Free Where Courage Calls: A When Calls the Heart Novel by Janette Oke, Laurel Oke Logan Page B

among us, yer ours. I hear yer from the East, Miss Thatcher.”
    “Oh please, I’m Beth. I hope you will call me Beth.” The room was warm and steamy, and she wiped at the sweat already rising on her brow. “Yes, my family lives in Toronto, but I do have family out here too. I have a relative who teaches in the North.”
    Molly set a glass of water on the table in front of Beth, and she reached for it eagerly. How nice a cold drink will be.
    “My Bertram—God rest his soul—worked in Ottawa a short while,” Molly explained as she returned to the stove.“He drove a taxicab—not a fancy new one, though, a good ol’ horse-drawn number. But he weren’t cut out for all that city nonsense. He come from country folk, and so he left to find a more suitable place. Went west to the prairie and tried his hand at farming. But we ended here.” She gestured to the house around them. “Bought it from ones who’d planned it for a fancy hotel. Got it real cheap ’cause the rails they thought would carry in rich folks came only for coal instead.” She chuckled at her good fortune and then added matter-of-factly, “But Bertram died and left me here alone.”
    “I’m so sorry.”
    Using tongs, Molly pulled the last of the sterilized jars from the large pot, turning the steaming glass out onto a towel to let the water drain. “Don’t help none bein’ sorry. It’s jes’ the way life is sometimes.” She hoisted the bubbling pot from the stove and kicked open the back door before Beth could rise to help, still chatting as she moved. “Bertram, he says to me, ‘Molly dear, I ain’t got much in life, but this old house will keep you when I’m gone.’ I laughed and tol’ him, ‘No, sir, it’s me who keeps this house .’” She tossed the contents of the pot into the yard. The door slammed shut again before the water hit the ground. “But he was right, my Bertram was. Somehow we do get by.”
    “Do you have family?”
    “Ah, well, yes and no. We ain’t got kids. But that’s not to say I ain’t got kin. Got good folk here, hardworkin’ solid souls that suit me just as much as blood family.” Then she sighed. “Leastwise, we still got some.”
    “What do you mean? What happened?”
    “Oh, that ol’ mine—it’s stole ’em away from us. Weren’t enough to only work ’em nigh to death—the whole thing fell in one day and buried most all our menfolk.”
    Beth’s eyes widened at the horror of the story, and she held her breath as she grappled with the truth of their tragic loss.
    Just then the young boy came down the steps and informed Molly shyly, “Room’s ready, Miss Molly.”
    Beth smiled in his direction and watched him turn to leave. Molly sighed after him, “That’s when Teddy Boy and Marnie lost their daddy—their momma’d already been gone awhile. They come to live with me instead. Were hardly a family in these parts didn’t lose a man. And some of ’em lost sons as well.”
    “You mean, all these women—they’re widows?” Beth felt a shudder go through her body. She could not conceive of such a dreadful situation. She saw again the faces gathered round her in the pool hall. Somehow knowing their plight transformed the image of them in her mind.
    “Almost all—only a handful of their men still livin’. And then there’s Helen’s man—still claims he runs their place even though we don’t see much of him. Keeps hisself to the woods mostly. Doin’ what—who knows. Plus there’s still the mayor an’ his wife, and Toby Coulter runs the store with his wife, and all the big company men—though they’re always comin’ and goin’ every few days—keepin’ their own families in the city and well away from here. Was jes’ the minin’ folk bore the brunt of it all.”
    Beth watched as Molly stuffed small cucumbers into the scalded jars. “They brung in more men, soon enough—though it took ’em a while to dig out the mine from under. Single fellas this time—and foreigns.