Free Margaret Brownley by A Long Way Home

subsided.
    “How’s that?” he asked, pulling his hands away.
    “It feels…better.” She moved her back to test it. “Much better.”
    “I’ll make coffee.”
    “You’d better put something on,” she called. “Before you catch a chill.”
    He made no reply, but she breathed a sigh of relief when a soft rustling sound told her he was getting dressed. She waited until she heard the clamoring sound of pots and pans before she dared to turn over.
     
    *****
    The rain continued for the next two days, sometimes pelting the cabin so hard Libby feared the roof would cave in. At other times the rain scurried across the roof like the racing feet of a thousand little mice.
    To while away the seemingly endless hours, she read the Franklin book and then devoted her time to the Good Book. She reread the book of Matthew and had just begun to read Mark when Mr. St. John questioned her about what she was reading.
    “I’m reading the story of Christmas,” she replied.
    “I heard of Christmas.” He was working on his wooden gold-mining cradle. He had been working on it for the better part of the morning.
    “Don’t you celebrate Christmas?” she asked.
    “Celebrate?”
    “You know, cut down a tree. Have a special dinner.”
    “In the winter months, I cut down plenty of trees. It’s the only way to keep warm. As for dinner, anytime you eat in the winter, it’s special.” He fell silent for a moment, before adding, “Come to think about it, I guess I do celebrate Christmas.” He grinned across the table at her. “And I didn’t even know it.” After a while, he asked her to read aloud to him.
    Surprised by the request she nonetheless complied. The Christmas story never failed to touch her and sharing it with someone made it even more special.
    Sometime later she closed the Bible and stared wistfully into the fire. “Christmas is next week.”
    “Next week, uh?”
    Feeling overwhelmed by a wave of homesickness, she fell silent. Had it only been two years ago that she and Jeff had celebrated their first Christmas together at her parents’ Boston home? Jeff had cut down the perfect spruce and the family had decorated it with dozens of tiny little candles.
    Everyone—including her brothers and sisters, grandparents, aunts and uncles, nieces, and nephews—had gathered around the table for roast duckling with all the trimmings. After dinner, they had crowded around the spinet piano in the parlor to sing Christmas carols.
    After the festivities were over, she and Jeffrey had sat alone by the Christmas tree. It was the night he’d first mentioned his idea of traveling out west to try his hand at gold mining. At first she refused to take him seriously; she was convinced it was some sort of joke.
    For months the newspapers had been filled with news of the gold strike in California and many of their friends and neighbors had already left jobs and family to head west. But it had never occurred to her that Jeffrey would follow. He was so serious-minded, always talking about investments and savings and planning his life with the same precision a mapmaker charted land.
    “Don’t you see?” he’d said. “We’ll be rich.”
    “What do you know about gold mining?” she’d asked. Unable to find suitable employment when his bank failed, he’d helped her father in his printing business. Jeffrey hated the work. It was too tedious, he said, and offered no challenge or opportunity to exercise his mathematical skills.
    “What does anyone know about mining for gold?” he’d replied. “That little detail is not stopping anyone else from traveling to California. Look at old man Mullins. All he knows is blacksmithing. And what about O’Henry? The man’s an actor.”
    “But neither one of those men have a wife,” she’d pointed out.
    “Not every man can be as lucky as I am.” She recalled with aching heart how lovingly he had spoken those words. She also remembered what else he’d said. “I wouldn’t expect you to