Rachel's Prayer by Leisha Kelly

Author:Leisha Kelly
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Baker Publishing Group
Published: 2006-06-30T20:00:00+00:00

19

Sarah

I guess nobody ever knew what bothered Mr. Hammond about Rorey getting engaged. Frank said that their pa slept most of the next day, but after that he seemed to be better again.

“Do you think I’m too religious?” Frank asked me that afternoon. “Do you think I talk Bible words too much?”

“I don’t know if there is such a thing as too much,” I told him, pinning a pillowcase to the laundry line.

“But I don’t want people to think I’m lookin’ down on ’em.”

“I don’t know how they could, Frank, when all you’re doing is speaking words of comfort. There’ve been times when my mother really appreciated it.”

That seemed to satisfy him, at least a little. I was hanging wash, and he’d come out to talk to me and ended up helping. He held one end of a bedsheet off the ground for me while I started pushing clothespins in place. I always had trouble with bedsheets. I figured a person’d have to have arms like a gorilla to hang and fold them right.

“Do you ever wonder what people think a’ you?” Frank asked me.

“Sometimes.”

“Do you think it’s a sin?”

I felt completely unqualified to answer that kind of question, but I knew he just wanted an opinion, so I did my best. “Maybe it’s just human nature. I’m not sure we can help giving it a little thought.”

“Well, I find human nature pretty sinful,” he said with a sigh. “My own as much as anybody else’s.”

“That’s reassuring,” I told him. “Must mean you’re as human as the next fellow.”

He gave me an odd look. “I guess my pa’s been wondering.” “If you’re human?”

“I don’t know just what. Do you think I look like him?”

“A little. But only when he’s in a good mood.”

“Pray for him, will you please, Sarah Jean? Last night was strange. It was good in a way, like I finally got a chance to see inside him. I hope it stays that way. I hope we can talk over the things that get to botherin’ him.”

I suddenly remembered Lester’s letter to Rorey. He’d used her middle name. Nobody else used her middle name. And here was Frank, always using mine. “I’ll pray for your pa,” I promised, at the same time trying to remember Frank’s middle name. Drew. Like that girl sleuth Nancy’s surname. It was unusual. It kind of fit him. But I knew I wouldn’t start using it.

“Are you going to the fair?” he asked me.

“I don’t know. We’re at least driving into Mcleansboro to see the Arnold’s window display.”

“I could take you, if you wanna see the fair,” he offered. “I’ve got money from my last order to pay the ticket price.”

Maybe I looked at him a little differently when he said that, I don’t know. Maybe he’d had more in mind all along. But he hurried up and said the rest.

“I could take Pa’s wagon, an’ your pa wouldn’t have to use his gas. I wouldn’t mind bringin’ whoever wanted to come.”

“I’ll ask Mom.

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