she exhaled. Then she returned to the many chores still waiting.
She strained the milk and separated it.
“Mary, hurry out and shut in the chickens. Take out these peelings.” She handed her the basin and ignored Mary’s wide-eyed silent protest. “We can’t afford to lose any of them.” The child had to get over her unreasonable fear of chickens. “Dougie, go put the heifers into the corrals and make sure the gate’s tightly latched.” He was really too small to chase after the animals but she couldn’t be everywhere at once. “Hurry now before it gets dark.” She’d run out and help Dougie as soon as she finished the milk. And if the past was any indication, she’d end up dumping the basin of peelings. Mary never seemed to get any farther than the fence where she tried to poke the contents through the wire holes.
Kate prayed as she worked. God, protect the children. Help Mary realize she’s bigger than the chickens. Help me find a way to get my crop in. She stilled her thoughts. As usual, her prayers seemed an endless list of requests. But she had nowhere to turn but to God who promised to provide all her needs. Seemed to her a God who owned the cattle on a thousand hills and held the waters in His hand could send a little rain to her area of the world. Lord, help me be patient. I know You will provide for us. You’ve promised. A smile curved her lips. Thank You that I didn’t have to grease the windmill. A blessing in the form of a hobo. God must surely have a sense of humor.
She scoured the milk buckets and turned them upside down to dry, poured boiling water through the separator and cleaned it thoroughly.
Normally the work kept her mind adequately occupied but not tonight. One hundred acres to seed. A tractor that refused to run. And no help. She needed a hired man. One with experience. One with the ability to fix the tractor. One who didn’t expect anything more than his keep. She knew no such person. She’d run an ad in a few papers but the responses were disappointing at best and downright frightening in the case of one man who made very inappropriate suggestions. Of course, as Doyle always pointed out, she had the option of selling the farm and accepting his offer of marriage.
As she dashed to the barn to help Dougie, pausing at the chicken yard to take the basin from Mary and toss the peelings into the pen, she wondered if she was being stupid or stubborn to cling to this piece of property. Probably both, she willingly admitted, but she wasn’t ready to give up the only permanent home she’d ever known.
The sun sat low on the western horizon brushing the sky with purple and orange and a hundred shades of pink. At the doorstep, she turned, holding a child’s hand in each of hers. As she drank in the beauty of the sunset she silently renewed the promise she’d made to herself after Jeremiah’s death. Never would her children know the uncertainty of being homeless. Not if she had to pull the plough herself.
Chapter Two
Hatcher watched the blades on the Bradshaw’s windmill turn smoothly as he headed down the road toward a nearby farm where he heard a man could get a bit job. All he needed was enough work to fill his stomach and a chance to bathe and wash his clothes before he moved on. He prided himself on a fair amount of work in exchange for a handout. Seems the meal Mrs. Bradshaw provided was more generous than the work he’d done. He’d have to fix that somehow.
As he shoveled manure out of the barn for a Mr. Briggs, he tied a red neckerchief over his nose and kept his mind occupied with other things than the pungent, eye-watering smell of a long-neglected job. Most men would be ashamed to let even a hobo bear witness to such slovenliness. Not that it was the worst job he’d ever done. Good honest work never hurt anyone. Long ago, he’d learned he could enjoy his thoughts as he worked at even the most unappealing job; his favorite way was to see how many Bible verses he could recall without stumbling. In the ten years he’d been wandering the back roads of this huge country, he’d committed hundreds to memory. From the first day the words from Genesis chapter four, verse seven haunted his thoughts. If thou does well, shalt thou not be accepted? And if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door.
He’d sought comfort and absolution in the scriptures. He’d memorized the first nine chapters of Genesis, saw over and over the failure of man to live as God intended. A fact that surprised him not at all.
Today, as he worked, he interspersed his recitation with plans on how to rectify his debt to Mrs. Bradshaw. It would require he return to the slough where he’d spent the previous night. Not often did he retrace his steps but he couldn’t move on until he adequately repaid her.
He finished working for Mr. Briggs, received a meager meal of one shriveled unpeeled potato and a slab of side bacon that was mostly fat. It measured poorly in comparison with the meal of the previous evening. Mr. Briggs granted him permission to use the water trough to wash his clothes and himself, which he did. In his clean set of clothes, his wet ones rolled and tied in a bundle, he returned to the slough where he hung the garments to dry.
And then he tackled his project.
Next morning Hatcher headed up the driveway to the Bradshaw home with the shelf he’d created from willow branches. Nothing special. Hobos all over the country made them. In fact, she probably had several already. A woman who cooked a fine generous meal like the one she’d provided him was bound to have received gifts before.
The big black-and-white furry dog raced out to bark at his heels.
“Quiet, Shep,” he ordered.
The animal stopped barking but growled deep in his throat as he followed so hard on Hatcher’s heels it made the back of his neck tingle.
Not a dog to let anyone do something stupid. Good dog for a woman who appeared to be alone with two kids.
The place seemed quiet at first but as he drew closer, he heard mumbled warnings. Seemed to be Mrs. Bradshaw speaking. Threatening someone.
He felt a familiar pinching in his stomach warning him to walk away from a potentially explosive situation but he thought of some of the homeless, desperate, unscrupulous men he’d encountered in his travels. If one of them had cornered Mrs. Bradshaw…
He edged forward, following the sound around the old Ford truck and drew to a halt at the sight of Mrs. Bradshaw standing on a box, her head buried under the hood of the vehicle, her voice no longer muffled by the bulk of metal and bolts.
“You good for nothing piece of scrap metal. Why do you do this to me? Just when I need you to cooperate, you get all persnickety.” She shifted, banged her head and grunted.
“If I had a stick of dynamite, I’d fix you permanently.”
Hatcher leaned back on his heels, grinning as the woman continued to scold the inanimate object. After a moment, he decided to make a suggestion that might save both the truck and the woman from disaster.
“’Scuse me for interrupting, but maybe you should bribe it instead of threatening it.”
She jerked up, crashed her head into the gaping hood and stumbled backward off the box, her palms pressed to the top of her head as she faced him, her eyes narrowed with her pain. “Oh, it’s you. You startled me.”
He regretted she had every right to be frightened of him. Fact of the matter, she should be far more wary than she was. He tipped his head slightly. “My apologies.” He slid his gaze to the dirt-encased engine behind her. “It’s being uncooperative?”
She turned to frown fiercely at the bowels of the truck. “I’ve done everything. Even prayed over it.”
He
