Of Needles and Haystacks by Ann Fryer (the beginning after the end novel read TXT) 📕

I found peace in this. What could I do about financial issues anyway?

“Lord,” I prayed, “I just don’t know. Anything.” I paused. “Help.” Some may call this a cold kind of prayer, but I certainly meant it with all my heart.

Chapter 13

MARCH 18, 1880

I can hear Mr. Bleu playing guitar from his attic room. He has not allowed himself this pleasure for the last few weeks, knowing I’m stationed just below. Does he play for me?  The tones are soothing. The ancient Chinese believed that music played a part in healing a sick body. I am abed.

Yesterday was my birthday, and by all rights, this farm belongs to me now. The entire family accompanied me to town with the exception of Ernest. I was attended with sacred pomp and serious faces to a law office and bank to sign papers seven times! Made me feel rather more important than I know myself to be.

Uncle stood close to me, Mr. Bleu sat on the other side. Aunt and the rest waited quietly by the doorway. At the end, the lawyer handed me a newly scribed deed. I thanked him.

This gift...this heavy gift! It jostled in my lap all the way home. I’d prefer to have the few packages and the small pink-iced cake I usually enjoyed. A book, a new pen, my parent’s blessing...

I was not to be disappointed. Upon return to the farm, I found a table of small packages. Handkerchiefs, chocolates, a new apron. We drank tea, had a slice of spiced cake. Smiles trembled even while they gave much effort to celebrating my life, my cousins looked to their parents and slid out of doors.

“Mighty fine day for a stroll...” Ernest’s invitation held a smile that did not waver, not one bit.

“What are we waiting for?” We strode off. I thought he was being brotherly, and I still believe he wants to be. Looking back, I see a clear, ulterior motive. He did not flinch until afterward, when he’d failed.

I took the farm, Uncle and Aunt would hand me its history along with it. Did they intend to give me pain? Did they know what this would do to me? Retribution? Or fear that I would learn of the past another way and sought to protect themselves from my wrath? No town, however small, is without whispers. But gossip rarely tells the whole truth...

Our walk was amicable. Sheer relief from the morning’s events. He pointed out birdcalls and described their plumage in detail. Sometimes he cast his eyes upward and laughed at the clouds. “Make better pictures than the stars.”

Clouds, ever changing; stars, set in their courses. I dared ask a question. “Do you want to be a farmer?”

“I don’t want to be anything else!”

“Are you sure? I mean, if you could do anything you want?”

“As in go to sea or be a preacher?”

“You want to be a preacher?”

“Nope. Don’t want to go to sea either.” He chuckled. “How about you?”

“Me?” I knew without thinking that I wanted a life like Mother and Father’s. I just didn’t know how to describe it to Ernest, so I didn’t answer. Perhaps he understood, wanting nothing but the life Uncle handed him.

We arrived at the small graveyard, the place Helen had taken me on my first day. He swung his long leg over the fence and stood behind one of the larger stones. “Our great grandfather lies here. Elias Hammond.” He pointed. “And our great-grandmother, Lischen.”

He stepped behind another pair. “One of their daughters and a son.”

I bent to look at their names. “Marta, Jacob.” The dates told an early death. A familiar pang pierced me. Moss and tree roots crept around these memorials. Life would keep death in its place.

Ernest did not stop. “Their other two daughters survived, and here are their places, beside their husbands and some of their babies. See,” he pointed “The small markers show where they were buried.”

I wanted Ernest to pause, give some reasons toward this family history lesson, but he sped up. “And here is another son. His first two wives died early, and he is buried next to his third wife. She was our grandmother.”

Olivia. Philip. I went to them, the parents of my mother. Grandmother’s headstone was simply inscribed, “In the shadow of the Most High.” Grandfather’s bore a simple cross. I appreciated Ernest making me look...but he wasn’t done.

“Dorothy, come here.” I stood and saw him pulling old weeds away from a group of headstones.

Lines crossed his forehead in thought, much like Uncle’s. I read the names inscribed there, “Abraham Birch. Lois Birch. Fredrick Birch. Amelia Birch. I’ve never heard of any Birch’s in the family. Who are they?” I could see that the headstones weren’t as old as the others.

Ernest took a breath and slightly colored. Shifted from foot to foot.

“Do we share this plot with a neighboring family?”

“No.”

I waited in the silence. Was this some guessing game? I’d never seen our family tree.

He brushed a drop of sweat from his forehead and tapped the nearest stone with his hand. “They lived here before us.” He began to cough as though he’d swallowed a fly.

“I thought this farm was always in the family.”

“It has been.” He gulped and grew quiet. He waved me over. “Let’s go back.”

Ernest moved so quickly that we nearly trotted back to the farmhouse. My feet pinched in the shoes I’d chosen to wear. He stayed a few feet ahead of me, did he know I’d plague him with questions?

I would never have cared about headstones of people I knew nothing about, but he showed them to me with purpose. Became serious when he did so.

We stepped into the kitchen, out of breath. Agitated. I snatched the tea that remained in my teacup from the earlier celebration. I’d much to swallow.

Uncle’s eyebrows lifted in question, and Ernest shook his head and walked back outside, letting the screen door slap.

Uncle glanced at me, pale. Aunt kept her back to