Promise of Blessing (2 page)

T
HE
WIND
STIRRED
the tall prairie grass but the Kansas sea did not ripple in its usual, musical way.
 
Fall was still some way off, but the grass was beginning to turn golden and dry out.
 
The wind bumped against the dead heads of flowers and caught in tangles of broken stems.

Josephine McKinley shivered as she watched it, and pulled her knees up closer to her chest.
 
She sat on a large, flat rock at the top of a gentle slope that ran down to a stream.
 
This was a small part of their land that she and Clae had decided to leave unbroken, and it was one of her favourite places to sit.
 
She kept her feet well off the ground, overly cautious of snakes ever since her encounter with a rattler in the barn several weeks before.

She pulled her shawl tightly around her.
 
Since her recent illness she never felt comfortable – always too hot or too cold.
 
Clae would be upset if he knew she had sat out here so long, but he was in town and would not be back for some time, and she could not bear another minute alone inside the house.

It had taken her much longer than anticipated to recover.
 
The doctor could not tell them why, or whether the fever had done any permanent damage.
 
She was tired of sitting and sewing or tatting.
 
She was tired of thinking of new things to say to Millie and Beth, when they came to visit, or cook, or help with the more strenuous household chores.
 
Harland had been generously supplying Josie with books from his vast collection, but even her favourite poems and sermons seemed dull.

The truth was, she admitted to the wind, she felt that she was failing Clae all the while she recuperated.
 
There was always so much physical work for him and Harland to do around the farm, and there had been days when she hadn’t even been able to cook them a good morning meal.

She remembered the night Clae tore up the agreement she had signed before their wedding and declared that his love for her would never depend on what she did or did not do.
 
The thought brought a little warmth.
 
She must keep reminding herself of it.

The sun eased the soreness from her back, and it felt as if the wind was blowing away the dust inside her body.
 
She sat so still for so long that a family of prairie dogs popped their heads out of their burrow.
 
She watched them, delighted, until an involuntary movement on her part startled the male.
 
He barked sharply and they all disappeared below ground in a heartbeat.

Disappointed, Josie stretched and slid slowly off the rock.
 
It was time to start the walk back to the house.
 
It was a long way, but thankfully the path was mostly downhill in the homeward direction.

As she rounded a corner and the roof of the big barn came into view, she was startled by a white and brown creature that leaped up at her from behind a thick clump of grass.
 
She staggered backwards.

“Pea!” she admonished, pressing her hand to her chest and breathing heavily.
 
“What are you--?
 
How did you get out of your pen again?
 
He’s not here.
 
You have got to learn to be patient.”

She caught the little goat, Clae’s faithful shadow, by one of her horns and led her gently back to the barn yard.
 
She tied her to a long rope beside the house, but the silly creature looked so forlorn that Josie gave in and let her inside.
 
She would make a nuisance of herself, but she would be company.

Supper was prepared and Josie was dozing in a chair, exhausted, when Pea, who was lying across Josie’s feet, raised her head, her floppy ears twitching.
 
The farm dogs started up a racket.
 
A few seconds later Josie heard the rumble of wagon wheels and the clopping of the men’s horses, Thanksgiving and Christmas’s hooves.
 
Clae and Harland were home from town.

She heard them pull up outside the house; heard Clae’s cheery voice commanding the dogs to be quiet.
 
The next moment the front door flew inwards and the brim of a hat appeared around it, beneath which was a lock of blond hair and a pair of very cheeky blue eyes, crinkled at the corners.

“There’s my Josie,” said Clae, the rest of him appearing around the door.
 
He paused to scratch the top of Pea’s head, lifting a bag in his other hand high out of reach of her quivering nostrils.
 
Josie, shaking off her weariness, got up from her chair to greet him, and found herself enveloped in slightly dusty-smelling warmth.
 
Her face and neck were covered with kisses.
 
She laughed and pushed him away, aware that Harland had just come in, carrying a large crate.

Clae took a step back and bowed, presenting the bag in his hand with a flourish.
 
She caught a whiff of sweetness and took it eagerly.
 
Inside were six perfect peaches, golden and velvety.

“They’re for you, mind, not for all of us.
 
Doc says they’ll be good for you,” said Clae.

“Oh, they’re beautiful!
 
Thank you.”
 
She reached for his hand and raised it to her lips.

Behind Clae, Harland made an impatient noise.
 
“We gonna unload this wagon sometime tonight?” he asked.

Clae raised an eyebrow at Josie.
 
“Don’t mind him.
 
He’s been right ornery ever since…let me see.
 
Oh, yeah, must have been about the time we met Beth, being escorted around town by Mr Jake Friend.”

Harland’s eyes flashed with uncharacteristic anger before he turned away from them to put the crate down.
 
“I have not been ornery,” he said.
 
“I’d just like to get finished here sometime soon so’s I can have some supper.”

Clae tipped his hat to Josie and turned theatrically on one heel, and the twin brothers, identical but for an odd flush on Harland’s cheeks, went back out to the wagon.

Josie moved to the kitchen to finish off the supper, her interest piqued for the first time in days.
 
Her little friend Beth, in the company of the rather wealthy Jake Friend.
 
This was news.

It was no secret to anyone who knew her that Beth had long carried a torch for Harland, and Harland, although his ways were in general somewhat looser than Clae and Josie could approve, singled Beth out on many occasions.
 
Still, she was young, and Josie had assumed that Harland was simply biding his time.
 
Lately, though, as Beth made visit after visit to the McKinley farm and there seemed to grow no understanding between them, Josie had begun to wonder.
 
Harland was clearly upset by the possibility that Beth had another beau, yet he did nothing to declare his feelings.
 
What game was he playing?

 
The wagon was unloaded, the horses seen to and the evening chores done before the men came in to supper, carrying a very large packing crate between them.

Josie scurried out of their way as they lowered it carefully in the middle of the room.

“What, in heaven’s name, is that?” she asked.

“Supper first,” said Clae, “and then we’ll show you.”

The meal was a happy one, although Harland looked preoccupied.
 
A visit to town always meant plenty of news for discussion.
 
There were a number of new babies, someone that Josie did not know had a new bride out from Chicago, and the city policeman recently appointed by Marshal Meagher was making a name for himself.

“Gosh, I’m sorry,” said Clae, patting his pockets.
 
“I almost forgot – you’ve got a letter from New York.”

Josie opened it eagerly.
 
It was from Anna – pages and pages of society gossip, raptures over the latest fashions and, at the end, almost as an afterthought, an update on their father’s health.
 
The warm summer weather had done him good and he was better than he had been in months.

When they had finished eating, Clae bowed his head and gave thanks for this piece of good news, and for Josie’s own improving health.
 
Then he jumped up from the table and began to pry the lid off the crate.
 
Once it was off, he and Harland removed one side and lifted out something heavy, covered with a thick cloth.
 
They set it on the floor beside Josie’s chair.
 

“I realised,” said Clae, “that I never got you a wedding present.”

Josie heart began to thump.

“So…we had this idea.
 
I hope you like it.”
 
He waved at the object.

Josie stood up and carefully removed the heavy cloth.
 
Underneath was a table made of dark, polished wood, with four small drawers and a matching stool.
 
The underside of the table was a complicated wheeled mechanism made out of metal, and on top of it, a heavy, metal object was set into the wood.
 
In curly gold lettering across the front of the object was painted the word “Singer”.

Josie gasped and blinked several times, unable to believe her eyes.

“A sewing machine!”
 
And an expensive one, at that.
 
“How…?
 
Oh, but I have nothing….”
 
She looked up at Clae, tears making her eyes bright.
 
“It’s beautiful!”
 
Feeling overwhelmed, she sank down onto a chair.

“But I have nothing to give you,” she said dolefully.

“Well, I don’t know about that,” said Clae.
 
“Supper was pretty good.”

“Amen,” agreed Harland.

Josie ran her fingers over the polished wood and the cool metal.
 
It really was a beautiful machine.
 
She had never imagined that one day she might own one.
 
The things that she could do with it!
 
What would Millie and Beth say?
 
They would both want to try it.
 
She would have to learn how to use it before they next came to visit.

“Where would you like it?” asked Clae.

“Oh, well….”
 
She glanced around the room.
 
“Over there, between the window and the fireplace, please.
 
The light will be best there.”

“Yes, Ma’am.”

They set it in place, and Josie just stood and stared at it.
 
The lamplight glinted off its shiny surface.
 
It looked far too ostentatious for the little farmhouse room, but even if it had been a simple and ugly thing, it would have stood out to Josie as something special.

Turning, she threw her arms round Clae, whose pleasure at this unusually zealous demonstration was clearly revealed on his face.

Harland gave a gruff chuckle when he saw his brother’s expression.
 
“You keep doing that,” he said to Josie, “and this place will overflow with sewing machines.”