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

“None whatsoever.”

“Neither do I.” She smiled comically. “Mother says I’m too young to marry at any rate and not to wish for beaus. But I cannot help it.” She sighed. “Consumes my thinking.”

“I suppose you are finished with school?” I asked.

“Last year.” She tightened her shawl as a breeze blew through our bonnets. “There’s always the MacDonald boys but they are too rich for the likes of us.”

“Are they now?”

She shrugged. “I might as well warn you. They come around to see Ernest, but with mother helping at the house now and then, I’m afraid we are looked upon as the help rather than the prosperous farmers that we are.”

“Why does Aunt give herself to serve?” We always hired help, not the other way around. The notion bothered me, if only to know I’d be categorized with this family...my family.

“What else for? Money.”

Oh, how I wished Uncle had accepted my offering. But what care I for men I have never met, nor will likely admire? Though it is more than obvious that Helen fancies them...

After seeing and smelling the inglorious chicken coop, my sense of adventure for this place began to wane. Everyone and every creature moves about a great deal. I’m not sure where I fit in this kind of busyness. The farmhouse appears quite charming—complete with a wrap-around porch and a host of rocking chairs—but it is not a porch of romantic leisure. I can see that. It is a place to rest aching feet and perhaps for still Sunday Sabbath. There’s no sense in me comparing it to my summer holiday at the lake. Or home.

Helen took me by the hand and led me onward, to another barn down a bit of dirt road. Why does this farm require so many? Good thing I wore boots this morning, and good thing my cloak is lined with fur for I am freezing again. Helen let go my hand as she climbed the fence, in her skirts, I might add! How bold. Then she bid me do the same. I glanced around. No one was looking. With shaky footing, I clung for my life to the top railing and managed to slide down, thanks to Helen’s help. Had Mother fence-climbed like this when she was a girl? I would love to have seen her.

Helen jerked her thumb back. “This barn is used for the sheep, when we have them.”

“How precious! Do you get lambs too?” I had never seen one up close.

“They have lambs, you mean.” She laughed. “Look over here. Can’t show you the farm and skip this.”

In the midst of tall bare oaks, gravestone slabs jutted out in all directions. Small unmarked limestone squares dotted around them. Nothing whatsoever like the iron gated church yard where I’d just left hothouse roses on two cold headstones only yesterday. I’d seen my share of graveyards—but none like this.

“The whole family is here...well, except...” her face flushed red. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking.”

I stood not feeling any break of emotion. Could I truly be this numb, this accustomed to death? No. It isn’t those two polished headstones that haunt my dreams, but the sounds and smells of the deathbed. The suffering, the wheezing breath, the once vital and wonderfully made beings withering as quickly as fresh-cut grass and flowers. A short, hardworking time on earth with a few good memories pressed between. And then the end. To what purpose?

Maybe the memories won’t end if I carry them forward.

One question lingers and tugs: Am I next? Am I to be similarly snuffed out like a candle? Uncle survived the War between the States when few dodged disease or bullets. Why him? Why had God singled him out to live? These thoughts grip me.

No, these headstones affirm cold finality. Etched names to slowly trace with my fingers as I try to remember a family I’d never met.

I had been too pensive. Helen kindly took my arm and led me away. I looked, but she had pulled her bonnet over her ears, her eyes hidden. A small tear dropped from her jaw.

I tried to encourage her, to smile “Next time, I’d like to know about them—if you can tell me. I’m sure this farm has a heap of stories.”

She nodded and pulled me along.

It was with some relief when the hour for needlework came. This I could do—be a help  inside these walls. But they were too shy to receive my sock darning abilities. Too proud for me to patch torn undergarments. So I pulled out a white-work tea cloth Mother and I had started before she became ill. It had been meant for me, for my bulging hope chest. Perhaps I should make it a gift to Aunt...next Christmas. If I am still here.

Toliver hid beneath a small tea table, clutching a stuffed wooly sheep. His brown eyes blinked slowly. His little overalls looked new, knees not even slightly worn. I almost didn’t hear his husky voice, “Mamma die.” His thumb went directly to his mouth as he told me.

Aunt set aside her needle work, bent down and pulled him into her arms. “Yes, mamma die. She’s with Jesus.” He burrowed into the hug.

I wondered at the brown woman who had borne this precious child. His little grief and his little joy. Lost to her for eternity—or until eternity. How Aunt’s small gesture seemed to whisk away any question he’d had about her disappearance.

What grand gesture will whisk away mine?

Chapter 4

JAMES STOOD IN THE middle of his fields—which were already being prepped for the coming season. Thanks to a wet winter, mud stuck like glue to the plowshare. “Like the unwanted guest...” Only Miss Trafton wouldn’t exactly be a guest. A live-in relative, more like. Just how much did the girl hate the farm already? “I bet she groans for city life.”

He tossed his eyes toward the overcast sun, worried. God knew it all. “Like I groaned for the mansion and every