stopped twirling, dropped her box on the bed and grasped her mother’s hands, gave a little tug to pull them away from her face. “What is it, Mama? What’s wrong? Why are you crying? Is it the pain in your back?”
“N-no. It’s only—I can’t remember the l-last time I saw you h-happy.”
“Oh, Mama, don’t cry. I finally have you here with me and that makes me happy. And now I have an exciting new job.”
“As a c-columnist?”
“Yes!”
Her mother tugged her hands free and wiped her cheeks and eyes. “You didn’t tell me you were going to apply for a new position when you left this morning.”
“I didn’t. That is what is so amazing. It all happened quite by accident.”
“Oh?”
She knew that tone. “It wasn’t God, Mama. It was just...circumstances.” She kissed her mother’s moist cheek, whirled to the mirror over the dressing table and removed her hat. “Still, I have had the most astonishing day. It all started when I went to see Dr. Austin about an interview and—” She peered into the mirror, dropped her hat on the table and turned. “What is that in your lap?”
“It’s a chemise.” Her mother’s chin lifted a tad. “I’m mending the torn lace on it for Mrs. Duncan.”
“Mama, no! You don’t have to work anymore.” She rushed to the bed and reached for the undergarment. Her mother grabbed hold of her hands.
“I know you want to take care of me, Clarice. But I also know Mrs. Smithfield has raised your room and board since I’ve come.”
“How did you— Mrs. Duncan!” She went as stiff as a board. “How did she find out? She had no right to snoop into my business, the old—old busybody! I didn’t want you to know. It’s my—” The squeeze of her mother’s hands stopped her.
“I asked Mrs. Duncan to find out for me, Clarice. I may not be very wise in city ways, but I know people won’t let you live for free. And I don’t want to be a—”
“Don’t you say that word, Mama!” Tears stung her eyes. “I want to take care of you. It gives me pleasure. It’s what I’ve been working toward ever since I left the farm and you had to do all of the cooking and cleaning and hoeing and raking and the scrubbing of those huge piles of oily work clothes for Father and Don and Jim and Carl by yourself, until—” Her voice broke. She drew a long shaky breath.
“You have to stop thinking about that, Clarice. It’s over.”
“You can’t walk, Mama. It will never be over.” The bitterness soured her voice.
“Yes, Clarice, one day it will. I don’t know if it will be here on earth or in Heaven, but one day I will walk again. Meantime, I need something to do with my days and I’ve always enjoyed sewing and mending—as long as it isn’t oil-stained work clothes. And I’m quite a hand at it, if I do say so as shouldn’t. And I’d like to think I’m earning my way a little.” Her mother slanted a look up at her and wrinkled her nose. “Surely, you can understand that, Miss Independent.”
The name pulled a smile from her, just as her mother knew it would. “I suppose so. But you don’t need to earn your way, Mama. I can take care of you. That’s what I was about to tell you.” The excitement crept back, colored her voice.
“And I want to hear.” Her mother released her hand and patted the bed.
She pushed her box out of the way and perched on the edge. “Dr. Austin—he’s one of the leaders of the Chautauqua Assembly—has asked me to write a monthly column for the Assembly Herald. And I will be paid the same as for the annual Chautauqua Experience article I write for the Sunday School Journal. I’m a professional columnist, Mama!” She jumped to her feet, too excited to remain sitting. “And it all happened because I had to— Because I decided to change the way I write my Sunday School Journal article.”
She lifted the box that held her notes on the interviews she had conducted all day and carried it over to the desk in the turret area. “You see, I needed to interview Dr. Austin, and so I had to explain how I wanted to change the article. But he had a meeting to attend, and I waited outside to interview him...” She lifted the lid of the long box window seat, pulled out a sheet and blanket, spread them over the pad and tucked the edges beneath. “When he called me in, he introduced me to the new owner of the Jamestown Journal—that’s a biweekly newspaper here in town.” She tossed a pillow down at one end of her makeshift bed and walked out of the turret to the wardrobe. “Mr. Thornberg is going to edit and print the Assembly Herald from now on, and so I am to submit my articles to him.”
“Here in town? Or must you still take the steamer to Fair Point?”
“Here in town.” She gave a tug at the double doors, winced. “I hate opening this wardrobe. That squeak gives me shivers.” She took her nightclothes off a hook on the inside of the door and stepped back into the small alcove formed between the wardrobe and the wall. “And there were all of these letters from CLSC members piled on the desk. Hundreds of them, which Mr. Thornberg now has to answer.” A smile tugged at her. She stuck her head out beyond the wardrobe and grinned at her mother. “He looked so nonplussed I’m certain he didn’t know about them. Anyway, he asked me if I would accept a position at his newspaper answering the correspondence for two cents a letter...”
“Two cents! And there are hundreds of letters?”
Her mother’s eyes widened.
“Maybe a thousand or more.”
“Mercy me...”
She laughed at her mother’s awed whisper. “I said yes, of course.” How fortuitous it all was! Only this morning she had been so worried about how she was to pay the increased room and board. Now she would have money enough and to spare. She would be able to get a doctor to care for her mother.
Tears welled. So did the temptation to pray—to beg God to make her mother well. She blinked the tears away, looped her modest bustle and cotton petticoat over a hook along with her skirt and bodice, not allowing herself to even think that her mother might walk again. She had learned the futility of prayer as a child begging to be freed from her father’s tyranny. Eleven years—
“How will you have time to answer all of those letters when you begin teaching?”
She shoved away the bitter memories. “I’m going to resign my position. I will earn more answering those letters every month than I would earn as a teacher. And more yet by writing my monthly column. And doing so will further my career.”
Oh, how wonderful that sounded! She snatched up her wrapper, put it on and crossed to the dressing table to pull the pins from her hair. Soft, dull clinks accompanied their drop into a small pewter dish. “And he has a typewriter I will use!”
“A ‘typewriter’?” Her mother’s questioning gaze fastened on hers in the mirror. “What is a typewriter?”
“It’s a machine that prints letters on a piece of paper when you depress a round button. I saw a picture of one once in an advertisement. Mr. Thornberg says that when a person becomes proficient in its
