wiped a hand over his head, ruffling the dark curls. “I feel to blame.”

“It’s not your fault,” Rebecca replied, as she unwrapped her baby.

“Miles, how far did he fall?” Leona’s troubled eyes searched her husband’s pinched face.

He shrugged. “I didn’t see how high he climbed. Lyle and I were building a stall. We heard him yell. When I came out of the barn, Josh was kneeling beside him.”

Ella read the helpless pain in his eyes. She continued to learn what kind of man he was, and how everyone respected him. But the truth, about her conception, still sent misery through her. The thought of what might have been, if Miles could have married her mama, made her want to cry. She knew their lives would’ve been different.

“May God be with him!” Leona pressed her full lips to her husband’s pale cheek and then to the forehead of the fussy infant in her arms. “Miles, pray for mercy. Don’t blame yourself. Konrad came to help because he wanted to. Leave it with God’s mercy.”

“I will.” He walked to Konrad’s room.

“Is Emma hungry?” Rebecca studied Grace’s fidgety baby and placed her own baby up on her shoulder.

Leona sighed. “I believe so, but Grace is too upset to nurse.”

“I could. I mean … I’m
willing
. Julia had her fill on the ride over. I’ve plenty to give.” Rebecca smiled and patted her daughter’s back. The baby’s round head bopped with a resounding burp. “I have time. Lyle’s mother is watching Zeb and Libby for us, plus Lyle went with Jim.”

“By all means, try.” The baby’s fussing had escalated into demanding cries, and Leona laid Emma across Rebecca’s knees. “Let me hold Julia while you feed Emma.”

Ella picked up a small quilt, bundled Quinn in it, and went to the wide front porch. She sank to the steps and cuddled the child against the cold. He wiggled and stuck his bare toes out from under the quilt and giggled up at her.

She covered his feet. “Don’t you freeze those piggy toes!” She tried to keep her voice light, but tears dripped on her dress front. Quinn snuggled within the quilt’s sheltering folds, and his big eyes fluttered as he fought sleep. She hugged him to her breast, gaining some warmth.

A lone hawk soared overhead before it banked and drifted away on silent wings. The last rays of the sun fingered the raptor’s wings. On either side of the slim cove, the rounded mountains crowded in. For a few minutes, the east side blazed—struck by the final rays of the sun, as it sank behind the western wall of hilly curves.