Read Online Rebecca's Choice by Jerry S. Eicher - Free Book Online Page B

reins, his horse sensing it was time to go.
    “You are a naughty one,” she said chuckling. “I was helping with the last boy’s table.”
    “Good enough reason to get you away from me,” he said making a face.
    “It was the little boys,” she replied laughing.
    “Even those you have to watch,” he said and turned right at the end of the lane. The horse took off with a dash.
    “He’s in a hurry too.”
    “For a different reason, of course.”
    “Of course,” she said and playfully leaned against his shoulder.
    He wished it was cold outside, so he could offer her the buggy blanket and prolong the moment.
    “I thought maybe you’d come over last night.”
    He nodded. “I thought of it but figured I’d wait.”
    “There was no news anyway,” she said and glanced at him. “Just a sad time. A big funeral, though. Lots of people I didn’t know. I guess your parents told you all of that.”
    John shrugged. “I heard them talking about cousins and such. Didn’t tell me much.”
    “I guess there wasn’t much to tell. Nice trip, though. I always like going back there. Leona’s children were glad to see me.”
    “How’s baby Jonathon?”
    “You remembered his name.” Rebecca’s pleasure showed plainly in her face.
    “I’m just that sort of fellow. A gut mann. ” He lifted his chin high and pulled air into his chest.
    “A right proud one too.” She made a face but broke into laughter a moment later, her shoulder against his.
    John savored the moment, the feel of her presence beside him.
    “It was sad, though,” she said, her hands clasped in front of her, “to see Emma gone. I couldn’t believe it. Leona and I just stood there, in front of the coffin, for a long time. If Leona hadn’t been with me, I don’t know how I would have looked. Dumb probably. Just standing there staring.”
    “She meant a lot to you.” John’s tone said he understood.
    “Yes…she did. Emma and school. Those will always be the same thing in my mind.”
    “As smart as you are, she must have been a really good teacher.” John tried for a lighthearted note.
    “She tried,” Rebecca said. “Tried hard to get things through my thick skull.”
    “It wasn’t that bad, surely.”
    “Some things were—like math. Emma was good, though.”
    “Did I hear she was rich?” John said, as calmly as he could, and watched her face out of the corner of his eye, his attention only half on where he drove the horse.
    “Don’t know.” Rebecca shrugged but didn’t look at him, apparently lost in her memories. “Her place is nice enough.”
    “She apparently has a lot of property—a couple of farms. I wonder who it will go to.”
    “Relatives. The usual I suppose. You shouldn’t be thinking about such things. Money isn’t everything. Do men always think about money? Even after the funeral of former schoolteachers?”
    “Not always,” John said and wished he’d kept his mouth shut. Now Rebecca thought he was money hungry, saw dollar bills on Emma’s coffin.
    “Seeing her laying there seemed so wrong,” Rebecca whispered. John glanced at her and saw the tears in her eyes. “Emma doesn’t belong gone. She belongs with children, loving them as she loved us. She was like that. Like she couldn’t help herself. Emma just brought out the best in all of us. It was that way till the last year she taught. I heard several people talking about it. Said their children loved Emma. Even the smaller ones. Emma had so much to give. It just isn’t right.”
    “God’s ways are always right,” John said but felt her sorrow, “even when they hurt. He must have something better ahead.”
    “Maybe she teaches in heaven,” Rebecca said and laughed softly. “She needs to be doing something—some work where she can take care of children. That’s what Emma was good at.”
    “It’s probably better than that,” John told her. “Something we can’t imagine. That’s how God is.”
    “Just hard to see it sometimes.”
    “It is.