Chapter 7

Chapter 7

“…like a flower…”

Job 14:2

Agatha Tabitha Freegrace laid the cold rag on her father’s forehead. It had been three weeks since he’d fallen ill with the Scarlet Fever, and Agatha had been left to care for him and the farm all on her own. She had been sleeping on the chair next to her father’s bed, ready to attend to his feverish delirium, which often woke him up throughout the night. He would yell, grasping at the air, his body shaking with chills. Agatha would try to hold him still, attempting to calm him down. He was just settling down from one of these fits. “Esther! Esther!” he’d called out.

“Momma’s not here Papa! Just me, its just me, Aggie,” she’d told him. Eventually, he’d settled back to sleep in her arms, and she had laid him back down to administer the rags soaked in cold water and the herbal mixture that Dr. Elton had prescribed. How had this happened? Why had it happened. Why? Why? Why Why? Why? Agatha felt her questions slipping into the once comfortable italicized prayers, but stopped herself before her font acknowledged the existence of the God she was currently denying. Her father had caught the illness because of his own kindness, his own blind service to the God his own father, A.T. Freegrace, had brought his family miles West to share with the settlers of Sunshine Salvation Valley. Look where kindness got her father, look where it had gotten her.

The first week of the illness, the neighbor folk were always around, ready to help where needed, wanting to do the farm chores and to help with the care of Isaac. Slowly, the crowds of ready to help neighbors had started to annoy Agatha. Gone were the days of quiet times staring into the distance till she got a tension headache, gone were the orderly days of teamwork, just her and her father running their beloved farm. And they all had such trite sayings to offer her. Even Mrs. Shelter’s help and guidance began to grate on Agatha’s newly human heart—yes, she was in danger of developing the phenomena known as pride. One day, it all became too much, she had gone outside to find Mr. McQuickerson milking Mary before Martha, as she had told him many times NOT to do, and she just snapped. Hot, angry tears welled up in her eyes as she surveyed all the people who had taken over her farm. Mrs. Shelter came up behind her, “Agatha, did you want me to cook up some fried chicken for supper? I noticed you didn’t have anything started and there’s quite a few mouths to feed. Why don’t you go attend to your father darlin’” Mrs. Shelter’s saccharine voice was like lighter fluid (which had not yet been invented in the 1800’s) on the already simmering fire of Agatha’s rage, a feeling foreign to her only a week earlier (Before this, she had oscillated between happy, serene, pouty but cute and still happy, jubilant, and slightly wistful).

“GET! OUT! ALL Y’ALL! AND DON”T COME BACK! YA’ HEAR!” Agatha’s voice seemed to shake the mountains and also the prairie. Everyone looked up from his or her work with surprised faces. “You heard me,” she choked through tears, “I want all you nosey busy-bodies out of here!” They all reluctantly put down their shovels, feed sacks, and other tools, slowly gathering their families together to head out, sullen looks of confusion on all their faces. Agatha felt Mrs. Shelter’s hand on her back, “Agatha, I’m sure you didn’t mean that. Go on and apologize! I think you made Mr. McQuickerson cry!”

“YOU TOO! GET OUT! YOU’RE NOT MY MOMMA!” Agatha ran into the house, leaving behind the woman who had taken care of her, taken her under her wing, and loved her like her own kin. She slammed the door behind her.

That was the last Agatha had seen of any of the towns people. Occasionally, she would find a pie, a jar of preserves, and other small gifts laid at the Freegrace doorstep after a long day working on the farm. She felt bad for the way she had acted, but she knew she wanted to do this on her own—it was her lot in life, her burden to bear. Her porcelain skin was getting tanned and leathery from long hours in the sun. She wore her hair up in a calico kerchief, hiding the blonde locks she had always taken Godly pride in. Yesterday, she had even traded in her dress for a pair of Papa’s old work pants as she tried to put together some of the wood for the new barn to build a temporary shelter for the animals.

She removed the rag from her father’s head, and dipped it back into the cold water and herbal mixture. As she rung out the rag, she heard a knock at the door. Who was bothering them now? She thought she had told everyone to leave them alone! When she opened the door, she didn’t see anyone. Finally, she looked down and realized there was a very young girl standing at the door with a shabby dress and stringy blond hair. She held a small bouquet of wild flowers in her hands, “We pray he get better,” she said in a generalized European accent. The young girl curtsied nervously, handed Agatha the flowers, and then ran away. As Agatha watched the girl’s small body flying across the prairie, she realized that it had been Olivia Ericksen, the little girl Papa had caught the fever from. She tightened her grip on the bouquet of flowers. As if a haphazard arrangement of prairie brush were enough! In a moment of rash anger, Agatha threw the bouquet into the fireplace.

She fell to her knees on the ground, and began to weep, disgusted with the person she’d become and yet unable to cope with the sorrow of it all. Even more frustrating was the fact that her normal weeping position was also a praying position, which didn’t work with her recent denial of God’s existence. Oh Why? Why? WHY? WHY? Why?

And where was Clark? It seemed about time in the plot for some romance, and she longed to see his face, to hear his voice… Maybe he could fix things, because the God she formerly believed in, and said she would always rejoice in, was certainly not helping things. She lifted her tear soaked face and noticed that a small white flower had been separated from the rest of the bouquet, and had thus been saved from flames of the fire. This small sign of life amidst the ashes of Agatha’s world lightened her heart, just for a second. It was an overused literary symbol of hope.

REJOICE IN ME!

Agatha turned to ice as the voice in all caps, spoke to her. I can’t hear you! Shoot, she’d prayed on accident again.

Chapter 6

Chapter 6

“… wasting diseases and fever that will destroy your sight and drain away your life…”

Leviticus 26:16

Agatha Tabitha Freegrace stood in the midst of the rubble of the once proud barn. The shawl around her shoulders fluttered in the wind. She was not actually cold, but women usually wear shawls to examine disasters, so she’d thrown it on. The people of Sunshine Salvation Valley had come from their homes in mass to help the Freegrace’s clean up the mess left behind by the vicious fire; a barn raising was planned for the following Saturday. Agatha watched as her father used an axe to split some of the larger beams. Their charred bodies split easily, but Agatha saw the tiredness in her father’s body, the fatigue in his eyes. A deep cough racked his frame. She felt something, similar to the feeling she had experienced standing watching the rain extinguish the barn fire. It was as if life wasn’t predictable, as if she felt concern for the future. Yes, Agatha was experiencing worry.

“Why don’t you come in and help us ladies fix supper darlin’?” Mrs. Shelter’s calm voice startled Agatha.

“Oh Mrs. Shelter! You scared me there for a second.” Agatha looked into the loving eyes of the woman who had looked out for her over the years, making sure she was taught the things a mother would have taught her, and offering any other advice and comfort a girl could need. “He looks so tired Mrs. Shelter.”

“Don’t worry about your father. He’s a strong man, and it will take more than his barn burning down to shake him, and we’re all here to help him.”

“I guess your right,” Agatha conceded with a sigh.

“Now come on, this stew isn’t going to make itself, and we don’t want the men-folk to go hungry, now do we?”

“No, Mrs. Shelter.” Agatha took one more prolonged look at her father as Mrs. Shelter led her toward the house. She wrapped her shawl tighter around her shoulders and clutched her mother’s locket around her neck. At least they were all safe. Several of the townsmen tipped their hats to her as she passed; she greeted each with all the enthusiasm she could muster.

“Thanks for coming out, Mr. McQuickerson, I hope Mrs. McQuickerson brought some of her famous bread pudding!”

“I think you’re in luck Miss Freegrace, she knows its your favorite,” Mr.McQuickerson answered.

As Agatha and Mrs. Shelter entered the house, they found the rest of the women hard at work in the house. Some were chopping up vegetables for the stew, others were squeezing lemons for lemonade, others tending to their own dishes, and still others helping out with the housework that had fallen behind over the last couple of days. Agatha busied herself cutting up some potatoes, when all of a sudden her peaceful work was interrupted by a commotion outside. She dropped her knife and potato and ran outside to see what all the yelling was about. As she burst through the door, she saw her father lying on the ground and all the men gathered around him.

“Papa!” Agatha ran to her father, her heart doing somersaults in her chest. “Papa! Papa! Oh Papa! Papa! Papa! Oh, what has happened! Papa! Papa!” Agatha fell to the ground at her father’s side. “Papa! Papa!”

“Agatha, bring me inside…I need…I need…” her father struggled to speak, his face pale and clammy.

“What do you need Papa? Oh Papa! Papa! Papa!” Agatha lifted her head and spoke her words to the sky.

“I need…I need, some rest.” Isaac Freegrace choked out the words as a round of deep coughs racked his body.

Mrs. Shelter had joined Agatha and the others at this point. She had Dr. Elton at her side. Agatha took her shawl and wiped the sweat from her father’s brow; her tears were falling fast, landing on her father’s shirt. “Agatha, let Dr. Elton examine your father.” Mrs. Shelter tried to guide Agatha away from her father.

“Dr. Elton! Will he be all right? Oh Papa! Papa! What has happened?” Agatha’s voice was full to the brim with desperation. Dr. Elton sat down beside her and looked over her father; he placed the back of his and on Isaac Freegrace’s head. “This man is burning with fever!” he said with urgency in his voice. “Bring him inside! I am going into town to get my supplies, ready my horse—We may save him yet!”

As the men picked up her father and brought him inside, Agatha remained frozen on the ground where her father had fallen. Her tears made muddy streams as they hit the dusty ground. She heard the swift galloping of Dr. Elton’s horse making its way towards town.

How could God allow this? Agatha Tabitha Freegrace felt the faith she had always carried with her crumble into dust inside of her, the faith of her father and mother, and of her grandfather, A.T. Freegrace who had come out West to bring this very faith to the Western settlers. Mrs. Shelter’s voice startled her out of her dramatic inner meltdown, “It will all work out dear. God is with you, rejoice in him.”

“LEAVE ME ALONE!” Agatha shouted at the woman who had so often been there for her, so often been like the mother she had lost. Mrs. Shelter put her hand on Agatha’s back and silently left her to her sorrow. Agatha laid down on the ground, weeping even harder. Where was God, where was his love and protection? She decided in that moment that if there even was a God, she was not interested in him, and she wouldn’t pray to him anymore, in italics or otherwise:

I’m done with you.

The sun was setting in the sky taking all the lightness and joy out of Agatha Tabitha Freegrace’s life with it.

Spoiler Alert 2

Tune in next weekend to see how things get worse.

Chapter 5

Chapter 5

“…long hair is given to her as a covering.”

1 Corinthians 11:15

Agatha Tabitha Freegrace had been reading her Grandfather’s journal at her favorite spot overlooking the prairie, and also the mountains, for some time now. Papa was fast asleep, taking a well-deserved afternoon nap. Isaac Freegrace was always helping other families in the community, assisting parents with the care of their invalid children, getting fields ready for planting, bringing Agatha’s pies to those struggling through hard times, or whatever else he could do to share the love of God in Sunshine Salvation Valley. For the past week, he’d been helping the new Norwegian family with their youngest daughter Liv, who had come down with Scarlet Fever. Agatha had waited for her father to come home late into the night, eventually giving into her tired eyes and curling up under her grandmother’s quilt with the enigmatic pattern, falling fast asleep. When she awoke in the morning, Isaac was just getting back from the Eriksen’s, the fatigue showing on his face. Agatha warned him not to run himself dry and ordered him straight to bed, making him a kettle of tea for his soar throat, and offering to take care of the farm chores for the day.

After she had finished feeding the chickens, milking old Mary and Martha, and taking care of a few other odds and ends, Agatha set off to enjoy the day, alternating between staring off into the distance and reading her grandfather’s wise words. Agatha sighed as the afternoon settled into dusk—what a lovely afternoon it had been. She couldn’t imagine anything that could ruin an afternoon like this. She untied the blue silken ribbon at the end of her long blonde braid, letting her hair blow in the wind and breathing in the sweet smells of the wild flowers blooming in abundance on the prairie.

Thank you God for my lovely home, for our productive farm, and for a strong healthy father. Thank you for the prairie and the mountains, and the church my grandfather, A.T. Freegrace, started for the settlers. And thank you God for Clark wherever he is…

Just then, Agatha’s prayer was interrupted by a bright bolt of lightning striking down on the prairie, and lighting up the dim dusk. A large clap of thunder that seemed to shake the very earth under Agatha’s feet followed it. The brewing storm seemed like God’s wrath coming from the sky. Agatha clung to her mother’s locket, which hung delicately around her neck, as an uneasy feeling crept into her heart. It was if the lightning were a harbinger of something awful on the horizon—something that would give the plot…er her life, conflict. She grabbed her grandfather’s journal, picked up her skirt, and ran for the house to wake her father. As she reached the door of her home and yelled for her him, a familiar voice speaking in all caps startled her:

REJOICE IN ME!

She looked over her shoulder; it seemed as if the voice came from right behind her. She turned her head just in time to see another lightning bolt reach down from the sky and strike their barn. “Papa! Papa! The barn’s been struck!” Agatha screamed to her father in desperation as she watched the first flames start to rise from the beloved building that held so many beautiful memories. She grabbed some of the potato sacks they kept by the front door, and ran toward the burning barn, unsure of what to do. She prayed in italics and all caps to get God’s attention:

Dear God, help us, I don’t know what to do.

Agatha ran to the barn doors, running into the smoke filled building. She ran to Mary and Martha’s stalls, shooing them out into the cold evening, away from their burning home. Tears fell from her eyes, as the smoke stung them and the bitter tragedy of it all stung her heart. Next, she went to the horses’ stalls loosing Hezekiah and Misach as well. She thanked God that the chickens were in a separate place and that the farm was one in a Christian fiction novel, and so only had a few token animals. “Get out of here y’all!” Tabitha ran back out of the barn, coughing. Her father was coming out of the house with buckets. He ran toward the watering troughs, dipping the buckets deep into the water, and then emptying them on the burning barn. Agatha picked up one of the potato sacks and began to beat at the flames consuming the once strong structure built by her grandfather, A.T. Freegrace, who had made the long journey West to start a church for the settlers.

“Agatha! I think we just need to give up, it’s too dangerous to fight it!” Isaac Freegrace recognized how futile their efforts were against the raging flames.

“No Papa! No! I’m going to save the barn! Can’t we get help?” Agatha beat at the flames with a renewed violence and intensity as her lungs continued to fill with smoke.

“By the time we get help, it will be all over Agatha.” He came over and grabbed her shoulders, trying to guide her away from the barn, which was now even more engulfed in orange flame. The fire burned at the pace and intensity that the plot called for, defying every scientific law.

“No! God can’t let this happen! He can’t!” Agatha struggled out of her father’s grip and picked up one of the abandoned buckets, throwing its contents on the barn. The water only sizzled on the flames as the fire roared on, as if to mock her.

“Agatha! It’s already gone! We have to leave it!” This time Isaac grabbed Agatha more forcefully.

“No Papa!” Isaac pulled Agatha away from the fire as she kicked and struggled to get free of his grip. Just as he was able to get her to the door of their home, one of the large central supports of the barn fell with a mighty thump.

“See Agatha! It’s dangerous! Just stay with me.” Her father’s words didn’t reassure her.

Lightning and Thunder still filled the sky, and as Agatha watched the barn fall to the flames of the fire, small droplets of rain began to come down from the sky, like God’s tears. Agatha sobbed in her father’s arms as the rain sped to a downpour, soaking Agatha’s long blonde hair, and smudging the soot on her snow white face. She and her father watched as the water began to put out the fire, but it was too late for their barn; as the flames were put out, only a soggy wooden skeleton remained. A new feeling welled up in Agatha’s heart, an uncomfortable emotion that she did not recognize. None of the token scripture verses she was quoting in her head could make her feel better. It wasn’t fair! It wasn’t fair! Agatha was experiencing what real people call anger and sadness. It was as if the world wasn’t perfect anymore! Her heart felt as if it was turning to stone within her. “NO,” she thought, “I will not let this get me, just like Grandfather, A.T. Freegrace, who started a church for the settlers, said—I will rejoice!” Agatha’s hope was holding on by a thread. As she looked at the charred barn remains smoking in the falling rain, she prayed that nothing else would happen to her family—as long as she and her father were okay, she could make it, as long as nothing else bad happened.

Chapter 4

Chapter 4

“…Set off for a distant country…” Luke 15:13

Clark Lewis Dangerpride wiped the sweat from his brow with a tattered handkerchief he kept in his shirt pocket as the sun set in the sky, signaling the end of another day. His face was tanned from long days working outside and a wide brimmed hat sat over his dark hair. He sat tall and proud on his horse, looking across the wide-open range that had become home over the past seven years. He was proud of the way he had risen through the ranks of the cow herders, finally earning this position. He was in charge of the whole herd, and entrusted with the supervision of all the other wranglers. He felt as if he’d been born for this work—he loved being in the wilderness, away from it all; he thrilled in the chase of a wayward steer and loved the rugged camp life, only a canvas tent between himself and the stars.

The sharp call of a lone hawk interrupted Clark’s thoughts and he craned his neck to see the strong bird cut through the clear Prodigal, Wyoming sky. He laughed to himself and remembered the hot Oregon summers with Aggie, trying to outrun hawks soaring overhead through the wide-open prairies at the foot of Sunshine Salvation Valley’s beautiful mountains. Although his years on the range had been full of adventure and success, a piece of him knew he was missing out on something.

When he’d resolved to leave the farm, he’d wanted to get as far away from his father as he could, away from the yelling, the unreasonable expectations, all of it. He set off for Wyoming, inspired by the cow herders that had come into town each fall when he was a young boy. They told he and Aggie tales of life on the range, where the deer and the antelope play, where seldom is heard, a discouraging word, and the sky is not cloudy all day. One had set his hat on Clark’s head, “There’s a future cow herd if I ever saw one,” the man had said. The hat had fallen over his eyes and the sweet smell of leather filled up his nostrils. When his Pa had threatened to do some real harm to him after he had been stranded at the Freegrace home overnight due to awful storm, Clark knew it was time to fulfill his dreams and leave his father in the dust. He wouldn’t do what his father wanted; he wouldn’t stay and rot at the farm, watching Ma and Nina suffer, neglected by the man who should take care of them.

A solitary tear, and not a tear more, fell down his cheek as the anger rose up in his breast again. Thinking of his poor mother and Nina alone, running the farm while his father drank away the family’s small earnings—it was too much for him to bear. And Aggie, his best friend in the world, what was she doing now? Did she remember him? Did she stare out in the distance and think of him? He thought of Sunday mornings at church sitting between Aggie and her father. Clark had given up on church soon after he had set off for the range. God was for people with good lives, a good dad, for people with kind hearts like Aggie and her father. If there was a God, how could he love Clark, a boy, now man, with so much anger and hate and with a selfish heart that had chosen to leave everything to make a way for himself. Clark knew he wasn’t an awful person, he never drank a drop of Alcohol, never danced with the girls at the saloons, never said crap, never played cards (not even Go Fish!), but he knew that if God had wanted him as his follower, things wouldn’t be like they were. As far as he was concerned there was no God, or at least not a God who cared about him.

Yet, his guilt bothered him more than ever tonight. If he could only see that Nina and his mother were alright, if he could only see that Aggie and her father were doing well.

COME HOME

The voice had come out of nowhere, it was deep and male. Was it the sound of his own thoughts, his very soul telling him what he should do?

COME HOME.

It sounded older than his own voice, but vaguely familiar, like a heavenly father calling to his son of Prodigal, Wyoming. He didn’t know for sure who it was, but something changed in him in that moment, and he knew he had to go home. He’d come back to Abundance County as a stranger, like the cow herders that had come long ago, check up on his mother, Nina, and of course dear Aggie, and then leave once again, once he knew they were all okay. It was only a start, but it seemed that the voice that had spoken to him in all caps, had put a chink in the thick wall that Clark had built around his heart over the years.

Clark resolved to leave that very instant. Although the sun had set, and night travel would be inconvenient, it was much more romantic for him to leave that moment, under the cover of darkness towards the home he had left behind. The solitary tear he had cried was still slowly moving down his face, making its way down his stubble covered chin. He removed his handkerchief from his shirt pocket, wiping away the single bead of water that had fallen so gently from his eye, like a drop of dew slipping down a blade of grass. As he put the tattered handkerchief away in his pocket, a small piece of pink thread hanging off the ragged edge of the handkerchief, that appeared to be a part of some embroidered pattern from about 7 years ago, blew away in the wind.