One Last Spring by Sian Ann Bessey

Author:Sian Ann Bessey
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-68047-929-4
Publisher: Covenant Communications, Inc.
Published: 2015-10-21T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 18

Reopening the post office proved to be a blessing for everyone. Ed the Post was happy to resume his regular trek between Llanfyllin and Llanwddyn. For the first week, he stayed in the village a few extra hours each day, helping Gwen catch up with the stacks of letters that had accumulated during the two weeks her aunt had been ill, but it was not long before Gwen felt they had things well under control. She was pleasantly surprised by how much she was able to accomplish on her own.

The villagers were grateful to have their postal service restored and stopped by often for updates on Aunty Jane’s recuperation. It was good for Gwen to interact with friends and neighbors again and to become reimmersed in the happenings of the village.

It didn’t take long to catch up on the ongoing development of the dam. Most of the villagers were more than happy to grumble about one thing or another. Three more cranes had been delivered, bringing the total up to eight—and considerably increasing the noise at the site. The village policeman had had to break up four disorderly fights between navvies who had spent too long at the pub, and three pompous Englishmen from Liverpool had spent a few days surveying the dam before declaring Llanwddyn too wet and cold for them to stay any longer.

The winter weather had done little to slow the progress of the construction, however. Only two things had stopped the work for more than a couple of days. The first had been when supplies had been cut off by the blizzard that closed the pass to Llanfyllin, and the second was when one of the locomotives steaming up and down the valley hauling stone derailed. Three men had been injured, and it had taken several days to repair the train and the track.

Perhaps the most startling news was the Liverpool Corporation had started exhuming and reinterring bodies from the existing graveyard near the chapel to a new graveyard two miles down the valley. They were estimating that it would take three to four years to complete the job and had promised that family members would be notified before loved ones were moved. Despite that reassurance, Gwen resolved to go check on her parents’ graves before the week was over.

She also hoped it wouldn’t be too long before she was able to view the changes to the dam from her boulder on the mountain. From that vantage point, she knew she’d easily spot the progress that had been made while she’d been gone. For the time being, though, she spent every morning at the post office, then hurried home to spend the afternoon with her aunt before making supper and tumbling into bed exhausted.

Gwen had written a letter to the headmaster in Llanfyllin, updating him on her aunt’s condition and explaining that it was unlikely that she would be returning to school in the foreseeable future. It was a difficult letter to write because as

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