A cloud of dust arises near the end of a country lane in the gently swelling hill country of the great American plateau. The ever–present breezes lightly lift the veil, and we see two groups of children departing in opposite directions as the stubby country school bus continues toward the main highway.
A little boy streaks homeward to the east, amid shouts of “Yippee! It’s Friday!” A procession of children file westward toward a large gray and white house, partly hidden from view by a knoll. They belong to a family of seven; an elder sister, quite grown up, is away in the city. The youngest, Mary Jane, skips ahead, carefree and glad to be alive – especially on Friday. Not that she disliked school; on the contrary, but Friday did have its charm. Ellen followed more sedately, still trying to keep up. Primness was a kind of “built-in” feature with her. Jennie and Lori ambled leisurely, engaged in some high school gossip, while Clara strode apart, busy with her own thoughts until she decided to throw a rock at a crow cawing at them from a fence post. The rock landed where the crow had lately sat. It seems Clara should have been a boy. The only boy in the group, Robbie, next in age to Mary Jane, lagged behind, being of a slow deliberate nature. Most of the children carried books and all of them the inevitable lunch pail – a shiny round bucket that had once been a tin of lard or amber honey.
The grass was brownish and short, sprinkled with prickly cactus of several varieties, and accented here and there with a dash of fiery Indian paint brush or purple and white thistles. These and more flanked the beaten pathway to the house. All of them humble plants, but to the appreciative soul, they were lovely. The prairie might seem to many a wasteland, lonely and devoid of charm. However to those who loved deep blue skies and were more intimately related to the land, here was life in abundance and beauty to stir the soul. Lonely to be sure. One must be at peace with God and man to be truly content in such a place. One must be able to thrill at things such as the wide silver moon rising over the quiet, swelling knolls while the coyotes howl and yap a welcome; or the soft, gentle call of the morning dove to any who will commune with her; or the folksy trill of the red-winged blackbird – but the list grows too long.
We cannot, however, let the virtues of the land blind our eyes to its faults. There were many winds, frequent winds, hail and floods, and drought at times. In the winter treacherous blizzards howled with merciless fury across these open sweeps. Unfriendly features to be sure and calling for profound respect, else one might cruelly suffer the consequences. This was not a weakling’s land. It was hard to wrest a livelihood for nine and more souls from it. Work hard work – long, weary hours of it, and hope were necessary to exist. “Hope springs eternal in the human breast,” we are told. Each new springtime it “sprang”, else crops would not have been planted and life would not have gone on against such odds. Much more likely to buy the family groceries were the fat livestock which thrived on the short, nutritious grasses. The big problem was how to keep them alive and fed when the cold winds howled and snow drifted.
Nearing the big house, the children could hear the windmill’s noisy clatter as it pumped a crystal stream of water into a barrel almost overflowing. The barn and granaries and chicken houses stood some sixty yards away; Red Plymouth Rock chickens clucked about unhindered. Then there was another windmill and a pond; the garden area and orchard were located in a southwesterly direction. The absence of trees around the house was regrettable. Viewed from the front, it stood out like a monster with a huge mouth (the porch), and two eyes (the upper windows) often glittering brilliantly in the setting sun.
Mary Jane was the first to reach the back porch and receive a wet greeting from the dogs, “Spike” and “Bruno.” The little lunch pail clattered onto the battered kitchen table. The child looked about anxiously for Mamma. How they all loved her! Down in Mary Jane’s heart was a fear that someday she might die; and more than once she had tip-toed to peep as Mamma rested in her room, “just to be sure” that she was breathing. Mrs. Hillman was not frail, but she did have trouble breathing in hay fever season and had had some asthma. She was plumpish and often rosy-cheeked, and her patience and sweetness at all times made it harder to see her suffering.
Today, following the answer to her anxious call, Mary Jane found her folding the wash on the bed in her room. Exchanging hugs she ran up to change her clothes, boyishly taking two steps at a time.
Into the sun-bathed and not-too-tidy bedroom that she shared with Ellen, Mary Jane burst and ripped into her old things. Some little barbs of conscience began to intrude about the untidy room. Ellen and Mamma hated messiness, but Mary Jane was often too busy, hungry or rushed to care. It was always, “Later she would do better.”
Mamma and Daddy were happy Christians. Everyone, but everyone, around knew that the Hillmans were “religious.” There were Bible readings in the home, of course; in addition, Mamma exchanged weekly visits with her neighbor across the lane (whose children we have lately glimpsed). Mrs. French had been brightly converted to God, and the two ladies read many good books aloud, joying greatly in God. There was no mistaking the sheer joy and peace that radiated from their faces as they enjoyed these good things. It was their “meat and drink.” Down in her heart of hearts Mary Jane knew that she had no part in their joy. More and more her fear was growing they were in the warmth of God’s love and she was somehow apart.
But today she let these thoughts slip only briefly through her mind, tossing her head a little irritably. After all, there was lots to be happy about. How cool and “released” she felt in her old clothes and comfy play shoes! She wriggled her toes and wished she could go barefoot, but that was unthinkable when bringing home the cows from the cactus-sprinkled pasture. By now Ellen had arrived in the room, and Mary Jane thought best to hurry downstairs calling behind her: “Just don’t take forever to change your clothes. We have the cows to get, you know!”
“Poor Ellen!” Mary Jane thought. “I really ought to try harder to be neat. I hope she won’t be mad at me too long!”
The plump loaves of “light bread” were cooling on the board in the kitchen. “Now let’s see – slice of bread, butter, raisins – sprinkle sugar on top – Umm, Good! Oh, yes! and run down cellar for that biggest, fattest pickle in the crock.”
Just as Mary Jane was finishing her snack, Ellen appeared. She was neat in her dark blue and white print “apron,” as their plain little button-down-the back dress was called. The children were allowed one a week, except for emergencies; for the wash was done on the scrub board and for nine or more people! Add carrying the water for it, heating it on the coal stove, besides boiling the white things, and you have reason enough to adopt rationing. Ellen was smiling; not a word was mentioned about their room. In a loving burst of remorse, Mary Jane thrust the pickle towards her with, “Have my pickle. I’ve got enough here.”
“Bet you licked it already,” grinned Ellen. “I’ll get my own. Wait up for me!”
It was only 4:45 and the sun was still high. The girls were in no hurry and giggled and talked as they walked, stopping for a cold drink from the running stream at the pond windmill. The only annoyance was the drooling dogs who pleaded with their eyes for some of Mary Jane’s food.
“Oh, all right!” she said at last. “Just one bite each!” The harassment would continue as long as there was food, she knew. Mary Jane was not above “dirty tricks.” Next time around, she slipped them a pinch of pickle – hating to spare it. But that sent them off ahead to search for rabbit scents.
“Well, here we are on observation hill. I can’t see those old cows, can you?” Ellen asked.
“Why, it looks like just a few way down there towards the highway! Shucks! I’ll bet old Nancy led her gang away someplace else again today.” Then a pause. “Tell you what, Ellen, I’ll go find the others and you can get those!” Mary Jane felt like an adventure.
“Are you sure it’s okay? I’m older – maybe I should – but if you’re sure it’s all right –.”
“Good-by!” shouted Mary Jane, and started trotting off in her chosen direction, secretly pleased to be able to arrange her trip via the hill Daddy thought might be an old Indian burying place. “If I really look hard, I might find another Indian arrowhead like I gave to those people from the city who were here last summer. Or maybe – Oh, I hope I’ll find a smoky topaz! What a lovely piece of petrified wood! Ouch! those old cactus! Let’s see, shall I pretend that I’m a little Indian girl today? Wouldn’t it be neat if there was some big underground cave here and I’d just stumble onto a little opening, and there would be treasure in it like in Tom Sawyer. Then we’d be rich and wouldn’t have to wear aprons and black bloomers to school. All the kids at school – boy! would they be jealous –!” And so Mary Jane’s imagination soared and unprofitably, to be sure, entertained her as she covered the two or so miles ahead.
The cows, it seemed, had chosen the very farthest corner of the pasture – awesomely near the mysterious “Big Hills” with their chokecherry canyons and ( as supposed) dens of coyotes and seldom-visited heights. Daddy had made them “out of bounds,” because of rattlesnake-infested “prairie dog towns” on their lower slopes. Only on rare supervised chokecherry picking trips did the older girls get to go there. All this smacked of real adventure, coupled with the fact that in plain view of this area was an old house where once a ranchman had murdered his wife. The children pictured it as haunted, with blood-spattered walls, of course.
“There’s those dumb cows! Here, Spike! Here, Bruno!” she called to the dogs who had come with her. They came but stopped only briefly, panting and excited. The spirit of a rabbit hunt, not a cow hunt, was strong upon them. The children had never been firm enough to keep them in training. They knew what “Sic ‘em” meant, but chose not to listen.
So Mary Jane began the “nightmarish” task of rounding up the saucy cows. Never imagine for a moment that cows are stupid. They were very much aware of how effective one little girl, whose dogs had deserted her, could be if they chose to be contrary.
And they chose to be contrary, typically taking a few steps in the right direction after a stone had bounced off the rear – then they would snort, toss their heads disdainfully and return to munching grass. Suddenly, in the midst of her exasperation, a sound reached her ears – a dear little cry, unmistakably a “Baa-a” from a newborn calf!
Ordinarily Mary Jane would have run joyfully to find the baby where the mother had hidden to give birth to it; but today her mouth went dry and her heart pounded. How could she ever, ever get home before dark with a mother cow and baby and those other awful ornery critters out there?! She knew about coyotes, how they come out at dusk, hungry. She also knew how Mr. and Mrs. Coyote (who pair “till death doth part”) work. Mr. Coyote harasses the mother cow who charges him in anger, while Mrs. Coyote runs in to grab the new calf. Daddy had taught her these things. Having now received a desperate spurt of energy in her fear, Mary Jane worked in a frenzy. The cows were pelted, shouted at and walloped until at last they were chased to the top of the first hill. The dogs finally returned, and Mary Jane was able to keep the calf wobbling along at a slow pace beside his worried, loving mother.
“If I could just make them run a bit! It’s really beginning to get pretty dark with the sun down!”
Gathering her strength into one magnificent, ferocious whoop, she shattered the stillness of that remote wilderness. The cows kicked up their heels and ran, holding their tails high! But behind her, a strange, blood-curdling, wild cry, somehow similar to her own, arrested Mary Jane as if she had been shot. For one brief second she looked for a human figure, as she almost thought someone was mocking her yell. But how large and wild a beast stood looking at her! Coyotes were supposed to be afraid of human beings, Daddy had said, but this creature, looking like a big police dog, began to advance fearlessly.
Helter-skelter she dashed after the cows! Even the baby calf ran.
Then a Bible verse she well knew flashed through her mind as she ran. “Call upon Me in the day of trouble” (Psa. 50:1515And call upon me in the day of trouble: I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me. (Psalm 50:15)). And call Mary Jane did with all her heart.
A glance behind showed the beast to be pausing and looking off ahead. Ah! Could it be? Yes, unmistakably! There were the headlights and the sound of the hired man’s old Chevie! Daddy was coming! By now the coyote was living up to his coward’s reputation.
“Daddy!” she panted. “A coyote!”
“I see him, Pet. Quick! Hop in! Floor-board this thing, Cliff. Maybe we can warm his hide!”
And warm it Daddy did with his .22. But Chevies can’t jump fences and rifles don’t have a very long range; so “whatever-his-name” got away with a warmed coat only. Daddy was an inveterate old hunter and his eyes were still glittering, nostrils white and distended. Mary Jane thought maybe he looked like Daniel Boone.
“Nobody around here can shoot like my Daddy!” It was true that in the old days he used to win all the turkeys at the “turkey shoots.” That was before he became a Christian. Mary Jane sighed and snuggled against him.
“Daddy, I prayed – and you came just in time!”
“Really, Daddy? Well, I guess He had to get you started out here all right, so’s you could rescue me at the right time.”
“I’ll tell you something else too – something that happened to me as a young man. The scripture speaks of the angels as being ‘ministering spirits sent forth to minister unto them that shall be heirs of salvation.’ Now, I think that an incident in my own life before I was saved proves this. It was this a-way.
“I’d been sent by Nash (that was when I worked on the Bar X Ranch in New Mexico) to check some water gaps on the other side of the range. They was sure enough washed out, and by the time I got done, night time was fallin’. And what a night! Cliff, you never seen such darkness! Why a man couldn’t see his hand afore his face. I had a good horse – a course – and we was goin’ along real slow. I knew to let her have the reins as she’d know better’n me in the dark like that. Well, the thing that was worryin’ me was a great gulch or deep canyon we had to cross between there and camp. There was only about two trails across that was safe. Along about then, Buttercup she stops. I nudges her just a mite, but she wouldn’t budge. I climbs down and slowly crawls up ahead. Yep! Sure enough!
“My hand comes to empty space! I was just a-settin’ there, debatin’ what to do next, when the whole sky lights up brighter’n than daylight! Mindja, I didn’t hear no thunder ner lightnin’.” To this day I – nor no one else thereabouts – can figure out any natural source for that light! We seen the trail all right (we was nearly on it), and got down across that place and back to camp. Beats anything I ever seen before or since! The only way I can explain it is by that there verse! So you see, Pet, the Lord takes care of us even before we’re His sometimes. I reckon I’d a been killed if we’d atried getting home that night!”
Down in her heart of hearts, Mary Jane thought: “Does Daddy really know I’m not saved? I don’t want him to think – I don’t – Oh, I don’t know. I wish I could be like the others!” Poor little Mary Jane! The security of the precious Savior’s arms was only a prayer away – but she did not come – not then.