Midnight Rescue / The Proposal / Christy's Choice

by Catherine Marshall

  “Maybe it’s too soon,” Miss Alice suggested gently.

  “No,” Christy said. “I want to try again.”

  Again she opened her eyes. Shapes and colors blurred and danced. “Colors!” she whispered. “Blue! I see blue! And . . . red!”

  She closed her eyes again and when she opened them, the tears began to fall.

  It was red she’d seen. It was very red.

  It was the tousled, wild, beautifully red hair of Miss Ruby Mae Morrison.

  Christy turned her head slightly. She made out the slightly blurred image of a big man with a big smile.

  “Neil,” she whispered, “I can see!”

  Without thinking, she threw her arms around him. He held her close, and in a voice only she could hear, whispered, “I’m so glad, Christy, so very glad.”

  She looked up and realized with a start that tears were streaming down the doctor’s face.

  She’d never seen him cry before. She hadn’t even though it was possible, somehow.

  “Oh, Miz Christy,” Ruby Mae exclaimed, “it’s a miracle, is what it is. You must be feelin’ as happy as a robin on the first day of spring!”

  Christy pulled away from the doctor’s arms, suddenly self-conscious. She did feel happy—gloriously happy—and so much more. What had made her throw her arms around Neil that way? Was it relief? Excitement? Or was it something more?

  In an instant, everyone seemed to be hugging Christy at once. When she glanced over at the doctor, he was watching her with a tender smile as he wiped away his tears.

  Fifteen

  On Sunday afternoon after church, Miss Alice had a farewell picnic for Mrs. Grantland, who was leaving the next day. Everyone from Cutter Gap was there to enjoy good food and the beautiful spring afternoon. Each family brought something, however simple, to eat. Even Creed and Zach had contributed the three small fish they’d caught in the pond that morning before church.

  Christy wandered the mission grounds as if she were walking through a spectacular dream. Doctor MacNeill had insisted that she wear a large sunbonnet to protect her eyes, but she could see all she needed to see. The grass had never been so green. The sky had never been so blue. Every sight, no matter how plain, was a gift.

  But it was the faces of her students that held the most magic. Had Creed’s freckles always been so charming? Had Little Burl’s eyes always been so deeply blue? How had she missed so much? Never again would she look at her students without marveling at their precious and unique beauty.

  “Having my sight return is such a blessing,” she said to Doctor MacNeill as they stood on the schoolhouse steps.

  “I’m so glad for you, Christy.”

  “I feel so . . . so lucky.”

  “As it happens, so do I.” The doctor gave her a knowing smile. “I heard you called off your engagement to David.”

  Christy gazed off at the mountain vista beyond the mission house. “I was doing it for the wrong reasons,” she said at last. “But I couldn’t admit it to myself.” She shrugged. “Someone once told me I can be very stubborn.”

  “A wise man, indeed.”

  “I want to thank you, Neil.”

  “For what?”

  “For being there when I needed you. And for being honest with me.” Christy laughed. “I feel like I have so many thank-you’s to say.” She pointed across the yard, where Mrs. Grantland and David were talking. “Take Mrs. Grantland, for instance.”

  “David’s mother? Are we talking about the same woman who disapproved of you from the start?”

  “In spite of her feelings, though, she helped me. And I’m a better teacher because of her. Which reminds me . . . I have a presentation to make. Could you give me a hand?”

  With the doctor’s help, Christy gathered the children together and herded them over to Mrs. Grantland.

  “My, what a procession!” Mrs. Grantland exclaimed. She gave David a questioning look. “What is all this about?”

  “Ask Christy,” David said. “I have no idea.”

  “Better yet,” Christy said, “ask the children. Creed, why don’t you explain?”

  “We got somethin’ for you, Miz Grantland, ’cause you’re a-goin’,” Creed announced.

  “We made it last week,” Ruby Mae added. “Instead of spelling lessons.”

  Mrs. Grantland looked at Christy. “You needn’t have made them do this.”

  “I didn’t. It was their idea completely.”

  “It’s sorta to say thanks with the ’speriment and all. ’Cause you helped us talk Teacher into stayin’,” Creed explained.

  “Who’s the gift monitor?” Christy asked.

  “Me!” came a tiny voice. Vella stepped through the crowd. In her hand was a simple wooden box.

  “Here, Miz Grantland,” she said, holding out the box.

  “Why! Why, it’s a . . .” Mrs. Grantland examined the crude box, looking very confused. “Well, it’s a fine box, children. And I will most certainly think of a use for it. Perhaps .

  . . perhaps I could put pins and needles in it?

  Or maybe—”

  “Naw, Miz Grantland, it ain’t for puttin’ into,” said Zach. “It’s already got stuff in it.”

  “Oh! My mistake.” Mrs. Grantland opened the box. She stared at the bits of dried flowers and grasses inside. “Weeds!” she said, mustering a smile. “Well, I always say you can’t have too many weeds—”

  Christy could see how hard she was trying to be kind. “Smell them,” she urged. “I think you’ll understand.”

  Mrs. Grantland curled her lip a bit, but she bent toward the box and inhaled. Her eyes went wide.

  “Roses!” she cried. “It smells just like roses!”

  “It’s dried wild rose petals and flowers and herbs and such,” John Spencer explained.

  “We knowed you’d like ’em on account of you always stinking like roses,” Creed added helpfully.

  Mrs. Grantland laughed, then breathed in the sweet-smelling box again. Christy was amazed to see a glimmer of tears in her eyes.

  “In all my years of teaching, I’ve never had such a fine gift,” Mrs. Grantland said. “Thank you, children.”

  “Thank you,” Christy said. “I don’t know what I would have done without your help. To tell you the truth, to this day, I don’t know why you helped me.”

  Mrs. Grantland shrugged. “I don’t know. I suppose I liked feeling useful. With David and Ida all grown up, and my husband gone, it was nice to be needed for a while.”

  “You could always start teaching in Richmond again, Mother,” David suggested.

  “You could always start preaching in Richmond,” she replied with a wink.

  “I’m happy here,” David told her gently.

  “I can see that now,” Mrs. Grantland said with a resigned sigh. “But a mother can still hope, can’t she? Just think of all you’re missing, David. The fine restaurants and fancy stores and—”

  “And Delia Jane Manning,” Christy added with a grin.

  “She is a fine girl,” Mrs. Grantland said wistfully. “She’d make some man a beautiful wife . . .”

  “Well, it does seem I’m available once again,” David said, avoiding Christy’s eyes.

  A frantic figure clad in a white apron rushed out of the front door of the mission house.

  “Mother! Mother! David! Come quick!” Miss Ida screeched. She waved something silver in the air.

  “That thar’s one of our fishes!” Zach cried.

  “Ida, dear!” Mrs. Grantland cried. “What’s happened?”

  “The ring! The ring!” Miss Ida cried frantically. She held up a tiny band with a cluster of diamonds on it. “I found it inside this fish!”

  “Great-great-grandmother Grantland’s ring, inside a fish!” Mrs. Grantland fanned her face, as if she might faint yet again. “We can only thank the good Lord she’s not here to witness this!”

  “Zach and I done caught the fish,” Creed cried, “so we get the reward!”

  “It lo
oks like I’ll have to come up with two copies of Huckleberry Finn,” Christy laughed.

  David took the ring from Miss Ida. It glimmered in the sun like a radiant promise. He gazed at Christy, shaking his head. For the first time, he began to smile.

  “You don’t suppose,” he said, “that this is a good omen, do you?”

  Christy smiled back. “Miracles do happen, David,” she said. “At least, that’s been my experience.”

  Christy’s Choice

  Contents

  The Characters

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Abuot The Authoe

  The Characters

  CHRISTY RUDD HUDDLESTON, a nineteen-year-old girl.

  CHRISTY’S STUDENTS:

  CREED ALLEN, age nine.

  BESSIE COBURN, age twelve.

  SAM HOUSTON HOLCOMBE, age nine.

  RUBY MAE MORRISON, age thirteen.

  DAVID GRANTLAND, the young minister.

  IDA GRANTLAND, David’s sister.

  ALICE HENDERSON, a Quaker mission worker originally from Ardmore, Pennsylvania.

  DR. NEIL MACNEILL, the physician of the Cove.

  LETY COBURN, mother of Christy’s student, Bessie.

  KYLE COBURN, Bessie’s father.

  FAIRLIGHT SPENCER, a mountain woman.

  GRANNY BARCLAY, the midwife of the Cove.

  MR. HUDDLESTON, Christy’s father.

  MRS. HUDDLESTON, Christy’s mother.

  GEORGE HUDDLESTON, Christy’s brother.

  LANCE BARCLAY, a young man from Asheville.

  MR. BARCLAY, Lance’s father.

  MRS. BARCLAY, Lance’s mother.

  MABEL BENTLEY, MELISSA BENTLEY,

  ELIZABETH DEERFIELD, and JEANETTE GRADY, Christy’s friends from Asheville.

  THOMAS WOLFE, a boy from Asheville.

  One

  Squeal! Squeeeeal!

  Christy Huddleston was standing in front of her class writing on the blackboard, when suddenly the hogs began squeeling at the top of their lungs.

  Squeeeeeal! Squeeeeeeal!

  “What on earth?” Christy wondered aloud.

  “Teacher, them ol’ hogs is scared somethin’ awful,” Sam Houston Holcombe said.

  “Must be a varmint got in with them,” nine-year-old Creed Allen agreed. “Them’s the sounds of hogs that are mighty afeared.”

  Squeeeeal! Squeeeeeeeal!

  Christy put down her chalk. She sighed and rolled her eyes up to heaven. “Why me?” she whispered. She had to be the only teacher in the world who had hogs living under her classroom.

  The hogs lived in the cool, dark mud beneath the school building, which also served as a church on Sundays. In rustic Cutter Gap, high up in the Great Smoky Mountains of Tennessee, the mountain people were too poor to afford two separate buildings.

  Since the building provided some shelter for the hogs, Christy had learned to accept them—even though sometimes their smell was quite unpleasant.

  Squeeeal! Squeeeeeeeeeal!

  Suddenly, a loud banging came from underneath the floorboards. The hogs were squealing louder and louder. They were making so much noise that Christy knew she couldn’t continue with her lessons.

  Christy walked down the aisle toward the trapdoor that led down to the hogs. “I suppose we had better see what’s going on,” she said.

  “Ma’am, you might best be careful,” Creed warned. “Them hogs is acting downright fitified!”

  “Well, I have to see—” Christy started to say. Suddenly the trapdoor jumped upward with a bang. Christy took a step back.

  With a second blow, the door flew open. A huge hog came leaping up from below. It was in a panic. It scrabbled on the wooden floor, then ran right for Christy.

  “Look out!” Sam Houston yelled.

  Christy snatched up her skirts just in the nick of time. The hog went flying through her legs, leaving a smear of mud on Christy’s stockings.

  Squeeeal! The hog tore around the room, banging into everything in its path.

  “It’s after me!” thirteen-year-old Ruby Mae Morrison cried. She jumped up on a chair. “Keep away, you old hog!”

  Then a second hog seemed to explode up from below. A third hog followed.

  “Look out!” Christy yelled. “Everyone be careful!”

  Now there were three crazy hogs racing madly around the classroom. Children jumped out of their way. Desks were overturned. Books went flying. Papers were blown every which way.

  Sam Houston stuck his head down in the hole and said, “I reckon I know why them hogs is so scared, Miz Christy. There’s a fox down in there with them.”

  “Someone grab these hogs!” Christy said. “They are destroying the classroom.”

  “Dumb old hogs,” Sam Houston said. “Can’t no little fox hurt them none.”

  Squeeeal! Again one of the hogs ran straight for Christy.

  She jumped aside. But when she jumped, she bumped into a second hog, which knocked her off-balance.

  “Look out, Teacher!” Creed Allen yelled.

  Christy teetered on the edge of the opening in the floor. Down below, she could see the quizzical look of the little fox. He was looking up at her. Christy windmilled her arms, trying to keep her balance. But it was no use.

  “Aaaaaah!” she cried.

  Down she fell. Down through the hole in the floor. Down into the mud.

  She landed with a plop. The fox took one look at her and ran.

  When she looked up, Christy could see the faces of her students peering down at her.

  Then, one by one, three more faces appeared. The first was David Grantland, the handsome young preacher who ran the mission.

  He smiled.

  “Is this some new teaching method, Christy?” he asked.

  The second face belonged to Miss Alice Henderson, the Quaker missionary who had founded the mission. She poked her head over the huddled students. Christy could tell she was trying very hard not to grin.

  “Why, Miss Huddleston,” said Miss Alice. “Whatever are you doing down there?”

  The last face to appear belonged to Doctor Neil MacNeill. He didn’t even try to hide his smile. Instead, he laughed outright.

  “No, no, Christy,” he said. “It’s supposed to be you in the classroom and the hogs down below. Not the other way around.”

  “Very funny, all of you,” Christy said through gritted teeth.

  David stuck his hand down. “Come on, I’ll help you up.”

  Christy tried to climb up out of the hole. But the sticky mud held on to her skirts and resisted her attempt to escape. She slipped and fell back again. One of her shoes was so stuck she had to unlace it to get free.

  Finally, after several tries, she emerged back into her classroom. The three hogs had been shooed outside. But it was too late to save Christy’s dress, or her dignity. She was covered from head to toe with mud.

  “You’re not setting a very good example for the students,” David said with a laugh, as the others joined in.

  “I’m glad you’re all enjoying this,” Christy said.

  “Actually, we came to discuss a serious matter with you,” Doctor MacNeill said. Then he wrinkled his nose. “But I think first you might want to see about a bath.”

  “I’ll watch the class,” David volunteered.

  Christy left David in charge of the class and marched out of the schoolhouse to the mission. She was definitely not in a happy mood.

  Miss Ida, David Grantland’s older sister, was in the doorway of the mission house.

  “Surely, Miss Huddleston, you don’t intend to track all that mud into my clean parlor!” she exclaimed.

  Christy just glared at her. Miss Ida decided it might be best to step aside.

  Twenty minutes l
ater, Christy felt almost human again. She had taken a very hot bath, using plenty of soap, and had put on a fresh skirt and blouse. She found Doctor MacNeill and Miss Alice in the parlor, waiting patiently for her.

  Christy set down the basket she was carrying, filled with her muddy clothes. It was going to take hours to get them clean. They seemed to have picked up ten pounds of mud.

  “Feeling better, Christy?” Miss Alice asked.

  “Yes, Miss Alice, I am. I apologize if I seemed ungracious before.”

  “Ungracious?” Doctor MacNeill said. “You looked like you would have bitten the head off anyone who crossed your path.”

  “I believe Christy had reason enough to be snappish,” Miss Alice said kindly. “Perhaps you had best tell her your news, Neil.”

  The doctor grew serious. He leaned forward in his chair. “It’s Bessie Coburn,” he said.

  At the mention of Bessie, Christy’s face clouded with concern. Bessie, who was thirteen, was Ruby Mae’s best friend. The two of them were inseparable. Since Ruby Mae lived right in the mission house, Bessie was often there, too. That is, until very recently, when she’d become ill.

  “Is Bessie’s condition worse?” Christy asked the doctor.

  “Yes. I’m afraid it is,” Doctor MacNeill said.

  “Much worse.”

  Two

  Bessie is in increasing pain,” Doctor MacNeill continued, “and it will only get worse. I am certain now that we are dealing with some sort of a cyst or abscess. I don’t believe it’s life-threatening, at least not yet. But it is very painful. It will have to be removed.”

  “Surgery?” Christy asked. “Poor Bessie.

  She’s just a child.”

  “Yes, we’ll have to perform surgery. And it is more than I can handle here in Cutter Gap.

  I need the facilities of a real hospital. And I would dearly love to consult with Doctor Hugo Mecklen. He is a surgeon who specializes in this area of medicine.”