Read Online Forevermore by Cathy Marie Hake - Free Book Online

rich, damp earth to cradle seeds. Now you tell me something that’s brown.”
    Emmy-Lou didn’t bother to look around at all. She looked up with complete adoration. “Daddy’s hair.”
    Golden fried chicken. The last bite of a peach tart’s crust. Tree trunks and lumber. Sturdy leather boots. By late afternoon, when the sun still gave light but heat no longer shimmered in the distance, Jakob marveled at how many things were brown and what a vast array of shades that color held. Never before had he scanned his farm and appreciated the fence posts or the smooth arch of the yokes. The supple look and feel of harnesses and saddles. To be sure, on occasions those thoughts had flitted through his mind, but today he’d seen his surroundings in a whole new light. Maybe it was because of Hope’s little game. Maybe it was because of all the brown things Emmy-Lou might have named first. His daughter had said, “Daddy’s hair.” Nothing but pure, innocent love rang in her voice. Even now, hours later, the memory watered his parched heart.
    Jakob now watched as Hope and Emmy-Lou walked hand in hand toward him. Their arms swung with exuberance back and forth in an exaggerated pendulum’s arc.
    “I don’t believe my eyes!” Phineas gave Jakob’s shoulder a shove. “You’re smiling! I thought you’d forgotten how.”
    Jakob shrugged. “Look at my daughter. She’s happy. A man wants his child to be happy.”
    “Daddy! Miss Hope says I gotta ask you. Can we go see Milky and her kitties?”
    “Ja.”
    Emmy-Lou curled her fingers through the hammer loop on his overalls and gave it a tug, just as certainly as she’d tugged on his heartstrings earlier that day. “Daddy, I want you to take me.”
    “I’ll go yonder and take a Sunday stroll.” Hope gazed at him directly, making him know she’d ease away so he could have time alone with his girl. “Hattie’s winking at me and her ears are a-twitchin’ howdy, so I reckon I’ll take her ’long.”
    Jakob rested his hand on Emmy-Lou’s head and felt her soft curls coil about his fingers. “Would you like a saddle and halter?”
    “Thankee, but no. Well, maybe a rope halter. Hattie follows me just like your cat Fleck used to tag after you.”
    She’d remembered that? Jakob covered his surprise by turning to fetch a length of rope. As she and her mule walked off, Jakob scooped up Emmy-Lou. “Let’s go see the kittens.”
    Now that he’d taken a closer look, Hope’s everyday dress was the only brown thing he’d seen that day that didn’t carry a scrap of charm or beauty. Faded from repeated washings, the small checks looked drab as could be. A stingy one-inch ruffle made from the same fabric as the dress stood up to form a collar and V-eed down the bodice. Emmy-Lou was right—Hope’s everyday dress went beyond ugly; it was hideous. Many years ago, his grandmother would have nodded and pronounced Hope’s dress practical. It wouldn’t show dirt. Dim praise indeed.
    I’ll talk to Annie. She can give Hope some feed sacks to make herself another dress. No . . . maybe I’d better not. So many other chores are in dire wont of doing. The last thing Hope needs is another project to distract her from the essentials. When she leaves—that’s when I’ll give her the sacks. It’ll be a little something extra.
    “Daddy, when I go to school, do I getta ride a horse?”
    Jakob halted midstride and looked down at the precious child he held in his arms. He didn’t want to let her out of his sight. The very thought of her going away each day made his blood run cold. She’d come close to being buried alive when she fell into the test hole for the new well. Going off to school . . . anything could happen, and he couldn’t bear to lose her.
    “I know how to ride a horse. You let me ride on Josephine sometimes.”
    Only when he was by her side or she rode in his lap—never alone. He resumed his path toward the cat. Keeping her home from school wasn’t an option, but