by Jane Peart
What Johanna did not understand was that far from being unfriendly, the mountain people were hesitant to intrude on someone they considered smarter, more accomplished than themselves. They would never offer help or advice that wasn’t requested.
Ironically, Johanna discovered that among the books her mother had packed in her trunk was the well-thumbed dictionary her father had given her when she was ten. There was a needlepoint marker in the P’s, the last section in which she had looked up a word, memorized the definition. She smiled, a trifle nostalgically. Her father’s admonition was still a good one. She would continue to learn a new word every day, even if there was no one to test her on it.
“Perseverance,” “persistence,” “patience,” were all good goals to pursue in this new life she had taken on. She needed them all as she tried to “perfect” her wifely skills. All had been badly employed as she groaned over lumpy rice, burned biscuits, scorched cornbread.
But Johanna was determined she would learn. And slowly, gradually, painfully, she did.
Johanna’s inner doubts were transitory, usually lasting only the length of a long day spent alone when Ross was late coming home from “doctoring.” She was happy, Johanna told herself over and over. She loved Ross and she tried to keep her moments of melancholy well hidden from him.
One night Ross was out very late. He’d been called to tend the children of the storekeeper, who all had bad earaches. The Millscreek Gap store also housed the post office, and while there, Ross had been given a letter addressed to Johanna.
When he got home, he found Johanna asleep in the rocker by the fire. Ross placed the letter on the mantelpiece, then gently wakened Johanna and carried her to bed. She sleepily acknowledged his presence but went right back to sleep. It wasn’t until morning that he told her about the letter.
For some reason, she waited until Ross left to open it.
She recognized her mother’s fine penmanship and opened the letter at once. As she read it, she felt a rush of unexpected emotion. Pictures of Holly Grove flooded into her mind. She could almost smell the scent of potpourri, flowers from her mother’s garden, the mingled smells of polished wood, baking apples, and beeswax candles. Turning page after page, other familiar images came. Things she hadn’t realized she cared much about or missed, now became cherished memories. Johanna had left all of this happily for “love and the world well lost.” A dear, familiar world, as it turned out.
Johanna read on.
Cissy is growing into a very pretty young woman and is agreeable in every way. We had a length of silk, striped in pale blue and cerise, made into a lovely gown for her to wear to the Pettigrew’s party, at which she was quite the belle of the ball.
Impatiently Johanna put the letter down for a minute. She could just imagine how Cissy was “toeing the mark” to her mother’s satisfaction. She could read between the lines her mother had written, could almost hear all the same things her parents had tried to tell her. If she had listened…
Johanna got up and walked restlessly around the room. Why should news of the social life in Hillsboro bother her now? She didn’t really miss it, did she?
When she had first come to the mountains, the possibility of unhappiness had seemed impossible, but now…
Suddenly the cabin door opened and Ross stood there. Startled, Johanna winked back her tears and got to her feet.
“Why, Ross! What are you doing back?”
He remained standing there for a full minute, then said, “I’m not sure, Johanna. I just thought maybe you might need me.”
Johanna’s heart lurched. She dropped the letter as she ran to him.
“Oh, Ross!” She flung herself into his outstretched arms. As they closed around her, she rejoiced in their strength, in the safety and security she felt in his embrace. Why should she ever regret anything? She could not stop the tears, but now they were not tears of self-pity but of thankfulness. How lucky she was to have this love. How ungrateful to ever question it or doubt that it was meant to be.
It frightened her that even for a little while, she had allowed herself to waver as to whether she had made the right decision. Ross was real, not the romantic myth they had tried to describe him as. He was the reason she had resisted all attempts to persuade her to give him up.
That night, the mountains echoed with the first summer storm. It began slowly, with big raindrops pattering on the roof then quickly becoming a deafening thudding. Thunder boomed, echoing through the ridges and valleys of the mountains that surrounded the cabin. Great jagged forks of lightning crackled in the darkened sky. Awakened, Johanna moved closer to Ross, who slept on, as if used to this kind of nature’s noise. He was of these mountains, Johanna thought, born and raised here. Nothing about them disturbed or frightened him. Without waking, he drew her close. His nearness thrust away the uncertainties and doubts she’d had that day. Fear brought on by the storm disappeared as she moved closer to Ross, felt his lean, warm body. A warmth, a sense of security, took its place. This wonderful man who loved her, who understood her, to whom she was important, was her protection against foolish regrets. Here in his arms was safety, tenderness. She must value them, know how richly she was blessed.
Ross was her life now. She would prove her parents wrong.
Johanna knew she needed something to help her cope with her new life. She didn’t know what. She had not thought beyond marrying Ross, getting her heart’s desire. She had not anticipated the standoffishness she had encountered in Millscreek. Other than Aunt Bertie, none of the women she had met had invited her to visit nor taken her up on her invitations. Not even Merriman’s wife, Jenny. Every time they were all at Eliza’s house, Johanna had asked her. Jenny seemed even shyer than the little girls.
Johanna’s feelings about Ross’s mother troubled her most of all. She did not feel Eliza really accepted her. No matter how hard she tried, Ross’s mother maintained an aloofness that Johanna could not seem to bridge.
Help for her anxious heart came from two unexpected sources. The first was from Uncle Tanner, who happened to drop in at the worst possible time. Johanna was crying tears of frustration over a batch of burned biscuits when his knock at the door and his friendly “Howdy, anybody home?” came.
Johanna hastily wiped her eyes, banged down the tin, and hurried out onto the porch to greet him. She invited him in but he said, “I reckon just some water will do me, as Bertie’s expecting me home right quick.” Johanna walked with him up the stone path to the spring. While Uncle Tanner helped himself to two dipperfuls, Johanna’s expression must have told him something, because he said gently, “I gotta ‘spicion you’re feelin’ some sorriness. Anythin’ I kin do might help?”
“Oh, it probably sounds silly, Uncle Tanner. I just burned a whole batch of biscuits.” Tears filled her eyes again. “Sometimes it seems I can’t do anything right, and”—before she knew it, she was unloading to him—“and nobody seems to like me here!”
“Now, girly, let me give you a piece of advice. Go slow. Mountain folk don’t make up to strangers easy, but once they take you in, nobody in the world could have kinder kin. You mark my words. Eliza will come ‘round. My Bertie’ll show the way, but you’ll see. You’re one of the family now—”
Uncle Tanner’s soft-spoken voice fell like soothing balm. She had longed for just such comfort. His words were as much a gift of love as the beautifully crafted rocker. His genuine warmth, his smile, and his gentle way touched her deeply. As she waved him off, she felt much better. She went back inside, tossed out the “burned offering,” and started mixing up another batch of biscuits.
One morning not long after Uncle Tanner’s visit, Johanna was out weeding in the small vegetable garden Ross had started for her, when she heard the sound of horse’s hooves plodding up the hill. She sat back on her heels, one hand shading her eyes, and looked to see who her visitor might be.
A stocky man in a shabby swallow-tailed coat, battered hat, and dusty boots dismounted and nodded toward Johanna. He h
ad a scruffy red beard, prominent nose, but twinkly, bright blue eyes. He took off his hat, showing a balding head, then grinned and greeted her. “Howdy, ma’am. A good day to you and praise the Lord! Nathan Tomlin here. I’m the circuit preacher. Come to pay you a call.”
Johanna got to her feet, aware of the skirt she had tucked up, the sunbonnet that had fallen back from her perspiring face. Self-consciously she wiped her dirty hands on her apron.
“Good morning.” She tried to sound welcoming. Meanwhile she was hoping she had left the kitchen tidy before coming outside, and wondering what-on-earth refreshment she could offer him.
“Mighty pleased to meet you, ma’am. I knowed Ross from the time he were knee-high to a grasshopper. Growed up to be a doctor!” Preacher Tomlin shook his head as if in amazement. “Eliza told me he had hisself a peart wife, now. So I come up to see if it were true,” he chuckled, “and to make your acquaintance.”
“Please, won’t you come inside?” Johanna asked, feeling flustered. She should be better prepared for company, she told herself, even if she rarely had any. Her mother was always prepared, serving without seeming fuss a dainty tea tray, whether it was a neighbor or their minister making a pastoral call.
“Thanky kindly, ma’am.” He took out a red bandanna and made a swipe at his perspiring forehead. “Mighty hot morning, and something to wet my whistle would go down mighty fine.”
Johanna untied her sunbonnet, stuffed it into the deep pocket of her apron, patted her hair, then ushered the preacher into the house. Inside, a quick look around assured her it didn’t look bad. The floor was swept, the place neat. She was happy she had picked a bunch of wildflowers earlier and set them into a glazed pottery jug on the table.
Johanna picked up the kettle to heat water for tea, but Reverend Tomlin held up his hand. “Don’t trouble yourself, ma’am. I got a passel of visits to make this day, so I can’t stay long. Just a dipper of your spring water is all I need.”
“You’re sure?” she asked.
“Yes ma’am, thanky kindly,” he nodded.
As she took out a tumbler and started to fill it, she saw his gaze sweep the room as if looking for something. After he took the glass of water she handed him, drained it, and returned it to her, he commented, “No Bible, young lady?” His eyes were kind, if curious. “In most mountain homes, it’s in a place of honor, like yonder on the mantelpiece, or at the table so’s it can be read mornin’ and night.”
At the mild reproach in his tone, Johanna blushed. Quickly she pointed to her small leather New Testament she’d had since school days, beside her prayer book on the hutch.
Preacher Tomlin shook his head and said gently, “That ain’t enuf. Not by a long shot. Gotta have the whole Word, read it every day! The Prophets, the Psalms, and Proverbs. Next time I ride by, I’ll bring you one,” he promised, then he moved toward the door. “Now I’ll bid you good day. Got places to go, people to see,” he laughed. “Didn’t mean to admonish you, but remember, ‘Who the Lord loveth, he chastiseth.’ The woman is the heart of the home, you know. Ross needs to hear the Scriptures every day to give him the strength he needs in his chosen work. You need to provide that for him.”
Johanna stood on the porch and watched Preacher Tomlin mount his horse, turn around, and start down the mountainside. She felt strangely sobered by his visit.
As much a surprise to her as it might have been to Nathan Tomlin, a verse came into her mind just then—“Be not forgetful to entertain strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unaware.” Johanna almost had to smile in astonishment. Surely that was from Scripture! But from whatever unknown memory source it had come, Johanna knew it was important. However, she had no idea at the time how it would affect her life.
Johanna had never been what people call “religious”—she was certainly not “pious,” as Aunt Hannah was—but there was a deep core of spiritual longing that she had never been quite so aware of as she was now. Although she had attended church with her family regularly every Sunday, whatever the subject of the sermon was, it was quickly forgotten. Johanna had never thought deeply about spiritual things. Lately, however, surrounded by the natural beauty of God’s creation wherever she looked, Johanna was filled with awe and reverence. There had been no channel for it, no way she’d found to express it. Ross said a perfunctory blessing over their evening meal, but he was usually so tired when he finally got home that it was short. Often he hardly got through supper before his eyelids would droop, and not long after the meal ended he would kiss her good night and go to bed, exhausted by the rigors of his day. Many nights, Johanna sat by the fire long afterward, gazing into the flickering flames until they burned into glowing embers. It was at times like this when she most felt the emptiness within.
After Preacher Tomlin’s call, Johanna felt chastened. She did not know exactly what to do about it. However, a few days later, true to his promise, he stopped by and brought her a Bible.
“You’re goin’ to find God’s very close up here in the mountains, little lady,” he told her before he rode off. Johanna soon discovered that as untaught as the disheveled-looking preacher seemed, as much as he altered the King’s English, there was a goodness of heart, a genuineness, that she had never encountered before.
In the Bible he gave her, there were dog-eared pages, notations in the margins, verses underlined. She began to read it daily. First, the marked chapters, out of curiosity as to what Preacher Tomlin might feel was important. Then more and more she found her own favorites. On warm afternoons, she would sit on the small porch of the cabin, in the sunshine, the Bible on her lap. Gradually some of the verses became familiar, and she began to say them softly to herself, memorize them. Quickly Psalm 121 became a favorite. “I will lift mine eyes unto the hills—From whence cometh my help? My help comes from the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth.” Johanna felt she needed help badly—to adjust to the loneliness of her new life, to become a good wife to Ross, the helpmeet he needed. She loved him more than ever, and she never wanted him to be sorry he had married someone not up to the challenge of being the wife of a mountain doctor. She often recalled Aunt Hannah saying, “You can’t live on love, my girl.” Well, without love it would have been impossible.
Church was only held if Preacher Tomlin was in the neighborhood over a Sunday. The announcement that he was going to conduct a meeting would be circulated by word of mouth up and down the mountain. Ross usually brought home the news, but if there was sickness or a baby to be delivered, he could not accompany Johanna that Sunday.
The service was informal. No set ritual seemed to be observed, and it did not have a certain time that it was over. People brought their children, went up for healing prayers, commented with “amens” during Reverend Tomlin’s sermons, which were apt to ramble and get diverted when his eye found someone in the congregation he wanted to address. Often he would break off in the middle of a sentence to say, “Good to see you, Sister Anna. How’s your rheumatiz? Do say? Well, come up for prayer.” Although this rather startled her the first time she attended, Johanna began to regard it as a real, down-to-earth way of reaching people—perhaps even the way Jesus might have done it when folks gathered around him and he talked, touched, and taught them. The hymns were sung without benefit of an organ. Someone would start and others would join in. The same verse might be sung over and over, and finally just fade away. “On Jordan’s stormy banks I stand / And cast a wishful eye / To Canaan’s fair and happy land / Where my possessions lie” or “O brother, it’s how will you stand / And it’s how you will stand on that day?” or “Sowing on the mountain / Reaping in the valley / You’re going to reap just what you sow.”
Johanna could not help but compare the services here with the formal services of the Hillsboro church she had always attended. There an air of solemnity reigned—the measured tones of the organ, the ritual that never deviated for that particular day of the church calendar designated by the prayer book. Here the small, frame church rang with hands clappi
ng, feet tapping, spontaneous “hallelujahs,” and joyously sung hymns. When Johanna looked around at the smiling faces, even the little children swaying to the rhythms, she thought that as different as the forms of worship were, maybe both were equally pleasing to God.
One Sunday when she and Ross had gone to church together, outside afterward Aunt Bertie had urged, “You-all come along home with us.” Johanna always enjoyed being with the old lady, who she found was a fount of wisdom, humor, and good advice.
Ross went outside with Uncle Tanner to his apple press. It was soon going to be time to make cider and for Aunt Bertie to make her apple butter. The smell of biscuits baking and sausage frying crisply filled the cabin with delicious odor. “Can I do anything to help?” Johanna asked.
“No, thanky kindly, not this mawnin’, but come time for me to make my apple butter, I might need some help a-stirrin’. You see, it’s a daylong job. Them apples gotta be stirred every single minute. If a body don’t stand right over the iron pot and keep that paddle moving, the apples’d burn and the apple butter would be plum ruined. A heap of folks ruin their apple butter by not doing so. There’s nothin worst than scorched apple butter.”
Aunt Bertie went to the door and called out to Uncle Tanner and Ross to come in and eat. Coming back to the table, she said to Johanna, “Apple butter makin’s not for a lazy-body or a weakly person. That’s what I meant by mebbe you could come help me the day I do mine. Take turns a-stirrin.”
Johanna said, “I’d be glad to, Aunt Bertie,” having no idea what she had let herself in for.
Chapter Fifteen
One evening when Johanna stepped out on the porch to hang up the dishpan, she called to Ross, “Come out here and see this!” She pointed to a new moon, a pale, thin crescent in the dark cobalt sky. “Have you ever seen anything so beautiful?” Standing behind her, he put his arms around her waist, bent his cheek against hers.
