Sarah's Story (eBook)

Chapter Two:
“God Bless Daddy”

It was dark when Daddy carried Sarah out and tucked her into the quilts next to her sister. The huge moon lit the way and made strange shadows on the road. Sarah listened to her parents softly talking in the front. She couldn’t quite make out what they were saying, but she could hear the worry in her mother’s voice. She heard Daddy’s warm deep voice reassuring her and Sarah knew that they were discussing Daddy’s disappearance during the day. While she couldn’t help feeling a little uneasy, she remembered her father’s reassurance. And Daddy was always right.

After the holidays, winter came on with a vengeance. Sarah and Eliza rose early each day and trudged the mile to the schoolhouse where her mother taught grades one through eight. Most of the students in the small schoolhouse were their own relatives. This made discipline a lot easier for their mother, since most of the children knew that if they misbehaved she would go straight to their parents and the prank was not worth the price. However, it did not make things easier for Sarah. Studies were just not her thing. She would much rather be with her father even if it meant helping him around the farm, fishing, or playing with Uncle Marty’s children, who, because their mother was a Cherokee, hardly ever had to come to school. And here Teddy, wanting to be like the rest of the boys, never tired of tying her braids in knots while he sat behind her.

But, playing outside was not to be. Mamma insisted that she needed an education.

“Why do I need to go to school?” Sarah whined. “No matter how many times tables I learn, I’ll just have some man trying to tell me what to do. And, I don’t need school to have an adventure. Maybe I’ll even join up with that fella Jesse James that Daddy and Uncle James are always talking about. I’ll bet nobody made him go to school.”

“You hush now and get those dishes done and get to bed. Life will be what it will be and you may be traveling on the great adventure. But right now, young lady, you will go to school. You never know what tomorrow may bring. Before I met your father, if I could not have taught school. Where do you think I might be?” Mamma winked at Daddy as Sarah huffed off to the attic.

Winter slowly passed by and soon Sarah began to see the signs of spring. Calves were born, flowers peeked through the ground and the Ozarks turned a shade of green known only to those beautiful hills. Sarah wanted to run and play but Eliza relished each and every part of running the little farm. Neither Sarah or Eliza realized that Daddy seemed to ask them to do more and more. They never thought about their parent’s age difference or that Daddy seemed to be moving a little slower. He was very careful not to let his family hear his labored breathing.

One day after finishing their morning chores -carrying water back from the pump and feeding the animals-Sarah and Eliza lay under the big oak tree in front of the house. The soft grass tickled their cheeks.

“Eliza,” Sarah said, picking a grass stem and trying to fashion a whistle, “What do you want to be when you grow up?”

“A farmer’s wife” Eliza said. “Someday I’ll have my own plot of zinnias and violets in the front. Don’t you just love how violets peek up at you? And I’ll grow the biggest pumpkins and I’ll have a small calf out back.”

“And I”, Sarah said. “I shall leave this town and travel the roads. There has to be more to life than this. And if I marry, he’ll be an outlaw or a prince. Daddy said that I can be anything I want to be.”

“Oh you’ll be a princess, alright” her sister laughed. “You’ll be a queen; queen of your own kitchen and a bunch of little kids! And if you don’t finish sewing that sampler, Mamma is going to get after you and you’ll be queen of the kitchen sink before your time.”

“You wait and see. You just wait and see.” Sarah answered, not aware that her words would come true sooner than she thought.

It was a hot summer morning. The humid air was still and Sarah could feel the sweat on her damp body as she struggled to wake in the stifling attic. Instantly she shot up as she heard her mother’s frantic screams.

“Sarah, run to town and get Doc. Thompson as fast as you can. Tell him Daddy is very sick and we need him now! Eliza, saddle Dolly and fly like the wind to Uncle James house and bring him here.” Both girls felt rather than heard the fear in her voice.

Sarah’s heart beat high in her chest. She knew, as she ran that at Christmas time she’d been right; her wonderful Daddy was sick. “Don’t let him die. Don’t let him die.” she prayed. “I’ll study hard, God, I promise. I’ll be nice to my sister. I’ll do my chores. Just don’t let my Daddy die.”

When Sarah and Doc arrived, Sarah knew it was too late. Aaron Coleman was gone. She found her mother on her knees holding the hand of her beloved husband as she sobbed into his side.

“No! No!” she screamed as she threw herself at her mother. “You let him die. How could you let him die?”

Suddenly she felt two strong arms lifting her from her feet and cradling her into his chest.

“I’m sorry, Cynthia, she doesn’t mean it. She’s just a little girl” But Sarah could not take back her words and as her Uncle crushed her to his chest, she saw the pain in her mother’s eyes. Somehow, she just felt nothing. Her Daddy, her best friend and her champion was gone from her forever. She felt only cold and numb and never heard her sister or her mother crying.

Two days later in a terrible heat, Uncle James came and drove the small family to the cemetery while one of his sons drove their big wagon. The Berry family men had made the coffin it carried. Dark clouds drifted from the west and thunder rolled across the sky. They had nothing on Sarah. Her heart was cold and the dark clouds matched her eyes. Her lips and freckled nose trembled a she held back the tears that she thought had dried up after two days of crying. She watched numbly as her uncles carried the heavy coffin into the little church that the family had attended for years. She didn’t notice the prayers, the songs or even the murmuring pity that the family and neighbors heaped upon her mother. She just stared at the motionless face of her father that would never smile at her in that secret way that they had shared her whole life long. She would never hear him laugh again. Daddy was already gone and he wasn’t coming back. Nothing else mattered. As they dropped the big box into the dark hole in the ground, Sarah knew that nothing would ever be the same.

At the lunch at Grandpa’s Sarah sat still as a mouse. Because she was so quiet, no one paid her any mind and conversations went on around her. As she backed into a corner next to the empty fireplace, she heard two of her uncles talking softly.

“I don’t know what she will do now. She has those two little girls and Aaron was tapped out. The school board pays a pittance. And she will only keep that if they decide to keep her on with no man around to guarantee her behavior.

“They, You mean Judge Craig. You know how strict they are about the teacher’s life. As a widow, Cynthia is pretty much a free person. Old Judge Craig won’t like that.”

“Ya know that Judge Craig’s daughter has been eying that job for months. Now that her children are school age, Mary will want to take it.”

“Even if Judge Craig keeps her on, how will she make payments on the farm?”

“Well, our Cynthia is resourceful. Let’s not get too far ahead. She could live with me, but I don’t know if Becky would agree. Our cabin is full to the brim as it is. Our job right now is to help her all we can. I’ll send one of the boys over to stay the rest of the summer to help out with the animals and bring in some wood.”

And then Sarah heard words that went to her heart like an arrow.

“I wish she could live with me,” she heard her Uncle James say. “But we’re nearly packed and will be leaving on the morrow for Oklahoma. We were just waiting until after the funeral. We can postpone it no longer. We need to be settled by winter and Jacobs won’t hold my job, if I’m not there before fall. ”

Just when she thought that life couldn’t get any worse, her favorite Uncle was leaving her. Oklahoma. He might as well be moving to the ends of the earth.

Just then Uncle James noticed Sarah in the corner, her face white and devastated. As he glanced quickly at his brother in- law, he reached for the child, wondering how much she had heard.

“ Ah little one, life deals us hard blows sometimes, but you will be all right. You have a huge family here that loves you and your mother needs your help. You know in your heart that it’s not your Mamma’s fault. Your Daddy was sick for a long time Your Mamma loves you with every inch of here being and she will need your love and strength to see her through. I love you, and I will write you as often as someone comes this way. You will see me soon, I promise you. Stillwater is not so far that we will never see each other. I would stay but the mill is giving out for all of us. Now, go and give...