Read Online Prayers for Sale by Sandra Dallas - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Sandra Dallas
Tags: United States, Fiction, Suspense, Historical, Travel, Contemporary Women, Colorado, Cultural Heritage, Female friendship, 1929-, Depressions, West, Older women, Mountain
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ends so that any dog that took a notion could run through it. Dogtrots were raised three or four feet off the ground, so they were nice and cool in summer, but in winter with the open breezeway and the air coming up from under the floorboards, you couldn’t ever keep warm in a dogtrot.
Hennie shook her head at the memory of those old cabins from her girlhood, colder in winter than anything she’d ever known in a Colorado blizzard. “It’s a wet cold there. You couldn’t hardly get warm if you sat on a cookstove.”
“I’d have froze if it wasn’t for sleeping in a bed with my four sisters—five red-haired girls in a bed. We were rightly as close as twins. My sisters didn’t know what to do with theirself after I married Dick and moved off to the other end of Kentucky,” Nit said. “The day I got married was the first time in my life that I ever slept in a bed with just one other person. I was afraid I’d get lost. I miss my sisters, but I have a powerful love for Dick, and like I said, we went out to ourself so we could move up in the world. But I never thought we’d leave Kentucky. Then Dick got the job on the dredge, and you know what the Bible says about a woman cleaving to her husband. So I followed him to Middle Swan.” The girl paused and looked at Hennie, who was bent overher stitching, listening and nodding her head. “Now, don’t think I’m too forward, Mrs. Comfort, but I’d like to know how was it you came to Middle Swan? Excuse it if I’m too forward.”
“Not too forward, not at all. It’s likely my favorite story.” Hennie stuck the tip of her needle into the fabric and wiggled her fingers to get the kinks out of them. She wondered how it was that the rheumatism crippled them so much that she could barely grasp a rake and had to use both hands to lift a heavy pan off the stove, but it didn’t affect her quilting. Don’t think too closely, she told herself, just be grateful. When it’s raining pudding, hold up your bowl.
The girl, too, lifted her pretty head from her sewing. Her needle hand was poised above the quilt, as she watched Hennie.
“Won’t you be tired of hearing me talk?” Hennie asked.
“Oh no, ma’am. You remind me of home. Your talk is pleasing to me.”
Hennie told herself she was an old fool to ask the girl the way she had, just to get her to tease for a story. What if Nit decided she was indeed tired of the old woman’s ramblings, that she asked only to be polite? But Hennie had a feeling the girl did indeed like her stories, that she would mingle them with her own and tell them long after Hennie was gone. Stories were a living thing. They changed to suit the teller or the times. Hennie liked the idea that a part of her would remain behind in the stories after she moved to Fort Madison.
The old woman picked up her needle. The thread was almost used up, so she took a back stitch, then worked thethread under the quilt top and snipped off the end. She cut a new length and licked its end, then with the aid of a magnifying glass that was wired to the end of the quilt frame, she threaded the needle. “Remember, I was still Ila Mae back then,” she began.
The seasons following the war were harder than the war itself. After the peace came in 1865, Ila Mae worked her fields alone, not minding the hard labor because it exhausted her and she could sleep without thinking about Billy and Sarah—especially Sarah. Billy at least had had a little chance at life, but not the baby. Ila Mae wasn’t able to bring herself to walk by the place at the creek where the little girl had drowned, not only because her child had died there but because Ila Mae was a little afraid she might seek the same fate—although how a grown-up girl could drown herself in that little bit of water, she didn’t know. Still, there were days when Ila Mae didn’t understand why she bothered to live. She’d lost everyone she loved, and she was tempted to join them. But she didn’t,
Hennie shook her head at the memory of those old cabins from her girlhood, colder in winter than anything she’d ever known in a Colorado blizzard. “It’s a wet cold there. You couldn’t hardly get warm if you sat on a cookstove.”
“I’d have froze if it wasn’t for sleeping in a bed with my four sisters—five red-haired girls in a bed. We were rightly as close as twins. My sisters didn’t know what to do with theirself after I married Dick and moved off to the other end of Kentucky,” Nit said. “The day I got married was the first time in my life that I ever slept in a bed with just one other person. I was afraid I’d get lost. I miss my sisters, but I have a powerful love for Dick, and like I said, we went out to ourself so we could move up in the world. But I never thought we’d leave Kentucky. Then Dick got the job on the dredge, and you know what the Bible says about a woman cleaving to her husband. So I followed him to Middle Swan.” The girl paused and looked at Hennie, who was bent overher stitching, listening and nodding her head. “Now, don’t think I’m too forward, Mrs. Comfort, but I’d like to know how was it you came to Middle Swan? Excuse it if I’m too forward.”
“Not too forward, not at all. It’s likely my favorite story.” Hennie stuck the tip of her needle into the fabric and wiggled her fingers to get the kinks out of them. She wondered how it was that the rheumatism crippled them so much that she could barely grasp a rake and had to use both hands to lift a heavy pan off the stove, but it didn’t affect her quilting. Don’t think too closely, she told herself, just be grateful. When it’s raining pudding, hold up your bowl.
The girl, too, lifted her pretty head from her sewing. Her needle hand was poised above the quilt, as she watched Hennie.
“Won’t you be tired of hearing me talk?” Hennie asked.
“Oh no, ma’am. You remind me of home. Your talk is pleasing to me.”
Hennie told herself she was an old fool to ask the girl the way she had, just to get her to tease for a story. What if Nit decided she was indeed tired of the old woman’s ramblings, that she asked only to be polite? But Hennie had a feeling the girl did indeed like her stories, that she would mingle them with her own and tell them long after Hennie was gone. Stories were a living thing. They changed to suit the teller or the times. Hennie liked the idea that a part of her would remain behind in the stories after she moved to Fort Madison.
The old woman picked up her needle. The thread was almost used up, so she took a back stitch, then worked thethread under the quilt top and snipped off the end. She cut a new length and licked its end, then with the aid of a magnifying glass that was wired to the end of the quilt frame, she threaded the needle. “Remember, I was still Ila Mae back then,” she began.
The seasons following the war were harder than the war itself. After the peace came in 1865, Ila Mae worked her fields alone, not minding the hard labor because it exhausted her and she could sleep without thinking about Billy and Sarah—especially Sarah. Billy at least had had a little chance at life, but not the baby. Ila Mae wasn’t able to bring herself to walk by the place at the creek where the little girl had drowned, not only because her child had died there but because Ila Mae was a little afraid she might seek the same fate—although how a grown-up girl could drown herself in that little bit of water, she didn’t know. Still, there were days when Ila Mae didn’t understand why she bothered to live. She’d lost everyone she loved, and she was tempted to join them. But she didn’t,
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