Bachelor's Puzzle by Judith Pella

Author:Judith Pella [Pella, Judith]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Baker Publishing Group
Published: 0100-12-31T22:00:00+00:00

SEVENTEEN

Ellie watched Reverend L ocklin ride away. She wanted desperately to run after him and tell him she was sorry, but she knew she’d be saying it just to appease him, and no one wanted that kind of apology.

But she believed what she believed. If you started saying life was not clearly good and bad, that there were gray areas, you opened yourself up for much confusion. Yet what bothered her most was she knew that wasn’t the true reason for her discomfiture. She could be flexible, tolerant, and forgiving to a point. She had only raised these broader issues to cover the one that troubled her most about what Reverend Locklin had done.

If Ellie’s father had beat up Mr. Donnelly under the same circumstances, she might have understood and even applauded him a little. But she held ReverendL ocklin to a higher standard, not only as a minister but—and this truly troubled her—as a candidate for her husband.

Was she too inflexible in the matter of choosing a husband?

Was that why she was nineteen and not yet married or even engaged? Could no man meet her standards?

Realizing her churning thoughts were making her more distraught rather than offering solutions, she finally rose from the swing and returned to the house. She hadn’t realized she’d been out so long. She hadn’t even noted the evening chill in the air. I nside, the house was quiet. Maggie, Georgie, and Boyd had already gone up to bed. Mama and Dad were seated in the rocking chairs, Mama with perpetual sewing in her hands, squinting so as to get a few more stitches put in as the firelight began to fade. Dad was thumbing through his Montgomery Ward catalog.

“I was about ready to come after you,” Mama said. “You’ll get a chill sitting outside so late without a coat.”

“We heard Reverend L ocklin ride off some time ago,” Dad said.

“He asked me to send his regards.”

“Something must have happened for him to not stop back in the house before leaving. He even left his coat behind,” said Mama.

“We didn’t quite agree on something,” Ellie said vaguely, hoping that would be the end of it but knowing it wouldn’t.

“What did you say to him?” asked Mama.

“You immediately assume it was I who offended him!”

“Well, Ellie, honey,” Dad said gently, “you did seem to have a little bee in your bonnet.”

“He said I was inflexible and judgmental.” She was about to take back the judgmental part when she realized he hadn’t actually said that. But she was certain he was thinking it, so she didn’t.

“You were pretty unwilling to consider there might be more to what happened than appeared on the surface,” Dad said.

“There is more to it than that, though, isn’t there, Ellie?” Mama asked.

Ellie looked at her mother, then quickly at her father. She just shrugged. She couldn’t say what was really bothering her in front of her father. He was already skeptical of this business of marrying off the minister and might take her confession wrong.

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