Love Finds You in Hope, Kansas (Large Print)

Love Finds You in Hope, Kansas

Chapter One

Hope, Kansas

Midsummer 1889

“Don’t just stand there with your mouth hangin’ open like a fish. Do you want a new ma or don’t you?” Andy directed the tense question to their little sister, Maggie, who hovered outside the stable door in clear indecision about whether to join them.

“Yeth,” she whistled through the space of her two missing front teeth.

“Where’s Baby Lynn?” Sam wanted to know. She hoped their little sister hadn’t been left unattended.

“I finally got her to thleep. Thee was awful futhy.”

“It’s a good thing she’s napping and not nosing around.” Andy clasped one hand over the wrist hooked around his bent knees. “She’s too young to keep secrets. Now get in here, Mags, and shut that door. If Pa sees you lurking outside and gets wind of what we’re doing, we’re all as good as doomed.”

Maggie did as ordered, moving across the barn to join them. The young schemers sat in a semicircle around a glowing lantern, its flame steady enough to cut through the dark interior. Patches of blue sky shone through the cracks of walls and roof. Usually the barn doors remained open during the day so the children could tend to their chores, but now they stood closed in deep secrecy.

“You sure we won’t get in a heap o’ trouble?” Tucker asked. “Pa’s not stupid.”

The children cast uneasy glances at each other.

“All I can say is if we do, it’ll be worth any licking. Once we have our ma, those who want to can go back to the schoolhouse for lessons. Sam can take up her writing again, and we won’t have to worry about no more burnt meals—”

“I can’t help it if I forget and the bread always gets burnt.”

“And the meat…and the stew…and the pies…,” Tucker added.

“It’s ’cause your nose is always buried in one of Ma’s books.”

Sam’s face went warm, and Andy tousled her hair.

“Aw, that’s okay, sis. I imagine Pa likes the idea that one of us Munroes is smart with books.” Andy looked at each of his siblings in a grave, straightforward manner. “Sure as shootin’, we’ll get ourselves a new ma and Pa won’t be alone no more.”

“But how can he be alone, Andy, if he’s got us?” Clarissa’s eyes were big, green, and curious.

“There’s different kinds of lonely,” Andy explained. “Uncle Caleb told me a man like Pa shouldn’t keep to himself and stay holed up at the cabin so long—he should marry again. Even the Good Book says so, accordin’ to Uncle Caleb. That was back when I wasn’t beholden to the idea, before Mrs. Jeffries got married, when she was always nosin’ around Pa.”

“Are you beholden to the idea now, Andy?”

“I reckon I am, Maggie, or I wouldn’t be sitting here.”

Tucker shook his head. “I still say Pa ain’t gonna like it.”

“But if what Uncle Caleb thaid ith true,” Maggie insisted, “and we’re doing God a favor, then it should be all right. He’th a preacher; he oughta know. And we’re doing Him a favor, aren’t we? By finding uth a ma and a wife for Pa?”

From Love Finds You in Hope, Kansas, by Pamela Griffin.
© 2010 Summerside Press.