The Preacher's Bride. Laurie Kingery

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СКАЧАТЬ the bed. “I think I’ll just sit with Papa and pray awhile,” he said.

      Faith hadn’t been inside the parsonage for many years, but she found her way down the hallway into the kitchen at the back of the house. She had no idea what she was going to prepare for the noon meal, but Sarah had told her she was going to bring over a kettle of stewed chicken, so perhaps Gil could eat the chicken and the preacher could sip the nourishing broth.

      When she reached the kitchen, Faith found she had not been the only one thinking of the Chadwicks’ need for nourishment, for while they had been preparing the preacher for the move back to his house, the married ladies of the town had let themselves in and brought enough food for a regiment. In addition to the promised pot of chicken, the side table was filled with hams, fresh-baked loaves of bread, baskets of rolls, jars of jelly, preserves, green beans, applesauce, baskets of eggs and crocks of lemonade, cold tea and apple juice. On the floor sat bushel baskets of potatoes, apples, peaches, a sack of flour and one of cornmeal. Goodness, they’d thought of everything! She would have to move some of these things to the root cellar beneath the house or they would spoil before they could be eaten.

      About noon, when Reverend Chadwick had awakened from his nap, she was ready with warmed broth which she spooned little by little into his mouth. Dr. Walker had warned her of the danger of the old preacher aspirating liquid into his lungs if she was not careful, but he did very well, as long as she went slowly and kept a napkin at the ready. She could tell from the way he blinked in exasperation when some leaked out of the right side of his mouth that the process frustrated him a little, for the old man was not used to being helpless. But after he’d taken his fill of broth and washed it down with apple juice, he gave her a crooked smile.

      She helped ease him back onto his pillows. “Why don’t you rest a little, Reverend Chadwick? I’m going to go make sure Gil has some dinner. When I come back, we’ll exercise your limbs a little, all right? We’ve got to get you back into fighting trim—the town needs you.” She could tell by the gleam in his eyes he appreciated her thinking such a goal was possible.

      Faith found Gil in the parlor, sitting at a roll-top desk and writing something, his Bible open next to the paper.

      “Gil, dinner’s ready,” she said. “Can you stop for a while?”

      He turned in his chair and smiled at her. “Only if you’ll eat with me,” he said.

      She nodded. She’d intended to do that, but his invitation pleased her more than it should.

      “I’ve been struggling with my wedding sermon,” he told her, once he’d said a blessing over the meal. “It’ll be short, of course,” he added with a chuckle. “No one wants to hear a preacher drone on for very long. They want to see the groom kiss his bride and begin the celebration.”

      She cut a piece of chicken and took a bite. “Didn’t your father write down his sermons? Can’t you use one of those?”

      He swallowed some lemonade and shook his head. “Papa never writes anything down. It’s all in his head, along with whole chapters of the Bible he’s memorized.”

      “Your papa wa—is—” she corrected herself hastily “—an amazing man.”

      Gil nodded. “If I’m ever half the preacher my father has been, I’ll be thankful. Besides, I’m trying to come up with something that hasn’t been said thousands of times before.”

      She thought about that for a moment. “I think folks like the tried and true in a wedding. Tradition is comforting,” she said.

      “I suppose so,” he said. “I hope I can find a way to make it traditional and fresh at the same time, however.”

      Just having a preacher other than his father conducting the service would make it fresh enough for the people of Simpson Creek, she thought.

      “I think the world of Miss Caroline and Jack,” he went on. “I want to do my part to make their wedding day special for them.”

      “I’m sure you will. But...it doesn’t bother you?” she asked at last, giving way to curiosity.

      He didn’t pretend he didn’t know what she meant. “Because I kept company with Miss Caroline for a little while, back during the winter? No, not really,” he said. “I’m happy that she and Jack were able to resolve the things that were keeping them apart. God showed me Caroline was for Jack, not me. And the more I’m around the two of them, the more convinced I am of that.”

      “God...showed you,” she said, hoping her doubt didn’t show. “How does that...happen? To you, I mean,” she added quickly, not wanting to reveal that she never prayed anymore, and had never experienced God showing her anything.

      He speared a couple of green beans with his fork as he considered her question, and nothing on his face revealed that he found her question unusual. “I prayed about it, of course, but He doesn’t always answer out loud. It was more of a feeling, here,” he said, flattening his hand over the center of his chest. “And sometimes He shows us by the way events work out. That’s what happened in this case. Jack finally declared his true feelings, and now he and Miss Caroline are about to get married.” He looked more carefully at her. “You didn’t think I was hiding a broken heart, did you?”

      His direct question gaze flustered her. “No...I—I’m... Perhaps I shouldn’t have asked you that. It’s none of my business after all.” She pretended great interest in a mockingbird which had just landed on the lantana bush outside the kitchen window.

      “I didn’t mind, Miss Faith,” he said. “Not at all. I think it’s good for believers to talk about how they feel God’s leading, because He has different ways of leading different people.”

      But I’m not a believer, she thought.

      “Miss Caroline and I really hadn’t progressed beyond friendship,” he told her. “I would never let my feelings grow to the point where my heart would be wounded without seeking His guidance on the matter.”

      If that was true, she felt better. For if there was a God who cared about His faithful followers, He’d never let Gil fall in love with a woman like her—one who did not believe as he did.

      “I wish I’d grown up in Simpson Creek,” he said then. “It’s a good place. Good land, good people.”

      Reverend Chadwick had become pastor here during the war years, while his son was in college. Gil had served in the army after graduating, then been wounded only a few months before the war’s end. He’d gone straight into the seminary after he’d recovered.

      “I’m glad you like our town,” she said, wondering where this was leading. “If you had been raised here, you might have been the only single man who returned to Simpson Creek after Appomattox.”

      “Or one of those who didn’t live to come back,” he said soberly, his eyes thoughtful. “Which is why you ladies started the Spinsters’ Club, isn’t it—the lack of unmarried men? Papa wrote me about the beginnings of the Spinsters’ Club while I was away at seminary.”

      “Did you think we sounded like a band of brazen hussies, advertising for marriage-minded bachelors?” she asked, almost afraid of the answer. But she saw a twinkle in his eye that reassured her.

      “Not at all,” he said. “You sounded like a plucky lot. I was only worried all the young ladies of the hill country СКАЧАТЬ