Free A Quilt for Jenna by Patrick E. Craig Page A

it closer to the heat. An old orange tabby cat walked out of the mudroom and jumped up onto Mark’s lap. It circled a couple of times and lay down, snuggling against the wool sweater.
    â€œYes sir, Tiger, it’s cold as anything out there,” Mark said as he rubbed behind its ears. “This is a humdinger for sure.”
    At first this storm had seemed to Mark like a normal November snowfall, but during the night the temperature had dropped significantly, and the wind and snow picked up. By Thanksgiving morning the snow was coming down thick and wet, and soon the fields and trees around Mark’s place were heaped with white.
    â€œWe may be in for the long haul. What was that poem we used to read in school?” Mark searched his memory until a few stanzas came back to him.
    A chill no coat, however stout,
    Of homespun stuff could quite shut out,
    A hard, dull bitterness of cold,
    That checked, mid-vein, the circling race
    Of life-blood in the sharpened face,
    The coming of the snow-storm told.
    Mark smiled. “Right! John Greenleaf Whittier! I may not be getting any younger, but there’s still life in the old noggin.”
    Mark laughed at his own statement while the cat yawned and stretched and dug its claws into the sweater. The old pot-bellied stove, satisfied for the moment with the new wood, soon warmed the room enough that, while not toasty, it was at least comfortable. Outside, the snow drifted up against the house, and the wind blew mournfully around the eaves.
    Mark had gone out earlier that morning and dug a path through the snow to the old shed he called a barn. Inside the door he picked up a short pitchfork and went back to the hay pile. His dog, Smitty, lay curled up in the alfalfa. When the dog saw him he jumped up and barked excitedly.
    â€œSo that’s where you spent the night,” Mark said as the dog pushed against him, biting gently at his hand.
    Mark pulled a forkful of hay out of the pile and walked over to the sheep pen. The ancient ram glared at him and stamped its foot as Mark filled the feeder with hay and then poured in some grain. The two ewes pushed against each other as they gobbled the fodder.
    â€œA little late for breakfast, eh, old boy,” Mark said as he scattered some grain on the floor for the chickens.
    The rooster had led its harem to the barn door when Mark came in, but it turned back when it saw the snow outside and began to scratch at the grain, making gentle clucking sounds to prompt the hens to eat. Mark finished his chores and headed back to the house. Smitty followed him and whined at the back door to be let in.
    â€œDon’t blame you, Smitty,” he said. “It’s cold out here.”
    Now, with his chores finished, the old man sat by the fire with the cat asleep on his lap and Smitty stretched out by the stove, offering up an occasional twitch and a whimper in his sleep.
    It was Thanksgiving Day, but Mark wasn’t celebrating. When Millie died two years earlier, he lost much of his zest for living. Since then, holidays came and went pretty much the same as other days. He had been married to Millie for fifty-six years, and now, without his wife around, he could feel his own life winding down. He had settled into a day-to-day routine while the sun rose and set without him paying much attention.
    Until Millie passed, Mark had thought of himself as a devout Christian. He went to church with Millie every Sunday, tithed, supported missions, and did everything expected of him. But now that Millie was gone, it just seemed more like a social club than something that was of comfort to him in his grief. After a while, Mark realized he was just waiting for his own time to go. He was looking forward to seeing his beloved wife in heaven, so church just didn’t seem so important anymore. He stopped attending regularly, which he knew would not make Millie happy, but somehow he just didn’t have the juice to get up and around on