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.