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.