Love's Silent Song by June Masters Bacher

Author:June Masters Bacher
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780736951548
Publisher: Harvest House Publishers

22

Homecoming

The rest of the week passed quickly. Chris Beth, Vangie, and young Wil worked long hours to clean away as many of the invading grasshoppers’ signs as possible. It was indeed a hateful task and a most depressing one. Every day brought new revelations of the damages the insects had done.

“They left nothing in the garden but weeds,” Vangie moaned, holding a hand to support her obviously aching back.

“And the stink!” young Wil added, holding his nose. He had been raking and burying the remains for days, but still the stench remained. The chickens, having eaten their fill, had lost interest and wandered around to find shade. They would miss the giant-leafed sunflowers, which had been stripped of their foliage and promising heads by the hungry insects in their migratory flight. Only dying stalks were left.

Chris Beth paused on the upper rung of Wilson’s pruning ladder. Her arms ached from scrubbing the higher sections of the Big House’s once-white siding.

“I’ve heard that these creatures follow a narrow path. Do you suppose the rest of the valley escaped?”

The others hoped so. They resumed their respective chores. And, even though Chris Beth felt that she could not move even one more muscle, she doubled and redoubled her efforts, doggedly determined to somehow make this a nice homecoming for the men.

“I’ll soak for hours, then put on the white blouse you like—maybe let my hair hang down, even bite the stem of the rose from my hat! All to please you, Joe. All to show how much I love you…miss you…and need you! ”

It was true. She had missed Joe more than she had thought possible, she reflected, as she pushed scrub brushes back and forth. Her hands were red and raw, her nails broken to the quick. Maybe, she thought as she paused to remove a long splinter from her left hand, old Jonas was right.

“Oughta pray for adversity,” the circuit rider had declared just before pronouncing Joe and Chris Beth man and wife. “Strengthens the innards and sets th’ heart in tickin’ order.”

But that thought was kind of hard to go along with. Yet Joe’s absence had given her a chance to “set her heart in ticking order”! Compared to life with Joe, the past was nothing. Nothing at all. Smiling, she worked on.

When the pain in her arms and legs became almost unbearable, she whispered her never-changing, simple prayer: “Carry me just a little further, Lord,” she implored. Then, strengthened, she worked on.

Why on earth, then, did she simply crumple up like a rag doll when she finally fell into Joe’s arms? And why did she cry now that it was all over?

Reckon the Lord carried me as far as He thought He ought to, she thought through a maze of relief and happiness at seeing the men safely home.

“Sh-h-h-h, sh-h, sh-h,” Joe whispered, holding her close to his warm, familiar body while stroking her hair. Chris Beth was glad she had stayed up far too late the night before to bathe and shampoo.

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