Chapter 8

Gordon was angry. Not at anybody but at everything. Nothing had gone right since he left Miss Vandercleve's house two days ago when he had stayed too long drinking the woman's coffee. Her claim that she believed Mira was conflicted about the opportunity of teaching at his mission had raised his hopes. Miss Vandercleve felt sure Mira would realize what an opportunity he had opened up to her. They didn't speak about Mira joining Gordon's life as his wife, but the thought had been there between them.

She had raised his hopes so much that when she encouraged him to do so, he had left directions on how to get to Sourwood. While he had the feeling it might be an exercise in futility, he had written out the instructions with as much exactness as he could about the train and what to do once she got to the end of the line. He'd left the name of a preacher there who could help her find an escort to Sourwood, perhaps even bring her himself. That would be best. Pastor Haskell could perform their marriage ceremony.

Gordon had almost laughed aloud as that thought came to mind while he was printing the directions. He was playing the fool. Mira was never going to come to Sourwood, much less stand before a preacher with him. Still, Miss Vandercleve had him believing the Lord might make such happen. Had him remembering the sure feeling that the Lord had brought him to Mira's church for a special purpose. In fact, he was so convinced at that moment, he had left most of his remaining money with the instructions.

Miss Vandercleve said that showed faith. She assured him the Lord rewarded a person who stepped blindly into the future. And hadn't he done that many times? How many mountain trails had he ridden up with no idea of what he might find? He was not always rewarded with good, but the Lord had continually kept him safe.

Gordon had been so distracted by his thoughts of Mira that he had forgotten he didn't have all his supplies packed and ready to be transported to the railway station. He had also neglected to ask Mr. Bramblett, the man who supplied him room and board while in Louisville, to be available to take his trunk to the depot.

If that was what even thinking about being married could do to him, perhaps it was best that Mira had run from him.

Whatever the cause, by the time he arranged transportation to the depot, he missed his train. With so little money in his pocket, he had not hired conveyance and instead walked the good distance back to the Bramblett house. At least the depot manager had let him leave his trunk, although that added a new worry. Someone might claim it, or it might be loaded onto a train to who knew where.

When he said as much to Mr. Bramblett, the man had questioned Gordon's trust in the Lord. "You have to give over to the Lord what you can't change, son."

Mr. Bramblett was a big man with more of a farmer's appearance than that of the banker he was. His beefy hands looked made to hold a hoe or plow handles instead of a pen, but a pen was his tool of choice and had made him a very successful man. His support of Gordon and his Sourwood Mission Church was a blessing.

He and his wife had been praying with Gordon that he would find the right teacher for his mission school. The people in Sourwood were praying. The adults would understand the difficulties of bringing a teacher to Sourwood and would continue praying, but the children would be disappointed. They expected their prayers to be answered. They wouldn't be happy with a not yet or no, even though those were answers the same as yes. Gordon for certain had not wanted to hear Mira's no.

Missing the train on Tuesday was bad enough, but then more snow fell on Wednesday to disrupt the train schedules. No train left for Jackson again until Friday. The time hung heavy on him.

That was why he was so disgruntled. He was anxious to get back to the mountains, but he seemed to be facing roadblock after roadblock.

Friday he was up early. At breakfast, Mr. Bramblett assured him the newspapers reported the trains were back on schedule and that even with more snow in Eastern Kentucky the rails were now passable. The need to be back in Sourwood had been like an itch Gordon couldn't scratch.

He had work to do, people to help, a school to finish building. Hadn't he believed that if he built a church, the people would come? Might it not be the same with a school? The Lord would send them a teacher in his own good time.

He believed that, but sometimes he tried to wrestle control from the Lord to his own hands. That was an ongoing problem for him. He wanted things to turn out the way he considered best. What he needed to do was pray and trust answers would come. Hadn't the Lord always sent down plentiful blessings on him and the people in Sourwood?

"Your will, Lord." Gordon whispered the prayer as he fastened his case and went out to tell the Brambletts goodbye and thank them.

Mrs. Bramblett gave him a sack of food. "So you won't get hungry on the train."

Her husband handed Gordon a coat. "This thing is too little for me. Looks like it might be right for you."

Gordon was glad to put it on, even if it was more than oversized for his slim frame. He'd given away his coat back in the mountains before he came to Louisville. Someone was always more in need of warmth than he. In time, no doubt he'd meet another man, a bigger man who could use this coat too.

As he set out for the train station, he put a hand in the coat's pocket and wasn't surprised to feel money there. Mr. and Mrs. Bramblett were some of his mission's ardent supporters. They both planned to visit when the weather warmed. By then, he hoped to have his cabin better furnished.

By the time Mira came.

He had no idea why that thought popped into his head. He had no reason to expect Mira to ever come. No reason but the nudge he'd felt from the Lord before he shocked Mira with his proposal.

She might have come to teach if he hadn't been so audacious. She could have roomed with Nicey Jane Callahan, who would love putting up the new teacher. In fact, as soon as he got back to Sourwood, he would sit down and write Mira a letter telling her that very thing.

Just thinking that made Gordon smile as his step got lighter and quicker. He had no need to be in ill humor. He had on a warm coat that he could pass on to someone who needed it more when he got to Sourwood. He had a few dollars in his pocket, when earlier he'd barely had enough for his train ticket. He knew Mira's address. He could woo her by mail.

A woman needed some wooing. If it was meant to be, then the Lord would make it happen. Wasn't that how he felt about his mission in Sourwood? The people had wanted him there. They had built a church and his house. The school would be finished soon if snow didn't slow their progress.

The Sunday before he'd come to Louisville, dozens of people had come to hear him preach. He wasn't the one pulling them down out of the hills to hear the gospel. That was the Lord's doing. He was the Lord's hands and feet in Sourwood and wherever he was sent.

At the depot, he was relieved that his trunk and other crate of supplies were ready to be loaded when the train arrived. Once in Jackson, he would need a wagon to carry them on across the hills to Sourwood. The crate held the slates he'd bought and books donated by the people at the churches he'd visited. Some old history books and primers. A few novels. Several Bibles. Some picture books and magazines. He'd also packed in a lot of newspapers. The people were always happy to get those, since many of their walls were covered with the papers to keep the cold wind out of their cabins.

People had gathered on the depot platform. He looked around to see if he saw anyone who might be in need of a friendly word. When he noticed a small, slender woman studying a paper she held in her gloved hand, he blinked twice, not sure he could believe his eyes. The woman's black hat was identical to the one Mira had worn at church on Sunday.

Could that really be Mira or did he wish it so fervently that his eyes played tricks on him? Many women surely had hats such as that and dark cloaks. The woman raised her head and looked down the tracks.

Mira stared at the black marks on the paper and tried to make them form words, but they seemed to do a jig in front of her eyes. She could still barely believe she had a ticket to Jackson in her hand, her trunk ready to be loaded on a train, and her carpetbag stuffed with clothes beside her.

She couldn't really be going to Jackson to teach at a school that had promised her nothing. Well, not Jackson. Sourwood. And Miss Ophelia would say that she'd been promised everything.

The dreams were what had done it. The children looking at her with beseeching eyes. Children she did not know but who needed her. In the dream, she stood in the front of the room, not holding a book or a ruler, but a baby instead. Then all the children started singing and the baby laughed in her arms.

She'd awakened to such a feeling of being loved. She didn't know how long it had been since that sweet warmth had wrapped around her. She thought she'd lost everyone who loved her. Her parents. Edward.

Those at her church cared for her. Miss Ophelia, in her own prickly way, seemed to like her. But this feeling was different. God so loved the world. God so loved her.

But more than the dreams, more than that sweet feeling of being loved, everything had pushed her to this spot at the depot. Everything? There was that word again.

She felt a little faint and was glad for the bracing air. She never had the vapors. She was made of sterner stuff than that. A schoolteacher couldn't be some fragile flower that wilted at the slightest touch. Teachers didn't fall apart. Not even when their world did. Miss Ophelia had assured Mira of that. She had convinced Mira she had no choice but to be standing here on this rail platform waiting for a train to take her into the unknown.

Not unknown, she told herself firmly. Whether she had ever been there or not, Sourwood was in Kentucky. Her state. She wasn't traveling across the ocean to Africa or China to be a missionary. She was going to Sourwood, Kentucky, to be a teacher.

And a wife? That question lingered. Such did not seem as outrageously impossible as it had mere days ago. Now, somehow, it felt more and more possible, even intended.

She blinked and the words on the paper came into focus. Nothing Gordon had written mentioned marriage. Only how to get to Sourwood. She pulled in a long breath. She was here. She had nowhere else to go. She shoved the directions into her coat pocket, squared her shoulders, and stared down the tracks.

When the train came, she would climb aboard.