The Waiting by Suzanne Fisher

Author:Suzanne Fisher
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781441213013
Publisher: Baker Publishing Group
Published: 2010-07-28T16:00:00+00:00

Later in the week, Cal stopped by the schoolhouse as Jorie was locking up the door for the evening. “Hello, Jorie.”

She spun around. “Hello, Cal. What are you doing out tonight?”

“Earlier today, old Eli Stutzman stopped by to say his wife was done.”

“Done what?”

“That’s just what I asked him. ‘Done living,’ he said.”

“Clara’s passed?” Jorie’s eyes went wide.

Those eyes of hers, they kept changing colors, he realized. Tonight, in the dusk of winter, they looked as blue-gray as an ocean storm. “She did. Very peacefully. Her heart gave out on her. I’m just coming back from their place now.”

Jorie locked the schoolhouse door. “Now she’ll be seeing those sunsets from high above.”

They stopped for a moment and looked at the setting sun. Its rays were casting long shadows that appeared blue on the pure whiteness of the powdery snow.

“E. B. White once wrote, ‘I am always humbled by the infinite ingenuity of the Lord, who can make a red barn cast a blue shadow,’” Cal said softly.

Jorie caught his eye, smiled faintly, and looked away, as if she was a little embarrassed he caught her looking at him. He noticed a couple of tendrils of hair, loosened by the breeze, curl about her ears.

The wind kicked up hard as they started walking up the road that led to their homes. Cal’s hand flew to his head, barely snatching his hat before it went sailing.

She pulled her cape around her, shivering. “How does Matthew like living in the city?”

“He hasn’t said. Probably means that he likes it very much.”

“I can’t imagine why anyone would choose to live in a city. Out here, most everything around us has been made by God: the grass and trees and birds. But in the city, so much is made by humans: those hideous electric wires, telephone poles, asphalt, cars, pollution.”

Cal half listened to her, looking for a segue to broach the real reason he had stopped by. To talk to her about the scholars, like Isaac wanted him to. “Jorie, I know you like taking the class out on nature hikes . . .” He swallowed hard.

She stopped and turned to him, her blue eyes wide with happiness. “Oh, I do. I do! And you understand why, don’t you, Cal? Do you see how knowing about God’s earth only brings us closer to him? How it helps us to feel the awe and majesty? That’s what I want the scholars to discover. So that all of their lives, they know to look around them, at nature and up at the heavens, and they remember God.”

Her face was so lit up with joy that the sight of it took his breath away. Imagine what it would be like, having a teacher like her to open scholars’ minds and point them to God’s majesty.

“Well, I’ll be on my way,” she said, when they reached the turnoff to Stoney Creek. She turned and started down the long drive.

“I’ll walk you to the farmhouse,” he offered, falling into step beside her.

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