Daughter of Grace

by Michael Phillips

  “That would be something!” I said.

  “You can never tell what God might do, Corrie. Sometimes those trees across our path, like Avery was talking about today, are thrown there by God because He has some wonderful new thing to do in our lives that we’d never see with our eyes fixed straight ahead. I have no doubt at all that He will take you on many interesting and unexpected paths, and as long as you are obeying Him and trusting Him, they will be wonderful ones! But I suppose we had better not leave my other guests alone any longer!”

  “Thank you for the book, Mrs. Parrish. I’ll treasure it!”

  “I just pray it encourages you to be faithful to your journal and your other writing. I feel God is going to use your writing, Corrie. And perhaps making a friend of Thoreau will help.”

  Chapter 30

  A Determined Lady

  Katie’s talkativeness and cheerfulness came into our house like a summer wind.

  She was the kind of person I couldn’t help liking. And I think Pa liked her, too. But after a couple of weeks, I found myself starting to wonder what it was going to be like having her there forever. Gradually she stopped being just a visitor. Our home began to seem more like it was her home, where she was in charge.

  Maybe she figured that was how Pa wanted it. That was why he brought her here, wasn’t it, to manage the household? That’s how wives did it.

  And maybe that’s how Pa did want it, how was I to know? But to my eyes it began to look like she was getting pretty determined about how things were to be done, when it wasn’t even her own place yet. But then again, in less than a month it was going to be half her place, so maybe everything was just as it ought to be.

  One afternoon Uncle Nick and Pa were later than usual coming down from the mine. Uncle Nick was the first to come inside, and he no more than stepped foot inside the door when Katie half-hollered over her shoulder to him, “Come on, Nick, get washed up. Supper’s ready and I don’t want it getting cold. You too, Drum,” she added to Pa as he walked in. “Come on, kids, everyone around the table!” Nobody thought to say anything, we all just did as she said. Pa and Uncle Nick turned right around to go back out to wash their hands. I guess it was a little thing, but I noticed.

  From the very beginning she was always cleaning up around the place. At first it was nice. I thought I’d been doing pretty good filling in for Ma, but once Katie arrived, with her sweeping and dusting and scrubbing, I realized how little I really had done.

  What Pa noticed, I think, wasn’t the cleaning so much as the straightening and rearranging. Often I’d see him stop and look around for something that wasn’t where he kept it. She’d see the puzzled look on his face, ask him what he was looking for, and then go get whatever it was for him.

  One night he and Nick were sitting in front of the fire smoking their pipes, their feet up on a low table in front of them. They still had their boots on, and they weren’t any more clean than boots generally are. As Katie approached I saw Uncle Nick give Pa a quick wink, then scrape his boots together so that some of the dirt fell off onto the table.

  Sure enough, Katie saw it and marched right over. “I just cleaned that table today, and I’ll thank you to keep your boots off it and your dirt outside!”

  “Aw, for crying out loud, woman,” said Uncle Nick, “this is our cabin, not no fancy hotel!” He was joking with her, but she didn’t realize it. Her next words were heated.

  “Now you look here, Nick Belle. Your brother-in-law brought me here to keep a nice and tidy house for him. If you don’t like the way I do it, then I suggest you find another.”

  Uncle Nick was so shocked at what she said he didn’t say anything more for a minute. The smile stuck on his face for a moment, then slowly faded.

  “Now hold on there, Miss Kathryn,” said Pa. “Nick didn’t mean no harm. But he’s right about what he said. This is our place, and we ain’t used to trying to keep every speck of dirt out of it. I reckon you’ll just have to get used to a little dirt here and there.”

  Katie looked at Pa, seeming surprised for a moment, but with no intention of backing down.

  “I see,” she said slowly. “Well, if that’s the way you want it, I’ll comply somehow. But that’s no way to run a house, Drummond Hollister, I can tell you that.”

  She turned and walked away, leaving Pa and Uncle Nick exchanging looks that said more than they’d have wanted Katie to see. Nick was smiling and winking again. Pa was serious.

  And despite what she said about complying, when Pa and Uncle Nick finally got up, I saw her go over, pick up the two pipes lying there, empty the tobacco from them into the fire, and then put them up on a mantle shelf. Later, before he went out to the barn, I saw him walk over that direction looking for it.

  “Where’s my pipe?” he finally said, half-muttering, to no one in particular.

  “Up on the mantle,” said Katie.

  Pa located it, then headed for the door.

  “You’re not going to smoke out in the barn, are you?” Katie asked.

  Pa half shrugged that he was.

  “Oh no, Drummond. Not with all that straw out there, and the children and me sleeping so close by. It’s not at all safe. No—you do your smoking in here.”

  I thought Pa was going to say something, but then he apparently thought better of it. He turned around, strode quickly back to the fireplace, tossed his pipe back on the mantle, and left the house without another word, not even a good night to the rest of us.

  Five minutes later, from out in the barn I heard a loud laugh from Uncle Nick and I knew Pa’d told him what had just then happened over the pipe. Uncle Nick got a kick out of Katie’s ways. I think sometimes he even goaded her on just to rile her. But it seemed it was starting to annoy Pa.

  Even though Katie may have been a mite bossy, we sat down to nice meals together like a family ought to, and everybody’s manners improved, especially Zack’s and Uncle Nick’s. Pa was pretty mannerly anyway. But Uncle Nick was noticeably cleaner, and he started shaving more regularly. He hardly ever went into town in the evenings after Katie got there. He just seemed to like being around the place.

  After a week or two, he and Katie were getting along real friendly, although he teased her something awful—like with the boots on the table—causing little scuffles between her and Pa. But that was always Uncle Nick’s way—teasing, kidding, laughing, causing trouble, having fun—and I could tell he enjoyed having somebody new to do it all with, especially a woman only a few years younger than him. When he realized Katie was strong-headed enough to throw it all right back at him, I wondered if he’d finally met his match. Katie would come right back with a remark to one of his wisecracks, sometimes with a quick glance or smile in my direction to say, “See, men aren’t so tough. You just have to know how to handle them.”

  Well, she might have had it figured out how to handle Uncle Nick, but I wasn’t sure her way was going to work with Pa. Maybe on account of Pa knowing she was going to be his wife, everything was more serious. Marriage must do that to folks.

  The third Sunday after Katie got there, Pa was moving around getting himself and the wagon ready to go into town. Then as we were getting set for breakfast, he said, “You kids get dressed in your Sunday duds soon as you’re done eating, so we can get into church on time.”

  “I didn’t know we had plans to go into town today, Drummond,” said Katie, pausing and looking up at him as she stirred the eggs scrambling on the stove.

  “Well, it’s Sunday, ain’t it? I just figured that we’d—”

  “I told you before, Drummond,” Katie interrupted, “I do not intend to make a regular ritual of listening to that man’s religious pronouncements about trees and paths and God and forests and whatever else it was he so enlightened us about two weeks ago. And last week wasn’t much better, though I put up with it. But I told you I wasn’t going to make it an every-week thing.”

  “You tell him, Katie!” kidded Uncle Nick, giving her a little jab in the ribs. Uncle N
ick was always trying to protect folks from getting too serious.

  Katie’s eyes flashed and she glanced at Uncle Nick. At first I thought she was going to lash out at him, but it wasn’t anger gleaming out of her eyes.

  “You shut up and stay out of this, Nick,” said Pa. “This is between me and Miss Kathryn and the kids. I’m telling you all that I’m taking my family to church this morning. Be ready, all of you, after breakfast!”

  He turned and left the house, and we didn’t see him for half an hour. It was a pretty quiet meal. We’d all heard every word and I think the argument frightened us. Uncle Nick did his best to cheer us up around the table by saying it was all going to work out fine.

  We went to church, just Pa and us five kids. Afterward, we played for another half an hour while Pa and Rev. Rutledge talked about the wedding. When Pa came outside and climbed back up in the wagon, he said, “Well, it’s all set—the fifteenth, after the service.”

  “That’s in just two weeks, Pa,” I said.

  “Might as well get the thing done, Corrie. She’s doing all the things a wife’s supposed to do. Might as well make it official and get on with it. Where’s Becky?” said Pa, suddenly looking around and realizing he was one youngster short. I hadn’t even realized she’d slipped away.

  “She’s over in them woods, Pa,” said Zack, pointing out behind the church building. “There’s a little grove of firs and she goes there all the time during school.”

  “Run and fetch her, will you, Zack?”

  “Sure, Pa.” Zack was off the wagon and out of sight in a few seconds. He’d not only grown taller, but he was faster as well.

  In a couple of minutes he and Becky reappeared, and we set off for home.

  Uncle Nick was right. Everything was fine after we got home. The incident before breakfast blew over and no one mentioned it again. I reckon making plans with the minister must have settled things in Pa’s mind, because he didn’t seem to be annoyed at things Katie did after that. He told her that he and the minister had set the date, and she nodded her approval.

  “There are many things we will have to discuss, Drummond,” she said.

  “I reckon,” said Pa. “We got two weeks.”

  “Which isn’t long,” persisted Katie.

  Pa nodded. There were no more fusses after that.

  Two nights later, I found myself lying in bed awake. Gradually, Pa and Katie’s voices reached my ears from the other room. Nick was already out in the barn. Everyone but me was asleep, and I guess they thought I was too. I figured they were talking about some of those things Katie said they needed to “discuss.” I just lay there, not paying much attention, just hearing the low sound of their voices.

  But suddenly I realized they were talking about me! I immediately strained to listen.

  “ . . . going to be eighteen next year . . . time a young woman gives thought . . . future comes sooner than . . .”

  It was Katie’s voice talking, but I could only hear pieces of what she said. When Pa spoke I could make out his deeper voice clearly.

  “There’s plenty of time for all that later.”

  “I can tell you from my own experience, Drummond,” Katie answered back, but again I only heard some of her words, “ . . . goes by quickly . . . those years with my aunt and uncle . . . now here I am over thirty . . . lost opportunities . . . just now getting married . . . time we thought about . . . she’s marrying age, Drummond.”

  What! Katie talking to Pa about marrying me off already! I quickly forgot my resolve to be nice to her and the prayers I’d been praying for her, and tried to listen more intently.

  “I ain’t gonna have Corrie getting married any time soon,” said Pa, and I breathed a sigh of relief. “Besides, she ain’t of a mind to be marrying just now anyway. She’s got writing to do and maybe teaching. She asked me about college a while back.”

  “ . . . good thing to have dreams . . . realistic too . . . life in the West . . . need a husband . . . chasing foolish fancies . . .”

  “It ain’t so foolish. She’s written for that paper of Singleton’s, and she’s helping the Stansberry lady with teaching. Corrie’s no ordinary young lady, I tell you. She had to grow up in a hurry when her ma died, and I figure she can do just about anything she sets her mind to.”

  Oh, Pa! I was so proud to hear him say those words!

  “Yes, well . . . discuss it again . . . don’t have to settle Corrie’s whole future right . . . still think it wouldn’t do any harm to look . . .”

  “I’ll tell you again, Miss Kathryn. I may be making you my wife for the young’uns sake. But what becomes of Corrie is for her to decide.”

  Pa’s voice had a finality to it, and I could feel that he believed in me! Just hearing those words made me so happy!

  “Yes, well, that’s fine . . . we’ll see what comes . . . did want to talk to you also . . . the other children . . . school clothes . . . won’t do for them to be chasing around . . . rags don’t befit the children . . . was it that lady called you—a leading citizen?”

  “I ain’t no leading citizen and my kids ain’t dressed in rags.”

  “ . . . only thinking that . . . do have the money, Drummond, to present a better face . . . your family and you . . . people think of you more highly if . . .”

  “I ain’t out to impress no one, or my kids neither.”

  “About Zack . . . he’s—”

  “He’s nearly grown, too, just like Corrie. I ain’t gonna be putting no harnesses on him, neither. He’s a good boy, and—”

  I didn’t hear the last of Pa’s sentence. How I wished Zack could have been listening right then!

  “ . . . agree . . . wonderful young man . . . only feel I would like . . . suitable . . . with that young Indian—”

  “Little Wolf?” exclaimed Pa. “He’s a good kid, too, and harmless.”

  “He is an Indian, and I don’t want him around here . . . don’t know what might . . .”

  “His father trains horses up over the hill! Got a good stable. Them two boys is like brothers. They’re talking about riding together some day, racing horses even. And I ain’t gonna be telling Zack he can’t do something like that. He’s got his heart set on it, and that’s a good enough thing.”

  Pa’s voice had an irritated sound to it again. I guess Katie knew it, because she didn’t say anything more about either me or Zack or getting the young’uns better school clothes. They kept talking for a long time, but settled back into less disagreeable topics. I finally went to sleep with plenty of thoughts still floating around inside.

  Like I said before, things would never be the same again. In less than two weeks that lady sitting out there would be Pa’s wife!

  Chapter 31

  A Talk with Pa

  The very next day, when we got home after school, I could tell Pa was being quieter than usual. There’d been lots of things running through my mind all day, from listening to Pa and Katie the night before. I couldn’t help it. I was worrying again.

  I’d been writing, of course, but I wanted to talk to someone about it too. Because of other things I was thinking about, I knew I couldn’t talk to Mrs. Parrish.

  Maybe part of me knew that there were things on Pa’s mind. I suppose that’s what drew me out to the barn that afternoon. I knew he was there and I knew he was alone, and I hoped maybe we’d be able to talk a little. We hadn’t for a long time.

  When I walked in, I expected to see him shoveling out the stalls, or raking up straw, or fixing or building something. Pa was always busy with his hands. But instead he was just standing there, leaning against a saddle slung over a rail, a piece of straw in his mouth, staring out the window toward the woods across the creek. Just standing there still, not doing anything, not moving.

  “Hi, Pa,” I said.

  He didn’t seem startled. It was almost as if he expected me. He turned around slowly. I’ll never forget that look on his face—not a smile, but neither was it serious. It was almost a look of relief. I h
ad the feeling he was glad it was me instead of Katie.

  “Hi-ya, little girl,” he said. He hadn’t called me that since before he had left New York. I’d forgotten all about it. For a second I was six or seven again! But the present jumped right back at me a moment later.

  He didn’t say another word right then, but when I was close enough, he stretched out one of his great long arms, put it around me and drew me into a close hug for several seconds. When he released me and I stepped back, our eyes met, and I could tell we each knew what was on the other’s mind.

  It was a special moment with Pa. Right then, despite what he’d just called me, I knew he was looking into my eyes as a grown-up, as someone he cared about, and as someone he needed. Even men, I knew, needed someone to understand, needed someone to feel things with, and at that moment I knew I was that someone for Pa.

  “Won’t be long now, huh Pa?” I said with a smile.

  “Yeah,” he sighed, letting out a long breath. “Week from Sunday, I reckon.”

  Again it was quiet.

  “Quite a gal, Miss Kathryn, wouldn’t you say?” he said. He was making conversation, not asking my opinion.

  “You’re right there, Pa,” I said. “She’s got what folks call spunk.”

  Pa laughed. “Yep, that’s a good word for it—spunk! But you can’t help kinda liking her though.”

  “Yeah,” I agreed. “I reckon most anybody’d like Katie Morgan once they met her.”

  “What about you, Corrie?” Pa said. “What do you think? Do you like her?” Now he was asking my opinion.

  “Of course, Pa,” I said. “I like her okay.”

  “You figure she’ll be a good step-ma to the young’uns?”

  “I reckon. They all seem to like her a lot. She’s friendly and nice to everybody.”