A Rose Blooms Twice

by Vikki Kestell

  “‘Tis time t’ be joinin’ hands and thankin’ the Lord for protecting us all,” Brian declared. They stood close as Brian prayed fervently,

  “Dear Lord, we’re thankin’ ye for savin’ us from a horrible experience. An’ I’m thankin’ ye especially that Fiona and I was hearin’ ye right to be helpin’ Miss Rose today. Your Word is sayin’ that we have power over serpents—well, it’s glad we are for it! We be asking ye, too, to please be blessin’ her workin’ an’ her dreams for a happy home here; we’re givin’ this house an’ this land to You, for glorifyin’ You, in Jesus’ name. Amen.”

  After that point the day went quickly. Rose and Fiona gave the house a respectable cleaning, while Brian fixed the outhouse door, removed a pile of brush and debris from the yard to burn, and gathered the small amount of sticks, dry “chips,” and wood available for use in the stove.

  Since their children would be home from school around four o’clock, they needed to leave before then, but Brian blessed Rose with one more favor before going by cleaning out the remains in the stove and dumping them far from the house. After checking every rock, bush, and outbuilding (including under the house) he declared the area free of further snakes. Then he gave his assessment of the house to Rose too.

  “’Tis knowin’ the Anderson’s to have been hard put t’ keep things goin’ that is lettin’ me to understand how the house is so run doon. First, ye are needin’ a new roof, certain. There be places where I could have been puttin’ me foot through today easy. Second, some’uns got t’ be makin’ the whole thing snug afore winter or we’ll find ye coom spring next year a thawin’ out. Nae, there be a fair piece o’ workin’ t’ be doon, an’ me with three fields waitin’ t’ plow right now.”

  “But Brian, I don’t expect you to do my work. Mr. Morton told me there were men whom I could hire as carpenters. Do you know who those might be?”

  “Sure an’ I’m knowin’ two or three. ’Tis findin’ some as not too busy plantin’ right now ’tis t’ trick. But be lettin’ me ask Jan,” (he pronounced it ‘Yahn’), “Thoresen first for he’s the finest worker as I know wi’ buildin’ anything. An’ besides he an’ his son bein’ ahead o’ the crowd for gettin’ their peas an’ corn in first this year.”

  “I would really appreciate your asking him, Brian.”

  “Right ye are. We’ll be goin’ now, an’ ye too, eh?”

  “Yes,” Rose answered ruefully. Her whole body was tired. But looking back once more from the buggy she was satisfied. “This time tomorrow, Lord willing and ‘the creek don’t rise,’ I will be back, and this will be my home.”

  Prince was anxious to get back to his stall, and they trotted down the roads, Rose letting the breeze ruffle her hair and cool her contented face.

  Chapter 12

  “Pastor! Pastor Medford! May I talk with you a moment?” Rose was breathless from hurrying to catch up with him and not appear unladylike.

  “Mrs. Brownlee! How was your drive yesterday? The liveryman tells me you paid for a measure of oats for Prince when he unhitched and groomed him. I thank you very much; I’m sure Prince thanks you too!”

  “Oh, he is a lovely animal and deserved a treat. That is mostly what I wanted to talk to you about also. Can we sit down for a minute?”

  They seated themselves on a bench in front of Schmidt’s store.

  “How is Mrs. Medford today?” Rose began.

  “She’s fine, fine. Doing the wash and general housekeeping chores this morning. It doesn’t take much to keep our little home tidy but she does it all faithfully.”

  “Well, I have a few things to tell you, Pastor, first being that I bought the old Anderson homestead day before last.” Her face was shining as she told him.

  “You mean you are going to live in RiverBend? That is marvelous! Won’t Vera be pleased—why, I can’t tell you how happy that will make both of us. Really.”

  Her eyes twinkled. “You don’t think I’m a foolish, ignorant city woman doing such a thing?”

  Nodding sagely he replied, “Oh, you will find out how hard it can be, but you’ll also find it rewarding. Besides, where God leads us, he will take care of us—don’t you agree?”

  “Yes! Yes I do! But how did you know God led me here?” Rose inquired, amazed.

  “Any Christian can be led by the Holy Spirit,” he answered smiling. “In fact although God uses various ways to speak to us, he wants to guide in everything we do, if we’ll listen. You’ll find that in Romans chapter eight.”

  Rose repeated the reference, storing it up to be read later. “I really knew it was him when I heard your sermon Sunday about Abraham. Someday, maybe I can share with you the whole story. But today, Pastor, I have a business proposition for you. Actually, two. First, I have a load of things to be moved out to my house. The stationmaster will rent his freight wagon to me, but I need a man to load, drive, and unload. Will you take the job?”

  “I’d be very happy to help you, Mrs. Brownlee.”

  “It’s a paying job.”

  “That’s not necessary between friends, I assure you.”

  “It’s the only kind of job I have.”

  “But I won’t accept payment, Ma’am.”

  Rose studied the man sitting beside her. He was very young, thin, and sunburned, and his work clothes, though clean and neat, were worn. Still, he had an air of total peace and assurance about him.

  “Fine, then! It goes in the offering!”

  This bold statement startled him, and he began to chuckle, then laugh. Rose smiled. Pastor Greenstreet and this man were so unlike. This man had such . . . joy! She really liked it.

  “Well, (ha ha!) you said you had two propositions, Mrs. Brownlee. I’m anxious (ha, ho, ho!) to hear if the other will be as humorous. Ha! I beg your pardon!” He held his sides, still chuckling.

  Rose flushed. “This is a bit bold rather than humorous, I’m afraid, but . . . well, I’ll just say it straight out. I would like to buy Prince and your buggy, if you will part with them.” She named a price.

  Unexpectedly, tears came to his eyes. Rose was totally unprepared for this and began to apologize in confusion.

  “No, no. No, Mrs. Brownlee, no apology is needed. You see, God is so good and so faithful. How could you know that a week ago Sunday my dear wife and I asked God together to please find us a buyer for our horse and buggy?”

  He paused and cleared his throat. “How could you know we needed just the amount you offered?”

  Rose felt a pricking on her neck and recalled the night God had spoken to her.

  “Oh!” she breathed. “Is it like that every time? Does God always answer like that?”

  “Not every time like that, but when he does it’s so special . . . so very personal.” He shook his head and began to grin. “Now I know God led you here.”

  Pastor Medford went to get the wagon while Rose went to get Prince. He nickered a greeting when he saw her and she stroked his neck lovingly.

  “Good old boy! You’re going to live at my house now and be my horse. I’m so glad, Prince!”

  His dapple-gray coat rippled as he pawed the flooring with his right front hoof. Rose called to the liveryman.

  “I’m buying Pastor Medford’s horse today and taking him out of your stable. I’d like to buy some hay and oats from you and also, would you be so kind as to show me how to harness him to the buggy?”

  The liveryman stared at her suspiciously and spat on the barn floor.

  “Who gonna pay fer the bill he’s behind on?” he demanded rudely.

  With dignity Rose asked, “How much is it?”

  “Ten dollar, count t’day.”

  “I’ll pay it. And the hay and oats. Pastor Medford will be by for them later this afternoon.” She took out her purse and carefully counted out the money. “Now, about the harnessing?”

  Rose felt like she was just getting the hang of it when her wagonload of store goods arrived. Pastor Medford jumped down and showed her to untwist one of the lines.


  “Be a reel homestider yit, Miz. Brownlee, Ma’am,” he drawled. “Say, Vera would love to drive out with us. Would you like a little more help?”

  “Would I? How marvelous! And here is your check for Prince. I thank you so much for him.”

  “My pleasure, Ma’am. Now, shall I get Mrs. Medford and be on our way?”

  “By all means! I will be right ahead of you.”

  They worked together unloading the wagon. Mrs. Medford (Vera now) was as excited as Rose over every item. A wash tub, blankets, feather bed, muslin sheets, towels, pots and pans, two lamps with lamp oil, and groceries were stacked on the floor. Next, a small table and two chairs were brought in, her trunk, a wide board and a dozen or so brick blocks. Vera looked quizzically at the board and bricks.

  “Do those come in here, Rose?”

  “Don’t you recognize my bed?” Rose teased. “I’m going to stack the bricks and use the board for a bed frame. Just temporarily though.”

  “Oh.” Uncertainly.

  “Well, I should get these groceries put away, but first we should unload my bag from the buggy and send Pastor back to town for another load.”

  “What next, madam boss?” he asked, sticking his head in the door.

  “Well, for starters, what do folks burn to keep warm? There aren’t many trees.”

  “A lot of folk have burned ‘buffalo chips’ for years, but I recommend coal for you, and you buy that and lumber from the company at the depot.”

  “I guess I can do with what I have for a few days, but Prince needs his feed and hay today.”

  “I’ll go get it. Be back in a few hours. By the way, do you have a pitchfork?”

  “Pitchfork?”

  “Yes, for . . . for cleaning out Prince’s stall.” He was trying not to laugh as he read her face finally draw the right conclusion.

  “Er, no. Would Schmidt’s have one?”

  “I’ll pick one up for you—I’m sure they’ll trust you for it.”

  “Oh, Jacob,” interjected Mrs. Medford. “Rose has no pillow. She’s just forgotten to get one, I’m sure, but we have an extra. Would you get it for her?”

  With all his instructions he was finally leaving when Rose said to Vera, “Its lunch time! He’ll never get anything to eat if it isn’t now.”

  Waving and “yoo-hooing” they brought him back. Lunch was spread out under the tree again: bread and butter, sweet cucumber chips, cheese and gingerbread. Jacob pumped a pail of cold water from the well near the back porch.

  Then, once satisfied, it was hard to get moving again; the creek babbled, cows from the far pastures could be heard faintly, and in the afternoon’s warmth, drowsiness settled on them all. At last Pastor Medford got up with a sigh and patted his stomach.

  “If a man shall not work, he shall not eat,” he quoted. “And a man who eats too much may not get back to work!”

  They smiled, friendly, familiar smiles. Pastor Medford left in the wagon, and the ladies went back to their unpacking. Seeing Prince grazing contentedly in his small pasture made Rose think of where he would sleep that night. She walked out to the barn and with the rake cleaned out the old straw and swept away the dirt. She would have to have the stall worked on too. Cleaning it didn’t take long. Now to “make” her bed.

  Rose positioned the bricks at the four corners of the bed, stacking them two high. Two more stacks were placed halfway down the middle of each long side. Then Vera helped her lift the awkward board onto the bricks. By moving the brick stacks a bit here and there, they got it right. Next came the feather mattress, which was like a thick, overstuffed feather quilt. They laid it on top of the board and then covered it with a muslin sheet, tucking it in all around, and another sheet tucked in at the foot. The blankets went on top of that.

  “There! See, now it’s a bed,” Rose proclaimed proudly.

  “Yes, it is,” Vera agreed. “Where would you like your trunk?”

  “One on either side, I think, will give it a nice effect. The flat-topped one will be my lamp table at night when I am in bed reading or writing to my family.”

  “Do you have a family, Rose?” Vera asked cautiously.

  “I have a dear mother and a brother Tom. He and his wife Abigail will give me a niece or nephew in August.”

  “It must have been hard to leave them?”

  “No, in a way it’s been a great help. I do miss them though. I will go back to visit next year.”

  They pulled and pushed the trunk into place, shouting with laughter like girls over their puny efforts. Rose laid her birthday carpetbag in the corner by the smaller trunk. They set the table near the tiny window, and seeing the chairs drawn up like they had always been there, they sat down.

  “I will have to get bigger windows,” Rose stated to Vera. “I want sunshine and to be able to see the creek. Isn’t the view lovely?”

  Vera bent, sweeping her gaze across the trees, the creek, and the fields and pastures of Thoresens’ to the distant horizon.

  “Worth every penny!” That made them both laugh again.

  “Thank you so much for all your help today, Vera.”

  “Well, we’re not finished yet, are we? Where do I put this washtub?”

  “I don’t know. What do you use it for?”

  They shouted until the tears ran. At last Vera pointed, gasping to the back door. “I think you could hang it outside.”

  Rose looked and found a nail in the wall.

  “Not an original idea—there’s a nail already here!” She giggled.

  The washtub was hung with ceremony. Next the pots and pans were put into a box by the stove and covered by a clean towel, and Rose began to sort through the food items. The little house had only three shelves about two feet long to use, but it was plenty of room for today. Coffee, tea, sugar, baking powder, salt, little papers of assorted spices, several tins of peaches and tomatoes, a few jars of pickles and vegetables, two colorful glasses of crabapple jelly, small sacks of potatoes, beans, dry peas, and lentils were lined up on the shelves. In addition, a piece of bacon, some eggs and cheese and a dish of butter needed to be kept somewhere cool.

  “There must be a root cellar,” Vera insisted.

  Outside they searched the ground all around the house, but didn’t find anything.

  “Maybe they just didn’t have one?” Rose suggested.

  “Not likely. Folks can’t eat all winter without a place to keep their potatoes and carrots.”

  Through the overgrown yard they searched, farther from the house as they kept looking. On the other side of Prince’s barn and back against the hill was a grassy mound that puzzled Rose.

  “What is this, Vera?” she called.

  Vera trampled through the tall grass to her side.

  “It’s an old soddy!”

  “What is that?”

  “Simply put, it’s a dirt and grass house. Prairie grass grows deep roots. When folks first homesteaded a place, they plowed their fields and picked up the chunks of sod to make a house. They stacked them like bricks, sort of, and they actually lived in them. Some people still do. You see, the sod would keep growing and grow the pieces together. In the winter with a stove it was warm, in the summer it was cool. Later when the trains came there was lumber to be bought, and people built regular frame houses.”

  “What do you think is in there?” Rose wanted to know.

  “I don’t know, but let’s not find out ourselves. Jacob will be here soon; maybe he will open it. Since there isn’t a cellar, most likely this is where they kept things cool, but it would have been terribly inconvenient so far from the house.”

  “Mr. Anderson may have become ill when he wanted to dig his,” Rose conjectured.

  When Pastor Medford arrived back with the hay and feed, the sun was making the last of its golden sweep across the sky. In the haste to unload and get the wagon back to town, both ladies forgot to mention the soddy to him.

  For a long time after they were gone Rose sat on the single front step gazing at
the shadows thrown far over the fields and prairie by the sun setting behind her. She knew the moment it dropped behind her hill, when everything for a mile from her creek eastward was quickly thrown into shadow. In the distance sunlight still played on the grassy land.

  Tomorrow she would wake up in her own home. Tomorrow it would be one week since she stepped off the train just to spend a day or two in a clean hotel and yet she had found so much more. Tomorrow she would really settle in and, yes, write her family a long letter.

  “God, you can help me say it all in just the right way,” she whispered. “Let them see through my pen the prairie, the freedom, the place of rest I’m finding in you.”

  Rose didn’t even fill the lamps that night. She ate a biscuit with her tea, washed her face and hands and, in her new nightgown, crawled exhausted into her new bed, glad to have Vera’s pillow under her head. As she closed her eyes she remembered that the door had neither a latch nor a lock.

  “ . . . Whoso hearkeneth unto me shall dwell safely,” she murmured.

  Chapter 13

  “Hello! Miss Rose, air ye there?”

  Rose’s sleep was filled with vague, lighthearted dreams. Gradually the ‘halloo-ing crept in, pushing sleep away. She stared around the room confused and dewy-eyed with slumber until someone knocked at the door.

  “Miss Rose! Air ye in there? ’Tis Fiona!”

  Fiona! Daylight peeped through the little glass panes of the one small window.

  “Oh, my!” Rose climbed stiffly out of bed toward the door. “Fiona. hello! I’m sorry—I’ve just awakened, and I’m a sight.” She opened the door a crack. The bright sunlight hurt her eyes and she smiled sheepishly.

  “I must have overslept. Come in. It’s so quiet out here, that I didn’t wake up early.”

  Fiona walked in and glanced around approvingly. “Ye’ve been workin’ hard, an’ it’s showin’, too.”

  “Thank you. Why don’t you sit down. Fiona. I’ll make coffee—no let me fix my hair first—”

  “I’ll be makin’ t’ coffee. Ye can be doin’ yoursel’ up whilst I poomp t’ water.”