Monday, July 23, 2012

Questions and Answers chapter 13

“It is getting colder out there.  We probably won’t get any more snow, but that wind will freeze the hair off your head!  I’m glad we got that beef cut up today.  By tomorrow it would have been a solid chunk!” 

“Well, I have a good stew and hot coffee when ever you are ready.  That should warm you up.”  Ellen smiled at him as he took his outdoor clothes off and dipped warm water for washing.

The tortilla dough had puffed into fat strips of dumpling and the onions gave the stew a wonderful fragrance.  Slade slid his hand across the table and Ellen placed her fingers in his.  It had become their practice when he prayed before meals and Ellen’s heart expanded each time it happened.  

As they ate the meat and fat dumplings, Ellen began telling Slade more about her day while he was gone.  “I decided that housecleaning would fill the time and keep me from worrying,” she told him.

“Worrying?!” Slade exclaimed.  “I was only checking on the cows!  I’ve done it hundreds of times.  Why should you worry?”

“I know,” she said.  “And I told myself that, but a part of me said that my husband and father had gone off in the morning on simple errands, but neither returned to me.  So I had to do something to distract myself.” 

She smiled, “And look how clean the house is!”

He laughed at himself.  “I knew there was something different but I had no idea what it was!  I knew it was more than the dumplings in the stew!”  He looked around.  “The windows are clear!  And there is no dust on the windowsills or the fireplace!

“You’ll have to chalk it up to the difference between a man and a woman.  I enjoy the dumplings in the stew and the good coffee.  You enjoy a clean house!” 

He looked a little rueful. “What all did you do?”

Ellen recounted her day and Slade looked at each area as she described what she had accomplished.  When she described it, he immediately recognized the difference between his housekeeping and hers.  He wouldn’t have thought to do those things himself but there was no doubting that they made the house much more inviting.

“After I finished the cleaning, I read for a while in your Bible.  I hope that was alright.”  She told him.

“Of course it is! Any time.  That’s fine.”

“Well, I did want to ask you about something… I read one part where it talked about the “Word” being in the beginning with God.  Then it went on to talk about everything being made with the Word and then ‘it’ came into the world.  That made no sense to me at all.  What does it mean?”

Slade’s heart began to thump. He was elated to have an opportunity to explain the Word of God to her.  And the best part was that she had asked him to do that very thing!  Her intellectual background had given her no information regarding the things of God.  Her experience with her husband’s family had given her a very regimented and long-established view of religion.  Now he had the opening to share the joy of Salvation and the faithfulness of God with her.

“Explain a little more.” Ellen exclaimed. “This is the most fantastic thing I’ve ever heard. Do you suppose Tia knew about this? Did she see in the darkness? She certainly loved God and she prayed to Jesus every day. Several times a day in fact! And she never told me anything, just to go to mass with her and she tried to teach me some prayers. But they were just saying the same things over and over so I didn’t pay much attention.”

Slade hesitated a minute, praying for wisdom. He couldn’t know the aunt’s amount of understanding or her place before God. He didn’t want to question the devotion of the one woman who had demonstrated the love of God to Ellen. Or cause her to doubt the love of God if he showed any reservations regarding Tia Margarita’s bond with God.

“I can’t tell you if she understood the ‘light’ or not, but we have to know that God sees ‘the thoughts and intents of the heart.’ So we can only trust that her relationship with God was secure and she is with Him now.

“You, however, have been given an opportunity to know a greater light now and to see the plan of personal Salvation He prepared for us.

“Do you want me to tell you more about it? Or is this enough?”

“What else do we have to do for the next few hours? Wait!” Ellen stacked the dirty dishes off to the side and swished her hand across the table. On second thought she jumped up and put the dishes in the dishpan on the work space, then grabbed the dish cloth off the line and used it to clean the table better.

“Now. Tell me.”

 “Explain a little more.”  Ellen exclaimed. “This is the most fantastic thing I’ve ever heard.  Do you suppose Tia knew about this?  Did she see in the darkness?  She certainly loved God and she prayed to Jesus every day.  Several times a day in fact!  And she never told me anything, just to go to mass with her and she tried to teach me some prayers.  But they were just saying the same things over and over so I didn’t pay much attention.”

Slade hesitated a minute, praying for wisdom.  He couldn’t know the aunt’s amount of understanding or her place before God.  He didn’t want to question the devotion of the one woman who had demonstrated the love of God to Ellen.  Or cause her to doubt the love of God if he showed any reservations regarding Tia Margarita’s bond with God.

“I can’t tell you if she understood the ‘light’ or not, but we have to know that God sees ‘the thoughts and intents of the heart.’ So we can only trust that her relationship with God was secure and she is with Him now. 

“You, however, have been given an opportunity to know a greater light now and to see the plan of personal Salvation He prepared for us.

“Do you want me to tell you more about it?  Or is this enough?”

 “What else do we have to do for the next few hours?   Wait!”  Ellen stacked the dirty dishes off to the side and swished her hand across the table.   On second thought she jumped up and put the dishes in the dishpan on the work space, then grabbed the dish cloth off the line and used it to clean the table better.  

“Now.  Tell me.” 

Slade grinned at her enthusiasm.

“Now then,” he said.  “There is a lot more in the first chapter and in the second, but if you had kept reading you would have come to chapter three.  There we find the story of a man named Nicodemus who came to Jesus one night to find out about eternal life and the kingdom of heaven.  Jesus told him that he had to be ‘born again’ before he could be part of God’s kingdom and have eternal life.  He talks again about life and light in the world and again we are told that we can only have the light of God in our life if we begin first off to ask Him and make up our minds to live the way he wants us to live.

“And the way to find that out is to read the Bible. I mean, I can tell you how to live or a priest can tell you, but the best way is to read the Bible.  That way you can know for sure…”

“So,” Ellen said.  “I can find out about God by reading this book?”

“Yes,” said Slade. “and that is easy to know where to start  because you’ve already found the perfect place.. Right here in John.”   He ripped a thin strip off the end of her dish towel and put it in the Bible.

Standing up and taking the dish pan on one hip to dip hot water, she said, “I guess I’d better start reading.”  She grinned at him and he dropped the subject, deciding that he’d said enough until she asked him again.

They washed dishes together and stored the leftovers.  Ellen removed the cornbread from the spider and set the wrapped cornbread on the table.

Their discussion had taken longer than either of them realized. Dusk was falling quickly so Slade dipped his buckets of water for the livestock.  Ellen got her outdoor clothes on as he began bundling up.

“I’ll help,” she told him.  “Everything’s finished in here and you said it’s cold out there so if I help you’ll not have to be outside for so long.”

“I’ve never been known to turn down help! Or are you just checking up on how much I got done this afternoon?” Slade teased.

“No! No! I didn’t mean that.”  She was flustered even though she knew he was teasing her. 

“Come on,” he laughed. “Be sure you scarf is wrapped tight. That wind is fierce.  And cold.”  He pulled the ends of her scarf snug and shoved them inside the collar of her coat. They headed out across the yard.

“Look at that!”  Ellen exclaimed.  “That big pile of manure is gone!  What did you do with it?”

“I scattered it all over the space we use for a garden.  Next spring I’ll plow what hasn’t disintegrated into the ground to fertilize the new crops. 

He wrinkled his face remorsefully, “I still haven’t figured out what exactly will grow best in this soil.  And I’ve been here for almost ten years.”

“Well,” Ellen said.  “Our workers grew corn and beans, together in the same row.  And then squash between the rows of corn. The corn shaded the beans and squash and when the irrigated the rows all the plants benefitted. I think they learned it from the Indians.

“I don’t know…maybe potatoes would grow between rows of corn… I don’t know how to plant potatoes.  Maybe they need protected from the sun.”

“I’ve found out that onions grow pretty well if I keep them on the northern side of the slope.  We’ll have to try again come spring!’ Slade shrugged and went on into the barn.

The barn work went quickly and soon they were inside, straining the milk and setting it in the cold spring water flowing through their tank.

Ellen poured coffee into their bowls and added milk and sugar.  They had a quick meal of cornbread ‘soup’ for their evening meal.  It warmed them and filled the empty place in their center with lethargy producing comfort.

After the last two days of intense work, both were ready for bed.  Slade banked the fires as Ellen swept up the bit of straw and litter they had tracked inside.  Fetcher was content in his bed with his bone.  His teeth scraped across the hard surface as he chewed every bit of meat from it. 

Slade dropped into the chair before the fire and Ellen climbed her ladder.

“See you in the morning,” she said.

Slade smiled, “You too.  Sleep well.”

Morning came with the wind whistling around the corners of the house.  When Ellen came down her ladder, the curtains at the window billowed in the cold wind that crept through the cracks.  

“Cold out there this morning,” Slade told her.  “The water we took the animals last night was frozen this morning.  I’m taking the hot from the tank to try and thaw it out a bit so they can drink.  Sorry, you won’t have any hot for washing up.  I did put some on the stove though.”  He motioned to a heavy big tea kettle.  “It’s been on for a little while, ought to be hot soon.

“Coffee’s cooking.” He wrapped the muffler around his head and neck, clamping his hat on securely.  “Back in a bit,” he said as he went out the door with the hot water.

Ellen walked first to the fireplace to stand in front of the blaze. Since Slade had gone out she discreetly lifted the back of her skirts to allow the warmth to penetrate her cold legs before she started breakfast.  They had a great supply of milk so she started the cornmeal in water and as it thickened she kept adding milk so the result was smooth and creamy.  She wished again, as she had so many times, for a bit of sour dough so she could make real bread; instead she brought out the reliable stack of flour tortillas.  It was so cold she decided a bit of hot bacon would taste good with the mush. She brought out the slab of bacon and used the sharp knife to shave of six or eight pieces. She put them in the big skillet to fry beside the mush.

When Slade returned a few minutes later, their simple meal was ready.  Afterward the dishes were quickly washed and put away.  Slade moved to the big chair by the fireplace where he picked up his Bible to read for a while.  The morning chores were finished and the day was bitter cold; staying inside was a perfect option.

When Ellen came and sat across from him, it was very natural to ask if she’d like for him to read aloud.  And that began a routine that they followed on cold snowy days.  They sat by the fire and Ellen listened while Slade read from the Bible.  To occupy her hands she began hemming some of the unused flour and cornmeal sacks in the stack from the armoire.  The raggedy edges on them irritated her when she had to trim long tags off every time she used them.  The work gave her somewhere to look as Slade read.

Some times they talked about the passages. Other times Ellen merely listened as the archaic phrasing flowed from the pages. She learned things of God that had never been mentioned in her father’s family and she met men she had only known as names of saints in her husband’s family.  With very little discussion, Ellen came to know herself as God saw her and to feel a void within her soul being filled.

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