River to Redemption Read online

  She shut her eyes and tried to recall some of the names on the list. The Starr child’s name was there. She had survived, but who knew what her situation would be. She might not even stay in Springfield. Ruth pushed the thought of the girl away. She didn’t want to remember how forlorn the child had looked, staring down at her family’s grave. Ruth had prayed for her. She would remember to pray for her again. What more could she do?

  She would have to fetch the list of names from the schoolhouse and then make a call on Justice Franklin. If he couldn’t help, she would approach George Sanderson about speaking to Louis.

  After she copied the letter ten times, she stretched her fingers to rest her hand. She wasn’t sure how many copies she might need, but the list had held at least twenty-five names. She finished off the apple and wrapped up the remainder of the cheese. Perhaps tomorrow she could boil some cabbage for her dinner with a bit of cornbread. She could buy what she needed when she walked to the schoolhouse in the morning.

  Using any of her coins brought on a bit of panic, but she did have to eat. Unless she wanted to lie down and die like Peter. Even with her heart heavy with grief, she didn’t want to do that. Peter would say the Lord numbered a person’s days.

  Oh, Peter. Her every thought kept circling back to him. If only they had both managed to escape the cholera. But what good did it do to think “if only”? That changed nothing. She brushed away her tears and picked up the pen to copy another letter.

  A knock on the back door made her jump and smudge the word she was writing. She blotted the ink before she stood up to answer the door. Someone looking for Mrs. Jackson, no doubt.

  When she pulled open the door, Louis was standing on the small stoop, holding his hat with his eyes cast down respectfully.

  “Louis.” Ruth frowned a little. “Are you looking for Mrs. Jackson?” Perhaps he was bringing whatever he carried wrapped in a cloth to the woman.

  “No, ma’am. I come to see you.” He held out the parcel. “Matilda, she had an extra loaf of her raisin cinnamon bread and she thought, well, we thought you might have use for it. The little missy helped her make it.”

  Louis nodded his head toward the wooden fence that lined Mrs. Jackson’s narrow backyard. Only then did Ruth notice the girl standing several feet behind Louis. She was clutching a rag doll to her chest and staring straight toward Ruth. When Ruth looked her way, the child stepped forward, but Louis held up his hand just a bit and she stopped.

  Ruth took the bread and sat it on the cabinet inside the door. “I thank you and Matilda. And the child too.” She kept her eyes on Louis and not the girl. Even so, Ruth could still feel her watching her.

  “Adria,” Louis said, as if he thought she needed to be reminded of the child’s name. “Adria Starr.” He didn’t turn to leave.

  “Yes.” Ruth wasn’t sure what the man expected her to do or say next. He just stood there as though waiting for something. “Is there something I can do for you, Louis?”

  “I’m pleased you asked, ma’am. As a matter of fact we’ve come with a hope in our hearts.”

  “Oh?” She hesitated. She could tell him to leave. She should tell him to leave, but instead she asked, “What hope is that?”

  “It’s about little missy back there.” Again he dipped his head toward the child. “She tells us, Matilda and me, that your husband, the schoolteacher, was kind and caring to her and all the children.”

  Ruth didn’t say anything. Her throat suddenly felt too tight.

  “Well, and then the news is goin’ ’round town that you is gonna take his place. Teachin’ and all. Folks is happy about that. Little missy is happy about that.”

  “That’s good to know.” Ruth swallowed back her tears and pushed out the words. “But that doesn’t explain why you’re here.”

  “No, ma’am, I guess it don’t. I might as well be out with it. Massa George, he’s saying Missy Adria can’t be staying at the hotel no more. He’s thinkin’ on findin’ her a place, but we’re, Matilda and me, we’re a mite worried that the place won’t be one to the little missy’s liking. She might end up little better than a slave like the two of us. Made to work for her keep.”

  Louis shot his eyes up to Ruth’s face and as quickly back down. He twisted the rim of his hat and went on talking fast, as if he was afraid he wouldn’t get the words out before Ruth stopped listening. “Not that the missy ain’t a good worker. Even if she is just a slip of a girl. She’s been a fine help to Matilda in the kitchen and does whatever anybody tells her. Don’t hardly cry at all except at night when she don’t think nobody can hear. Poor little thing. Ain’t got nobody but that rag doll now.”

  “And you and Matilda,” Ruth said.

  “But that’s just it. We’ve grown mighty fond of her in the time she’s been with us, and we’s hopin’ to find her a place where we know she will be treated like a girl child should be treated. And so . . .” Louis let his voice die off.

  Ruth stared at the top of the man’s head. She couldn’t take in the child. She couldn’t. “Louis, I can’t. I barely have enough to buy food for myself.”

  “I knows things is hard for you and that teachin’ don’t overstuff a body’s pockets with money, but that’s where the little missy can help you. Her family had a house. A right nice place over on Elm Street not far from the schoolhouse. You could move in there with her and save whatever you’re paying for these rooms here. I can bring you over some of the leavings from the hotel from time to time, and Matilda would be obliged if you let her come cook or clean for you now and again so’s she could see the little missy. Matilda, she ain’t owned by Massa George. She belongs to Mistress Williams, who hires her out to Massa George, but her mistress ain’t countin’ up every hour of the day for Matilda. She lets her take her ease now and again.”

  Ruth swallowed and told herself not to look at the girl, but she couldn’t stop her gaze from sliding across the yard to the child. Adria Starr stared back at her. What was it Ruth had prayed at the cemetery? That the Lord would help the child. How many times had she heard Peter say that sometimes a person had to put feet to his prayers? Or her prayers.

  Ruth looked back at Louis. “Why are you so intent on helping her?” She kept her voice low. “It would seem that you have enough worries of your own without taking on hers. Or mine. Trouble is all around us after the cholera.”

  “Ain’t that the truth.” He twisted his hat again and shuffled his feet. Then he surprised her by looking straight at her. “I ain’t denyin’ that plenty of folks is in need, but this little girl is the one the Lord set down in my path. I don’t reckon he expects me to help ev’ry hurtin’ body, but he does expect me to help them I can.” He turned his eyes back down to the ground then. “So’s I’m doin’ what I can.”

  “The same as you buried all those people.”

  “It needed doing.”

  “So it did.” Ruth shut her eyes again and blew out a long breath. Had the Lord shoved this child in her path? She opened her eyes and looked over Louis’s head toward the girl again. “What does she want?”

  “I guess you needs to ask her that.” He turned to smile at the child and beckon her over to the door.

  Adria was almost afraid to breathe while Louis talked to the schoolteacher’s wife. She listened hard, but she couldn’t make out enough words to know what they were saying. She wanted to run to Louis and grab his hand. Somehow holding Louis’s hand made her feel safer, but Louis told her she couldn’t. Not even when they were walking over to where the schoolteacher lived. Louis said she needed to walk a little in front of him now that so many people were back on the street.

  Her legs trembled, but she did what Louis said. Aunt Tilda said Louis always knew the best thing to do. That must be why Adria felt so safe when his big hand was wrapped around hers.

  She’d been scared of him when she first saw him at her house, but as soon as he picked her up, she knew he meant her nothing but good.

  He meant her nothing but good now too. T
hat was why he was talking to Mrs. Harmon. Trying to see if she would take Adria’s mother’s place. Not that anybody could do that. Not ever. But Adria needed family. Or Mr. George would find her a place. A place, he said. Not a family. Just thinking about the look on Mr. George’s face when he said it made Adria squeeze Callie a little closer.

  She hoped the schoolteacher’s wife needed family the same as Adria, but the woman didn’t smile when she looked across the yard at Adria. The schoolteacher, Mr. Harmon, had always been smiling. He was like Louis. You knew he meant good for you. But maybe Mrs. Harmon wasn’t that way. Maybe she didn’t like children. Maybe she wouldn’t like Adria.

  Where before she had wanted to run the short distance over to where Louis stood in front of the woman, now her feet were like clumsy bricks.

  “Come along, missy.” Louis held out his hand toward her.

  “Is she afraid of me?” The woman sounded surprised.

  “Not of you. More of tomorrow.”

  Adria wasn’t sure what Louis meant by that, but she felt braver when his big hand wrapped around hers. Brave enough to look back up at the schoolteacher’s wife.

  “I’m not afraid.” The words came out weaker than Adria expected. She did sound afraid. She swallowed hard and repeated. “I’m not afraid.”

  “’Course not. Mistress Harmon is wantin’ to ask you something.” Louis tightened his grip on Adria’s hand a bit. “You answer her right.”

  Adria hoped she would know the right answer as she looked up at the schoolteacher’s wife, who still wasn’t smiling. Maybe that was because she was missing the schoolteacher the way Adria missed her mother and father. That could make it hard to smile. Especially if she didn’t have anybody’s hand to hold. Adria hesitated, but then she laid her doll down beside her feet and reached over for the schoolteacher’s wife’s hand. At first the woman’s fingers were stiff, as though she couldn’t bend them, but Adria just kept her fingers wrapped softly around her hand. After a minute, the woman’s hand curled around Adria’s.

  “Louis said you wanted to ask me something. Did you forget what it was?”

  “No, I didn’t forget.”

  The schoolteacher’s wife stared down at Adria as though she were searching for an answer without asking a question. Adria’s heart started beating a little faster. The woman still wasn’t smiling. The question was going to be hard.

  “What do you want, Adria?”

  At first, Adria thought the question wasn’t hard after all, but then the answer that came swelled up out of her sad heart. “I want my mama.” That looked like it scared the schoolteacher’s wife, so Adria blinked away her tears and added, “But I know I can’t have her. She’s gone on to glory.”

  “That’s right, missy.” Louis squeezed Adria’s hand. “So what is it you want now?”

  Adria looked up at Louis and then over at the schoolteacher’s wife. “I want family. Aunt Tilda and Louis say they can’t be my family no matter how much I wish they could. Because I’m white.”

  The woman just kept looking at her without saying anything.

  Adria pulled in a breath for courage. “Will you be my family?”

  Seven

  I can try. Ruth’s words echoed in her head as she watched Louis and the child walk away from her door. They would be back later that day. Louis to help her move her things to this house on Elm Street. The child to stay with her after telling the slave Matilda goodbye.

  After softly closing the door, Ruth leaned against it. Heaven help her, why had she said those words? Not exactly yes, but the same as. But then, what else could she say, with the child clutching her hand and staring up at her with those forlorn brown eyes? After Ruth said she’d try, the child’s smile had transformed her eyes. Made them come to life. Ruth had the feeling her own pale blue eyes looked more forlorn than ever, but neither Louis nor the child seemed to notice. Adria. Ruth needed to stop pushing her away as a child she had nothing to do with and call her by her name. If she was going to be family.

  Ruth had wanted family desperately with Peter, but that dream had died. She couldn’t replace it with an orphaned child. She couldn’t.

  It was the Christian thing to do. Peter’s words were in her head as she trudged back up the steps to their rooms. He’d said that to her more than once when he would allow a child to come to school even when the parents didn’t pay the fee. Or when he put extra money they didn’t have to spare in the offering plate if the preacher spoke of a need in the church. The Christian thing to do. A person couldn’t sit on a church pew claiming the title Christian if that person didn’t allow Christ to work through him. Peter lived his beliefs.

  Ruth paced back and forth across the narrow room. If Peter were still alive, then perhaps she could take in the child, but alone she couldn’t do it. Louis would have to shove the child into someone else’s path. Her gaze fell on Peter’s Bible she’d left out on the chair. The Bible instructed Christians to care for orphans. Widows and orphans, actually. She was a widow.

  She stared up at the ceiling and spoke aloud. “Who is taking care of me?”

  The question bounced back at her. She stopped pacing and stared at the trunk she had begun to unpack after Justice Franklin’s offer of the schoolteacher position. Her purse, with its scarcity of money, lay on the end of the bed. But now she would have a house and no worry about paying rent. In shame, she bent her head and stood silent in the middle of the room.

  “Forgive me,” she whispered, whether to Peter or the Lord she wasn’t sure. Perhaps to both. “I will try.”

  She didn’t have to be the child’s mother. She couldn’t be that. But family. That she could do. With the Lord’s help. The child would understand. Ruth stopped herself. Not the child. Adria. Adria would understand. She wasn’t a baby.

  Ruth regretted the word as soon as it crossed her thoughts. She put her hands on her abdomen. So empty.

  She shook herself a little. Yesterdays couldn’t be changed. She needed to move on into her tomorrows. What was it Louis had said? That the child, Adria, was not fearful of Ruth but of tomorrow. But she had put down her doll and taken Ruth’s hand. Hoping for a tomorrow with her.

  How hard would it be to take care of one little girl’s needs? Meals and clothes. After all, wasn’t she planning to gather a whole schoolhouse full of children and take care of their need for education? She would put away her bitterness and wait upon the Lord to renew her strength. Wings of eagles. She could pray for wings like that.

  By the time Louis returned a few hours later with another man to help, she had the trunk packed once more. The furniture all belonged to Mrs. Jackson except for Peter’s bookcase and desk, so there wasn’t a great deal to carry down the steps and out to the wagon the livery man had loaned without charge. He had children in need of schooling, Louis said.

  The child. Ruth shook her head and corrected her thinking again. Not the child. Adria. Louis said Adria had gone ahead to her house with Matilda. To open the windows and air out the place. To get ready for Ruth. Matilda couldn’t stay long. She had to be back at the hotel to cook the evening meal.

  Ruth grabbed the rest of her block of cheese and Matilda’s bread on the way out the door. At least they’d have something for a light meal. Then she’d have to lay in some supplies. The child—Adria—was small but even so, a growing girl. She would need proper food. As did Ruth if she were to have the energy to keep a roomful of children in line and motivated to learn.

  “I will try.” She whispered the words as she climbed into the wagon and looked back at Mrs. Jackson’s house. She had been so happy there with Peter, but now she had little choice but to close the door on that part of her life. Not that she wouldn’t take Peter with her. He would always be part of her, but at the same time it might be good to start over in a new place. Make new memories. She turned to face forward toward the house on Elm Street.

  But what about Adria? She would be surrounded by memories in her house where her family died. Would she be able to accept a n
ew person living there with her? It could be that she would have to try too.

  Adria wanted to go home to her own house. She did, but the closer she got to the front door, the harder it was to keep walking. Aunt Tilda was talking to her. She could hear her voice, but she couldn’t concentrate on her words. Instead she kept thinking about how her mother wouldn’t be there to call out a cheery greeting when she ran inside. She wouldn’t be in her favorite chair, rocking Eddie back and forth to get him to take a nap. She wouldn’t hold out her hand to invite Adria to come close and tell her all the things she’d been doing.

  She would have much to tell. About Louis and Aunt Tilda. About the schoolteacher’s wife. Adria didn’t know what to call her. Maybe Mrs. Harmon until she knew her better.

  She had looked kind when they talked to her earlier, but although Adria had watched closely, she hadn’t smiled. Smiles didn’t matter all that much, Aunt Tilda said when Adria told her that.

  In fact, Aunt Tilda didn’t smile much either. Never big happy smiles like Adria’s mother, but she did sometimes get a look on her face that softened her lips and made the wrinkles between her eyes go away. That was when she would smooth down Adria’s curly hair or give her shoulder an easy squeeze as if they were sharing some secret no one else knew.

  Aunt Tilda didn’t have that soft look on her face now. She had her firm look as she opened the front door and stepped behind Adria to push her through.

  “Ain’t nobody here, child. Them you loved is done gone to glory where they is lookin’ down on you and wantin’ good things for you.”

  “How do you know?” Adria asked.

  “I just do.” Aunt Tilda sounded very sure. “Now we ain’t got but a little while to have this place all shiny before that new schoolteacher gets here.” She pulled a feather duster out of the bag she had brought from the hotel.

  “What if she doesn’t like it?”