© 2013 by Grace Livingston Hill
Print ISBN 978-1-62029-391-1
eBook Editions:
Adobe Digital Edition (.epub) 978-1-62416-417-0
Kindle and MobiPocket Edition (.prc) 978-1-62416-416-3
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted for commercial purposes, except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without written permission of the publisher.
All scripture quotations are taken from the King James Version of the Bible.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously.
Any similarity to actual people, organizations, and/or events is purely coincidental.
Cover design: Faceout Studio, www.faceoutstudio.com
Published by Barbour Publishing, Inc., P.O. Box 719, Uhrichsville, Ohio 44683, www.barbourbooks.com
Our mission is to publish and distribute inspirational products offering exceptional value and biblical encouragement to the masses.
Printed in the United States of America.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
About the Author
Chapter 1
Early 1920s
Fraley MacPherson stood in the open door of the cabin, looking out across the mountains. The peace of the morning was shining on them, and the world looked clean and newly made after the storm of the night before. She gave a little wistful sigh, her heart swelling with longing and joy in the beauty and a wish that life were all like that beauty spread out so wondrously before her.
For a moment, she reveled in the spring tints of the foliage—the tender buds of the trees like dots of coral over their tops, the pale green of the little new leaves, the deep darkness of the stalwart pines that seemed like great plumy backgrounds for the more delicate tracery of the other trees that were getting their new season’s foliage. Her glance swept every familiar point in the landscape, from the dim purple mountains in the distance, as far as the eye could reach, with the highlight of snow on the peaks, to the nearer ones, gaunt with rocks or furred with the tender green of the trees; then down to the foothills and the valley below.
There was one place, off to the right, where her eyes never lingered. It was the way to the settlement, miles beyond, the trail that led past a sheer precipice where her father had fallen to his death five months before. She always had to suppress a little shudder as she glanced past the ominous, yawning cavern that crept, it seemed to her sensitive gaze, nearer and nearer to the trail each month. It was the one spot in all the glorious panorama that spoiled the picture if she let herself see it, not only because of that terrible memory but also because it was the way the men of the household came and went to and from the far-off world.
Peace and contentment came into Fraley’s life only when the men of the household were gone somewhere into the world. Peace and contentment fled when they returned; terror and dismay remained.
The girl was good to look upon as she stood in the doorway, the sunshine on her golden hair that curled into a thousand ripples and caught the gleams of light until she looked like a piece of the morning herself.
Her eyes were bits of the sky, and the soft flush that came and went in her cheeks was like a wild mountain flower. She looked like a young flower herself as she stood there in her little faded shapeless frock, one bare foot poised on the toe behind the other bare heel—pretty feet, never cramped by shoes that were too tight for her, seldom covered by any shoe at all.
Her arms were round and smooth and white, one raised and resting against the door frame. The whole graceful little wild sweet figure, drenched with the morning and gazing into life, a fit subject for some great artist’s brush.
Something of all this came into the weary mind of the dying woman who lay on the cot across the room and watched her, and a weak tear trickled down her pallid cheek.
Fraley’s eyes were resting on a soft cloud now that nested in the hollow of a mountain just below its peak. She had eyes that could see heavenly things in clouds, and she loved to watch them as they trailed a glorious panorama among the peaks and decked themselves in the colors of the morning, or the blaze of white noon, or the vivid glory of the sunset. This cloud she was watching now had wreathed itself about until she saw in it a lovely mother, holding a little child in her arms. She smiled dreamily as the cloud mother smiled down at the little sleeping babe in her arms that, even as she watched, sank back into sleep and became a soft billow of white upon the mountain. How the mother looked down and loved it, the little billow of cloud baby in her arms!
“Fraley.”
The voice was very weak, but the girl, anxious, startled, her smile fading quickly into alarm, turned with a start back to the sordid room and life with its steadily advancing sorrow that had been drawing nearer every hour now for tortuous days.
“Fraley.”
The girl was at her mother’s side in an instant, kneeling beside the crude cot.
“Yes, Mother?” There was pain in her voice and a forced cheer. “You want some fresh water?”
“No, dear! Sit down close—I must tell you something—”
“Oh, don’t talk, Mother!” protested the girl anxiously. “It always makes you cough so.”
“I must—Fraley—the time is going fast now. It’s almost run out.”
“Oh, don’t, Mother! You were better last night. You haven’t coughed so much this morning. I asked that strange man last night to get word to a doctor. He promised. Maybe he will come before night!”
“No, Fraley child! It’s too late! No doctor can cure me. Listen, child. Don’t let’s waste words. Every minute is precious. I must tell you something. I ought to have told you before. Come close. I can’t speak so loud.”
The girl stayed her tears and leaned close to the beloved lips, a wild fear growing in her eyes. Persistently she had tried to hide from herself the fact that this beloved mother, her only beloved in all the world, was going from her, tried not to think what her lot would be when she was gone.
Persistently now she put the thought from her and tried bravely to listen.
“Fraley, when I’m gone you can’t stay here.”
Fraley nodded, as if that had long been a settled fact between them.
“I hoped. I hoped. I always hoped I’d get strength to go with you and get away somehow only I never did. I never found a way nor money enough for us both even for one ”
“Don’t, Mother!” moaned the girl with a little quick catch in her breath. “Don’t apologize. As if I didn’t know what you’ve been through. Just tell me what you want me to know, and don’t bother with the rest. I understand.”
The feeble hand pressed the girl’s strong one, and the pale lips tried to smile.
“Dear child!” she murmured then struggled through a spell of coughing, lay panting a moment, and struggled on. “There isn’t enough yet not even for you,” she panted.
“I don’t need money,” scorned the young voice. “I can take care of myself.”
“Oh, my dear!” sighed the woman and then girded herself to go on.
?
??There’s only fifteen dollars. It’s in three little gold fives. Never mind how I got it. I sold the heifer they thought went astray to that stranger that rode up here two months ago. I had to bear a beating, but it gave me the last five. The first I brought out here to the wilderness with me, and the second I got from the man who came here the day your father was killed. I sold my wedding ring to him but that was all he would give ”
“Oh, Mother! You oughtn’t to talk,” pleaded the girl, as the mother struggled with another fit of coughing.
“I must, dear! Don’t hinder now the time is so short!”
“Then tell it quick, Mother, and let’s be over with it,” cried the girl, lifting the sick woman’s head tenderly and helping her to sip a little water from a tin cup that stood on a bench by the cot.
“It’s here”—she pressed her hand over her heart—“sewed in the cloth. You must rip it out. Put it in the little clean bag I made for it, and tie it around your waist. If Brand Carter should lay his hands on it once, you’d never see it again! Twice he’s tried to see if I had anything, once when he thought I was asleep. He suspected, I think. Take it now, Fraley, and fix it out of sight around your waist. Here, take the knife and rip the stitches quick. You can’t always tell if one of the men might come back! Go look down the mountain before you begin. Hurry!”
In a panic, the girl sprang to the door and gazed in the direction of the trail, but the morning simmered on in beauty, and not a human came in sight. A wild bird soared, smote the morning with his song smote her young heart with sorrow. Oh, why did that bird have to sing now?
She sprang back and deftly cut the stitches. Through blinding tears she sewed the coins into the bit of girdle her mother had crudely made from a cotton salt bag—most of their clothing was made from bags, flour and salt and sometimes cotton sugar bags—and solemnly girded herself with it as her mother bade her.
“Now, Fraley,” said the mother, when this was done to her satisfaction, “you’re to guard that night and day. It won’t be long till I’m gone. And you’re not to think you must spend any of it on me on burying or like that—”
A sob from Fraley stopped her, and she laid a wasted hand upon the bright, rough head that was buried in the flimsy bedcover.
“I know little girl—Mother’s little girl! That’s hard but that’s a command! Understand, Fraley? It’s Mother’s last wish!”
The girl choked out an assent.
“And you’re not to stay for anything like that. It wouldn’t be safe! Oh, I ought to have got you out of here long ago! Only I didn’t see the way clear. I couldn’t let you go without me. You were so young!”
“I know, Mother dear, I know!” sobbed the girl, trying to smile bravely through her tears. “I wouldn’t have gone, you know, not without you!”
“Well, I should have gone. We should have gone together long ago—found a nice place in the wilderness, if there wasn’t any other way—a place where they would never think to look—where we could die together. That would have been better than this than leaving you here—all alone. You all alone!”
“Mother, don’t blame yourself! Please! I can’t bear it!”
A wild rabbit scurried across the silence in front of the cabin, and a hawk in the sky circled great shadows that moved over the spot of sunshine on the cabin floor. Fraley, with ears attuned to the slightest sound in her wide, silent world, sprang up and darted to the door to survey the wilderness then came back reassured.
“It’s no one,” she said, laying her firm young hand on the cold brow. “Now, Mother, can’t you rest a little? You’ve talked too much.”
“No, no,” protested the sick woman, “the time is going. I must finish! Fraley, go look behind the loose board under your bed. There’s a bag there. Bring it! I want to show you. Quick!”
Fraley came back with a bundle of gray woolen cloth, which she examined wonderingly.
“I made it from your father’s old coat,” explained the mother eagerly. “It’s some worn, and there’s a hole or two I had to darn, but it will be better than nothing.”
“But what is it for, Mother?” asked the girl, puzzled.
“It’s a traveling bag for you when you start. It’s all packed. See! I washed and mended your other things and made a little best dress for you out of my old black satin one that had been put away in the hole under the floor since before you were born. It may not be in fashion now but it’s the best I could do. I cut it out when you were asleep and sewed it while you gathered wood for the fire.”
“Oh, Mother!” burst forth the girl with uncontrollable tears, “I shan’t ever need a wedding dress. I don’t want a wedding dress. I hate men! I hate the sight of them all. My father never made you happy. All the men around here only curse and get drunk and swear. I shall never get married!”
“I’m sorry, dear child; you should never have known all—this—sin, this terror—Oh, I dreamed I’d get you out of this—into a clean world someday! But I’ve failed! There are good men—!”
Fraley set her lips but said nothing. She doubted that there were good men.
“Fraley, we must hurry! My strength is going fast.”
“Don’t talk, Mother! Please.”
“But I must! Look in the bag, child. I’ve put the old Book there. It’s almost worn out, but I’ve sewed it in a cloth cover. Fraley, you’ll stick to the old Book?”
“Yes, Mother, I promise. I’ll never let anybody take it from me!”
“But if it should be lost or stolen, Fraley, you’ve much of it in your heart. You’ll never forsake it, Fraley?”
“Never, Mother. I promise,” said the girl solemnly.
“Well, then I’m satisfied,” sighed the mother, closing her eyes. “Now, child, hide the bag again. Everything is there I could give you. Even your father’s picture and mine when we were married, and a few papers I’ve kept. Put them away, and come back. I want to tell you what I’ve never told you before.”
Fraley obeyed, trembling at what revelation might be coming.
“Come closer, child, I’m short of breath again. And I must tell—I should have told before!”
Fraley held her mother’s hand closer in sympathy.
“Child, I ran away from that home and got married. I’ve never seen nor heard from any of my own since…” There was a great sob like a gasp at the end of the words.
“Oh, Mother!” gasped the girl in wonder and sorrow. “Oh, Mother, if you’d only told me, I might have helped you more!”
“Fraley darling, you have been everything. You have been wonderful! You have been my world my life. Oh, if I could take you with me where I am going now. But you’ll come? You’ll be sure and come?”
“Yes, I’ll come! That will be everything for me, Mother.”
“But I must hurry on.”
“Mother, did you have”—the girl hesitated, almost shyly—“did you have a mother like you? You told me once my grandmother was dead. Was she dead when you went?”
“Yes, child. She had been gone a year. You think I would not have gone if she had been there? Well perhaps. I do not know. I was young and headstrong. Even before she went she warned me against Angus MacPherson. But I did not listen! Perhaps she worried herself into the grave about me. While she lived I did not go with him much. But she knew where my heart was turning. I was mad with impatience to be out like other girls.”
Fraley listened as to a fairy tale. Her mother, young and wild like that!
“Angus was young and handsome. He had dark curls and a cleft in his chin and he was very much in love with me then—No, child, you mustn’t look like that. You mustn’t think hard of him! He was all right always till he took to drink—”
“He didn’t have to drink, Mother,” said the fierce young voice. “He must have known what drink was.”
“Well child, it came little by little. You don’t understand. He never meant to be like that, not when he started. He was always wild and independent. He didn’t care what folks thought of him, but h
e wasn’t bad. Not bad! And when he came and told me he was in a hole someone had framed him up to a life in the penitentiary to cover a gang’s doings and that there wasn’t anything for him but to disappear forever I believed him. I believe him yet, Fraley! He didn’t do the robbing; he didn’t forge the check. There’s all the papers in the bag there to prove it. But he wouldn’t go back on one fellow who had been innocent. If he got free and told the truth the other boy would have to bear it and he had a sick old mother. He was like that, Fraley, your father was. He wouldn’t go back on someone who had been his friend.”
“But he went back on you!” said the fierce young voice again. “He brought you out away from everybody that loved you and then he treated you”—the girl’s voice broke in a sob of indignation.
“Not then, child,” pleaded the mother’s voice. “He was tender and loving, but he put it up to me! It was either go with him then or never see him again. Fraley, I loved him!”
“Don’t mind me, Mother,” said the girl, struggling for control of her feelings. She could remember the cruel blows he had given the frail mother. She could remember so many things!
“It was the drink that did it,” pleaded the mother, reading the thoughts of the sensitive girl and struggling for breath as a fit of coughing seized her.
Their old dog trotted in from his wanderings after the cow, snuffed around the cot lovingly, and lay down with a soft thud of his paws on the bare floor. Fraley put the tin cup of water to her mother’s lips again, and after a time she rallied.
“I must hurry!” she gasped as she lay back on the pillow. “I can’t stand many more like that!”
“I wish you wouldn’t,” begged the girl. “What difference will it make? I love you, anyway, and I don’t care anything about all the rest. It’s you you—I want. I can’t bear to see you suffer!”
“No, child”—the feeble hand lifted just the slightest in protest—“let me finish!”
Fraley’s answer was a soft hand on the thin gray hair around her mother’s temples.
“Go on, Mother dear,” she breathed softly.
“My father was a stern man, especially since my mother’s death—” The sick woman whispered the story with the greatest difficulty. “He had said—if I—married—Angus—I need never—come back.”