“Well, at that, she starting bawling as if she couldn’t stop, and I just sat there wondering if I’d said something wrong, getting kinda worried. She just kept crying. But then all of a sudden she burst out praying herself, and she prayed on and on, asking God to forgive her for being so ornery all this time, and for being angry and resentful and for treating people rude and for being selfish. She was crying out how she had hurt so deep inside, saying things I never thought I’d ever hear her say. It was like she was a different person once the shell around her broke apart. There was a look of pain on her face worse than when she was having the baby. She seemed far away in a place all alone—it was a place even I couldn’t reach her, though I was sitting beside her holding on to her hand. She was talking to God like I’d never imagined anyone doing, as if he was sitting on the other side of the bed from me—saying . . . all kinds of things.”
He stopped and took a deep breath.
“And . . . ?” said Almeda expectantly.
“I guess you could say she and God were having their own private time together. She said, ‘God, I’ve been so lonely, my heart has felt so cold . . . but now I feel like a little girl again . . . Oh God, why did you take my mother and father from me . . . why did you leave me all alone? I felt so unloved, God . . . no one needed me or wanted me. And now my baby’s gone! Was it because of me that you didn’t let me keep her . . . wasn’t I good enough? Oh, God!’ And then she really started to wail—stammering out stuff about being mad at him and getting angry when people would talk about him, and resenting people who went to church. She cried, ‘Nobody ever really understood me, Lord . . . no one wanted to be near me, and I took it out on you . . . oh, forgive me—please, Lord! I don’t hate you . . . I’m not angry at you any more . . . I need you . . . I want so much to trust you . . . so much to feel your love, to know that your arms are wrapped around me like Almeda said. Oh God, I want you to hold me like my daddy never could!’”
Again, Uncle Nick stopped. All the rest of us were silent, hanging on his every word. It was such a moving story, there was nothing to say!
“That was about it,” he said, but then a sheepish expression came over his face. “After she was done praying,” he continued, “she opened her eyes and looked over at me with a smile, just about the happiest look I’d ever seen on her face. Then she said, ‘Oh, Nick, you’ve been standing with me a long time, and putting up with a lot from me. How can I possibly thank you?’”
“Well . . . what did you say?” asked Pa when Uncle Nick stopped.
“Aw, not much. I just told her I loved her and that it weren’t no big thing I done. Then she opened up her arms to me, still smiling, and I sat over on the edge of her bed and leaned over and gave her a hug. And, tarnation if she didn’t nearly squeeze the insides out of me! That’s when I knew she’d got back most of her strength!”
“Hallelujah!” said Almeda quietly. “God is good!” She closed her eyes, and I knew that inwardly she was giving praise to God.
We were all awestruck at what we’d heard.
“God bless her!” said Pa. “I told you if you prayed for her, everything would come out right in the end, Nick.”
“What happened to Aunt Katie?” asked Tad, not quite understanding all that was being said.
“The angels in heaven are singing, boy,” said Pa, “that’s what.”
“Your Aunt Katie just gave her life to Jesus, Tad,” said Almeda.
“What did you two say to each other after that, Uncle Nick?” I asked. Another sheepish look came over his face.
“Well, if you wanna know,” he said, “I prayed again. You see, I’d been sitting there listening to everything you said, Almeda, and it was going down mighty deep into me too. Now you all know I went to church when I was a kid, and that was fine as far as it went. But then I went my own way for a lot of years, as you know better than anyone, Drum. And now I been trying to live my life a mite different, now that I’m married and got myself a family. And I been praying like you said, and trying to remember what I used to know about being a Christian.
“But while you was talking, Almeda, it just sorta dawned on me all of a sudden that I didn’t know if I’d ever actually done what you was talking about—prayed, you know, and told God all that about wanting to be different and have him live in my heart. I reckon what I’m saying is that I didn’t know if I’d been what you called born again myself. I just couldn’t say for sure. So I figured it couldn’t do no harm to pray all that again, even if I was already on my way to heaven.
“So I did. I prayed it just like Katie’d done. I was still holding her hand, and I closed my eyes and told God I wanted him to live with me too, just like Katie, and I asked him to help me, and to help us both do what he wanted us to, and to be the kind of people he wanted us to be for a change. And when I was all done I stopped, and then I heard Katie whisper a real soft Amen. I looked down at her and her eyes were closed again, and the most peaceful look was on her face. I just sat there a long time, her hand in mine. And pretty soon she was asleep, with just a faint smile still on her lips. So I slipped my hand out from hers and came straight down here to tell you what we done.”
Our house was so quiet! The only dry eyes in the place were Tad’s and little Erich’s.
Pa’s hand was on Uncle Nick’s shoulder again. “You done good, Nick,” he said. “You done what you needed to do. It takes a real man to do what you did, to stand up in prayer for himself and his wife. Aggie and your ma and pa’d all be proud of you.” He paused just a second or two, then added, “And I’m right proud of you too!”
“Amen!” said Almeda.
I was so happy! We all were. And even though nobody said anything for another spell, all I could think of were Pa’s words. And I knew he was right—there was rejoicing going on right then in heaven!
Chapter 47
God’s Little Community
The next few days were a joyous time. Uncle Nick’s and Almeda’s faces showed that a weight of concern had been lifted from them. And among all of us there was a sense of calm and peace, a good feeling, that would erupt every so often in laughter. Pa played with Tad like I hadn’t seen him do in a long time, and Emily asked if she could invite Mike McGee to the house for dinner the next Sunday afternoon. Uncle Nick could be seen bounding all over the property and up and down between the two houses with Erich on his shoulders, laughing and carrying on like they were two little kids. There was really a change in him. How much had to do with Katie, and how much had to do with what he’d done himself, I didn’t know.
It didn’t matter. A new spirit was suddenly alive among us all because Katie had opened up her heart—and it was wonderful!
Almeda remained quiet. I knew she had to take it slow on account of the pregnancy, and every time Doc Shoemaker came to the house he would say, “Now you just don’t let yourself get excited about anything, you hear me, Almeda?” But I think her joy went deeper than it did for anyone else. She probably knew in a more personal way how hard it had been for Katie, and knew more of what Katie was feeling because she had felt the exact same things herself. She had shared her own life with Katie, painful as all the recollections were, and endured the emotional pain over what Katie had said. After all that, and the loss of Katie’s child, to have Katie finally say that she wanted to know God’s love for herself meant more to Almeda than she could have expressed.
She went up to see Katie the next morning. I asked her if she wanted me to go with her.
“Walk me up to the creek, Corrie,” she answered. “But then you can come back down here. I want to talk to Katie alone.”
She was there a long time. When she got back home she was clearly tired but there was a peaceful smile on her face. Pa asked her what had happened.
“We had a long talk,” Almeda said. “A more personal time than we’ve ever had. She opened up whole new areas of her life to me. She’s really a changed woman! I think we’re at last ready to be sisters. And then we prayed together, for the fi
rst time, and when I left she hugged me.”
There were tears in Almeda’s eyes even before she was through telling about it. She turned and went inside and straight to her bed. Pa just put his arm around my shoulder and gave me a squeeze, and said nothing for a minute.
“The Lord’s really up to some unexpected things around here, ain’t he, Corrie?” he said finally.
“You can say that again!” I said.
“Nick’s just as changed inside as Katie,” he said. “And I aim to sit him down like Almeda’s done with Katie, and talk about some things and get him to praying too. It’s time all ten of us—well, at least the nine of us except for little Erich—it’s time we all started praying together and bringing God into everything we do around this little community of ours.”
“Community, Pa?”
“Yeah, Corrie. Don’t you see—we got two houses, two families, nine or ten people, however you count them—”
“Soon to be eleven,” I put in.
“Yeah, well I reckon you’re right—eleven. But you see, here we are a little community within the bigger community. And if all of us—this nine or ten or eleven of us dedicate ourselves to live in what we do by what God tells his folks to do, then it just seems to me that other folks around might sooner or later stand up and take notice, and say, ‘Hey, I want to be part of living that kind of life too.’ You see, Corrie, it’s gotta start someplace, people joining themselves to live together like God’s people. I’ve been thinking a lot about this, and now with Katie and Nick doing what they’ve done, I figure God might be about to do some new things among us that we haven’t seen before.”
“That sounds exciting, Pa,” I said. My mind flashed back to my talk with Zack at the picnic, and I wondered if I wanted to leave this little “community,” as Pa called it, of the Hollister-Belle families. Pa made it sound like there couldn’t be a better place to be than right here in the middle of where God was at work. “What do you think he’s going to do now?”
“How could I know that?” he answered. “I’m not about to start trying to figure God’s ways out ahead of time. I’d have never figured a bunch of people like us would be all together like this. Almeda’s from Boston, and Katie’s from Virginia! But God’s got a way of bringing folks together from places about as far apart as we can imagine, and then, boom—there they are together and he starts working among them. So how could I try to figure what he’s gonna do next?”
“I see what you mean, Pa.”
“But I’m sure of one thing.”
“What’s that?”
“When God sets about knittin’ folks together—just like weaving threads to make a piece of cloth—when God starts doing that, then good things happen. Just like all of us here—good things are gonna happen, Corrie, I can just feel it. Other folks besides Katie and Nick are gonna find out what it really means to live like God’s people.”
“How will they find out?”
“Who can tell? They just will. I don’t doubt my being mayor’s got something to do with what the Lord’s up to. It’s no accident I got elected when nothing could have been further from my mind. And your writing, Corrie. People read the things you write.”
“But I don’t write anything about God or what’s happened here in our family.”
“You might someday. And when you do, people are gonna pay attention to what you say. They’re gonna listen, and they’re gonna say, ‘Hey, I want to live the kind of life Corrie Belle Hollister talks about . . . I want to be a Christian like that . . . I want to pray and know God’s love.’ You see, Corrie, there’s all kinds of stuff God’s gonna do with all of us, and with lots of other people too. We’ve only just seen the beginning!”
Chapter 48
New Life
Katie was up and out of bed within two days. Everything about her was changed. You’d have never known she just lost a baby. It was as if she had made a decision to be different from now on—which she had!—and was determined to act accordingly. And of course, God living inside her made the biggest difference of all!
All of a sudden, she was down at our place all the time. It reminded me of the time before Pa and Almeda had been married. There was Katie again in our house, bustling about the kitchen, helping with everything. Now Almeda was being pampered and cared for—with Katie and the three of us girls all taking care of her. I usually went into town to handle the business at the freight office. Doc Shoemaker came out every day. Pa wandered about, not able to get much work done for nervousness, but hardly able to get near Almeda—as much as he wanted to help—for all the women tending to her!
After all that had happened, the birth of Pa and Almeda’s baby came almost as a routine event in our lives. It was, of course, one of the greatest things that had ever happened, but there was no huge crisis like there’d been with Katie. One morning about two and a half weeks later, Almeda calmly said to Katie, “I think my labor’s begun. You’d better send Drummond for the doctor.”
The birthing wasn’t routine for Pa! He scurried around like a nervous old lady! He sent Zack for Doc Shoemaker. He didn’t leave Almeda’s side for a second until the Doc came and shooed everyone out of the bedroom.
Almeda’s labor lasted about five hours. I don’t know whether it was as painful as Katie’s, but she didn’t cry out like Katie had. About the middle of the afternoon, all of us except Doc and Katie were gathered in the big room. Suddenly we heard some shouts and exclamations, followed by the cry of a baby.
Pa jumped out of his chair and was off to the bedroom like a shot! The doctor tried to keep him out for a few more minutes, but it was no use.
For the next hour the whole house was like a beehive—nobody could sit or stand still for a second. There were kids and men and women, the doctor and Katie and Uncle Nick—everyone moving to and fro, cleaning and congratulating and laughing and talking. Mrs. Gianini was there too—there was hardly a birthing for miles around Miracle Springs that she didn’t attend.
Late in the afternoon, after things were more or less back to normal, Doc Shoemaker let us go into the bedroom one at a time and have a visit with Almeda and to see her and Pa’s little daughter. Almeda gave me such a smile when I walked in! For the first time in my life, I found myself wondering what it would be like to become a mother.
“What do you think of your new baby sister, Corrie?” she said.
“She’s wonderful.” What else could I say? She truly was!
They named her Ruth. “Ruth has long been one of my favorite Bible women,” said Almeda. “God took a foreigner from a strange land and grafted her into the royal line of his people. That’s just how I feel to be married to your father,” she told me. “So blessed of God beyond what I deserve. Our daughter’s name will always remind me of God’s goodness in bringing me, like Ruth, from a distant place to give me a new life here.”
There was a bit of a dispute over little Ruth’s middle name, with both Pa and Almeda showing that they wanted to honor the other above themselves.
“Parrish has gotta be her middle name,” said Pa.
“But I was only a Parrish for a few years,” objected Almeda. “How can we name our daughter after my first husband?”
“Ain’t no different than naming her after my first wife.” Almeda wanted to use the name Agatha in honor of Ma.
“That’s completely different,” said Almeda. “Your Aggie is the mother of my children now. I love her because of them.”
“That may be,” said Pa. “But I’m still mighty grateful for what Mr. Parrish did for you. If it hadn’t been for him, you wouldn’t be walking with God now, and wouldn’t be my wife. I owe the man plenty, and some day I’m gonna shake his hand and tell him so. Besides, I first knew you as a Parrish, and I kinda like the name!”
In the end they compromised and used both names. She became Ruth Agatha Parrish Hollister.
Chapter 49
Twenty-One
The rest of the spring and then the summer passed quickly.
What a difference a little baby made to life in our little community! There was new life all around—on Katie’s face, in little Ruth’s crib, in Uncle Nick’s walk, and in Pa’s stature as a leader in town and among his acquaintances. I could see what Pa had said to me happening—that people would be taking notice of the life that was flowing out on the Hollister-Belle claims.
I had done a lot of thinking about what he’d said about my writing too. And so later that summer I started devoting myself to it again. I didn’t write any major articles, but I started spending more time thinking about stories I could write, and dusting off some of my old ideas. I sent some stories to Mr. Kemble and he printed them all in the paper, and was always encouraging me to write more. As I did, I found myself thinking more and more about how I could work God into what I wrote in a way that Mr. Kemble would still find newsworthy. I wanted people who read my articles to know that I was living my life as a daughter of God, not as a person who never thought about him.
I also kept writing in my journal. I wrote about Rev. Rutledge’s and Miss Stansberry’s wedding. Rev. Rutledge asked Pa to perform the ceremony, and then the men in town really started teasing Pa about being a preacher! But he didn’t mind. And pretty soon Harriet was expecting a baby too!
I also filled several pages of my journal with the story about Emily and Mike McGee. He didn’t just come for dinner that Sunday. He started coming out to the cabin nearly every day. And just before Christmas later that year, he came to see Pa and asked if he could marry Emily. Pa was shocked! Everybody liked Mike, even though he always talked about that new game he liked to play. But marry him! “The girl’s only just seventeen!” Pa must’ve exclaimed three dozen times.
But the most important entry in my journal came in March of 1858. It was my twenty-first birthday, and in a lot of ways it was a day when something inside me said, “Well, I suppose I’m getting close to being grown up now.”
A Place in the Sun Page 27
