The Fire in Ember - DiAnn Mills [18]
Some folks were staring. What were they thinking? Did they know Leon had tried to hang her for stealing a horse, but John stopped him? Had they figured out he regretted saving her? Did some of them assume she and John were courtin’ like Mr. Oberlander had done? Oh, the questions weighing against her brain.
A woman began to play a song on the piano. Bert turned her attention to the music, allowing it to soothe her, as music always did. Leah picked up a book from the back of the bench in front of her and found a particular page. Bert pretended interest. The people around her began to sing “I Sing the Mighty Power of God,” and she listened. The tune was easy to pick up, and the words were fitting for how helpless and hopeless she felt.
A man dressed in a black suit stepped up to a wooden box and smiled. “Welcome to the house of God.”
The house of God? Could she endure this?
Leah wanted to glance Bert’s way, but the poor girl couldn’t seem to sit still. If Bert had been one of the boys, Leah would have quieted her with a mama’s special look. Considering the situation, she should have thought through the seating better to make sure Bert didn’t sit beside John. But she’d simply gone with the usual arrangement—making sure Mark was on one side of John and Aaron on Leah’s other side with Davis. Mark and Aaron were more mischievous than a dozen boys. And it seemed like the older they got, the more they found to do to aggravate those around them.
Throughout the sermon, Leah observed Bert’s uneasiness with Preacher Waller’s words. The only telltale signs were the crinkle in her forehead and the earnest concentration splayed across her face. Once she whisked away a tear. Poor girl. Hearing about God for the first time had to be a shock, especially if the Holy Spirit was working in her heart. Leah had prayed for Bert to be moved toward the ways of God, but sometimes that took more than one meeting with His Word and other believers. Sometimes it took years.
Leah listened to the beginnings of another hymn, but for the life of her she couldn’t concentrate on the words. Sometimes Preacher Waller chose unfamiliar hymns, claiming the words were what mattered. Of course that made them impossible to sing.
While Leah stumbled over the notes and words, her mind wandered. Seemed like John had been born age thirty. Much too serious a good amount of the time. Oh, he laughed and teased with his brothers, but he wore “head of the household” like a soldier’s bandage. She wanted him to experience happiness and the satisfaction of living his life for God. Perhaps Bert could spark some life into him. He certainly had displayed a sweet spirit to her today.
Did John understand that God brought Bert into their lives for a reason?
Oh dear, should she be thinking about such things? The girl had seen abuse, and certainly more times than Leon’s beating. The nightmare last night had clearly shown the girl had a troubled past.
Every time Leah reached out and reined in her wayward mind to worship God, something else entered her thoughts.
Leah thought through each one of her sons—their strengths and their weaknesses. Oh, she wanted so much for them. And Bert … what did she see in the girl’s future?
She inwardly gasped. Goodness, she was thinking of the girl as her own.
Mercy, get your mind back on God where it ought to be.
CHAPTER 9
Two days before Evan’s birthday, John saddled up Racer to pay another visit to Victor Oberlander at the Wide O. He had a few qualms about calling on the man after the humiliation surrounding Bert and her … identity. But if John was to give a homestead parcel of land to Evan for his birthday, he needed to swallow his pride and get the purchase made.
By now Leon had learned the boy he wanted to hang was a woman. The knowledge had either made him angrier or embarrassed. Hopefully the latter. No one needed to have a hot-tempered man as an enemy.
John rode across Oberlander land with his thoughts on the prime acreage—thick grasses and woods already thinned by nature. Most of the Wide O contained