Chapter 9

Several men stepped in front of Gordon and blocked his view of the woman. He had to be dreaming. It couldn't really be Mira. But he had to be sure.

He pushed past the men. The woman was still there. He walked quickly to her. She was still watching down the tracks and didn't notice him.

"Mira?"

The woman whirled around. Her eyes wide, Mira put a gloved hand flat on her chest and gasped.

Before she could recover, he went on. "Am I dreaming? Are you really here?"

"Maybe we're both dreaming." Her voice was almost too soft to hear.

"A dream come true if that's so." A flame of joy swept through Gordon from head to toes. He wanted to do a jig right there in the middle of everyone or even better a waltz with Mira in his arms. He did neither, simply smiled at her while fervently hoping if this was a dream, he wouldn't wake soon.

"I thought you left Tuesday." She sounded breathless.

"I missed my train and then the snow delayed me more."

"The Lord's doing," she said.

He barely heard the whisper of her words and wasn't sure she meant for him to hear them at all. She wasn't smiling and instead looked ready to run, the way she had from Miss Vandercleve's parlor. He wanted to grasp her arm, to keep her there beside him as a worry woke inside him. The train to Jackson wasn't the only train to leave this station.

"I want to believe you are answering the Lord's calling to come teach the children in Sourwood." He shoved his hands in his pockets to keep from touching her. "Or do you have a ticket to somewhere else?"

"Somewhere else? I have nowhere else to go. The Lord has blocked my every path." For a moment she looked sad, but then she pulled in a breath and lifted her chin. "I hope the directions you left mean I will still be welcomed there."

"More than welcomed. Needed. Wanted."

A train whistle blew and people on the siding pushed forward. Gordon picked up her bag and clasped it under his arm before he grabbed his own bag. He put his hand under her elbow and guided her toward the boarding area. "Come. We need to get aboard before all the seats fill."

Earlier he had been willing to stand if his seat was needed by someone else, but now he wanted to sit with Mira. They needed this chance to get to know each other better on the long train ride. That too could be the Lord's doing, as she said. He was almost certain the feelings awakening in his heart were the Lord's doing.

"My trunk," she said.

Of course she would have more than this small bag with her. "You don't have to worry. It will get loaded in with the freight."

"Worry." She echoed his word. "It seems time to worry."

"Forget worrying. Pray. Achieves much more." He smiled over at her. "You've already made the first step. Every next one will get easier."

"I've never been on a train."

"They're noisy. Dirty. Often crowded, but they get you where you need to go."

"Where I need to go." Again she repeated his words. "Commit thy way unto the LORD."

"‘Trust also in him.' Psalm 37." He ushered her down the aisle to the back of the passenger car. He stuffed their bags under the seats and stepped back to let her settle next to the window.

They were silent as other passengers claimed places around them. Gordon had to force himself not to stare at Mira. It seemed too good to be true that she was actually beside him on this train ready to pull out toward Jackson. His new teacher. Dare he hope for more? The rest of that verse in Psalm 37 came to mind. And he shall bring it to pass.

Gordon was thankful for all the Lord had already brought to pass in his life. He was very thankful for Mira in the seat beside him, but he would not push her. She still was not smiling as she stared out the window. He could wait for her to talk about this challenge she had accepted from the Lord.

After a few minutes, she looked around at him. "Do you have the Bible memorized?"

"I wish. That would be more than amazing. But I do have some Scripture hidden in my heart. That psalm is one many know about the Lord giving you the desires of your heart if you delight in him."

"Do you believe that is true?"

"I do, but many have a difficult time properly doing the first part of the verse." He studied her eyes to try to see what she believed.

"Delight yourself in the Lord."

"Yes."

"Why do you call that difficult?" Her forehead wrinkled in a frown.

"Because most people are self-seeking. We often think we know the best way and have a sure idea of what should happen, without considering if those ways we want to choose will delight the Lord. What we should do, what I feel the Lord wants us to do, is let him plant those desires in our hearts."

She tilted her head slightly as she studied him. "Has he done that for you?"

"Once I started trying to follow him, I think he has. I do believe he wanted me to start the mission in Sourwood. Well, perhaps not Sourwood but somewhere in the mountains. And then he planted the desire in some men from Sourwood to have that mission near them." He wanted her to see that the Sourwood Mission was more than just his heart's desire but also that of the local people too.

"It must be comforting to be so sure of your path." She looked down at her gloved hands clasped in her lap.

"Comforting." Gordon looked past Mira's bent head out the window at the land rushing by.

Of course, it wasn't the land, but the train rushing by. That was how things could seem. Opposite from what they really were. To Mira, he looked determined and sure of God's purpose. He supposed he was comfortable with the path he was on, but the Lord could change that. Perhaps the Lord was shaking his world a little by having this woman beside him. Nothing seemed sure about that except Gordon was thankful for the brush of her shoulder against his as the train bounced along on the tracks, even if he had no idea of what to expect next.

The silence built between them. Gordon let his gaze slide away from the passing landscape and back to her. She continued to stare down at her hands with no hint of a smile.

"Sometimes it seems to us that others have a surer grasp on what they are meant to do. Where the Lord is leading them. When I first felt the Lord's call, I couldn't believe it. I knew something scratched at my heart, but it couldn't be the Lord wanting me to preach." The memory of his unease brought a smile to Gordon. "You knew me in school. Admit it. I had to be the last boy in our school you expected to ever see standing in a pulpit."

"I don't know if that's true," Mira said.

"Come, Mira. As I told you in Miss Vandercleve's parlor, let's not have pretense between us." He finally caught the hint of a smile on her face then, although she didn't look up at him.

"All right. I was a little surprised. I remember you being more interested in sports than anything else."

"I don't think I've ever read anything in the Bible that says a preacher can't play ball. I still like to hit a ball way to yonder. In fact, I have a confession to make. I used a bit of the donations for a baseball. Now I hope to get someone to whittle out a bat and then find a place flat enough to play."

She finally looked up at him. "Are there no open fields in Sourwood that you could use for a ballfield?"

"The terrain is nothing like you know. Hills climb up on every side. Any bit of flat ground is needed for a house or corn and gardens to feed their families."

She looked puzzled by that. "Don't they have stores?"

"None close by, and none like you've known in the city. But even if they did, for most of the people there, money is scarce as hen's teeth unless they turn their corn into liquor to sell."

"Isn't that against the law?" Her forehead knitted together in a frown.

He shrugged. "But some do it anyway. They feel they have no choice."

"Don't we all have choices?"

"We do, but sometimes until we walk the same paths as others, we can't understand the choices they make. It's a hard life."

"Why don't they move to somewhere that isn't so hard?" The frown etched lines between her eyes.

Lovely eyes, Gordon thought. Full of concern for these people she didn't even know. He had the thought to smooth away her frown with his thumb, but stayed his hand. Not yet. Maybe someday she'd welcome such a touch, but not yet.

"It's their home," he said. "Mine too now. I hope you will find the Sourwood holler home as well."

"Holler? Do you mean hollow?"

"Nobody says ‘hollow' in the hills. They're hollers. Some people build up on the steep hillsides. Others down in the hollers. My home is in the holler. I don't have to worry about the cabin sliding down the hill, just the tides washing it away."

"Tides? You can't be near an ocean."

"Far from it, but near a creek." He laughed. "Tides are what the mountain people call a flood. They have unique ways of saying things that can make you smile. To them, I still sound like a brought-in flatlander. They laugh at how I talk all the time."

"Oh my." She shook her head slightly. "They'll laugh at me for sure then."

"They will give the schoolteacher a pass. You're supposed to talk proper."

"But will they like me?" Her voice sounded wistful.

"Of course they will. They like me. Mostly." No need bringing up those few who thought him a meddler they'd like to see gone.

"Mostly? I suppose that's all a teacher can hope for too. Mostly. If you're too likable, some students take advantage of you."

"The children in Sourwood will be so glad to have a teacher, they will be ready to do whatever you say."

"Come now, Gordon. As you said, we can't have pretense between us."

He had to smile at that. "All right. I admit it. The kids in Sourwood aren't perfect, but some of them are eager to have a school."

She pulled in a breath and let it out slowly as she turned back toward the window. The clatter of the train and the chatter of the people around them suddenly sounded louder since he was no longer so completely focused on her every word and expression. Perhaps she needed a while of silence to think about what he'd said. He did sometimes have a way of forcing too many words at a person instead of letting them figure out things in their own way.

He shut his eyes and sent up a simple prayer. Thank you, Lord, for Mira and for the feeling growing in my heart for her. Please, if it be thy will, let some answering feeling awaken in her. Help me control my eagerness to make that happen and depend instead on thee.

He wondered if Mira was praying too as she sat frozen beside him. Questions swirled in his head, but he didn't let any of them exit his mouth. He was determined to let her say the next words between them.

When she did pull her gaze from the window to stare back down at her clasped hands and speak, her whispered words surprised him.

"I'm afraid."

"Not of me?" he said without thinking.

"No." She looked up at him with tears in her eyes. "Yes. Of you. Of everything. I don't know what I'm doing. I don't know if I can do what the Lord seems to be pushing me toward."

He decided to ignore the thought she might be afraid of him and concentrate on her worry of doing what the Lord wanted. "What is that?"

"Leave everything I know and be on this train to a place I can't even imagine. A place I couldn't even find on the map."

"You were brave to take that first step."

"I could go back."

"You could. But to what?"

"That's just it. To nothing." She looked back down at her hands. "I lost my position at the school. I lost my rooms to Miss Ophelia's niece. I have nothing in this world except what is in the trunk that may or may not be on this train."

"Then don't think about going back. Think of what awaits you in Sourwood." He leaned forward to peer at her down-turned face. "It will be good. An older woman there named Nicey Jane will give you a bed in her cabin. You will like her and she will love you."

"No."

"No?" Was all lost and she would buy a ticket back to Louisville as soon as the train stopped at the next depot?

"No." Her voice sounded firm as she pulled off one of her gloves to brush away her tears. She took a deep breath. "On Sunday you asked me to marry you. You said it would make me more accepted if I came to teach in your school. Did you mean it?"

His heart began beating harder. He could hardly believe what she was saying. "I meant it. I would consider it a great honor if you would be my wife."

"But I am afraid."

"You have no reason to fear me, Mira." He kept his voice gentle. "I promise to give you as much time as you need to accept all the expectations of marriage."

"You're talking about the marriage bed."

Her frankness surprised him again. "Yes." Heat warmed his cheeks to match the blush on hers.

"Do you have two beds at your house?"

"I can sleep on the floor."

"That is not marriage. The Bible says a man is to leave his parents and cleave to his wife and they shall be one flesh. ‘Cleave' in that verse means cling to. Isn't that right?"

"Yes."

"Then if we marry, we will marry as the Lord wills."

He didn't know how she could sound so sure and still have a tremble in her voice. But then wasn't a tremble working through him at the thought of her being his wife?

"You say if we marry," he said. "Are you not sure?"

"I am sure. When we marry." Her lips turned up in the smallest of smiles. "Earlier you talked about how the Lord gives us the desires of our heart."

"When we delight in him."

"And commit our way to him. I'm doing that. I'm on this train, ready to be a new person. Ready to have faith that the Lord has put me here. Ready for him to give me the desires of my heart."

"And what is that desire? To teach?"

"I do hope to be a good teacher for the youngsters at your mission, but no. When you knew me before at school, I hadn't even thought about teaching. The desire of my heart was to marry Edward and have a family."

"But then you lost Edward."

"After he went to the sanatorium, I turned to teaching to wait until he was well. I always thought he would be better, but instead he died. That desire of my heart was lost forever, and I accepted my single life as a teacher."

"But not happily."

"That's not true. I have been happy, but I sometimes feel so alone. Forever alone. Like Miss Ophelia." She moistened her lips and pulled in a breath as if she needed to gather courage to go on. "I prayed to be satisfied with the life the Lord had given me. To be glad I could touch so many children's lives and have the opportunity to love the babies at my church. But I struggled to make that enough. The desire to be a mother was always there."

"The Lord knows our unspoken prayers."

"And then you made that absolutely ridiculous and impossible proposal to me."

He couldn't keep a little smile from touching his lips. "It was ridiculous. Impossible. But the Bible does say with God nothing is impossible."

She was silent for several minutes before she spoke in a voice so soft he had to lean closer to hear her. "I was like Jonah. I ran from it. And now here I am, swallowed by this train, ready to be thrown out in a place I can't imagine."

"But the Lord can. He wants to give you the desires of your heart."

Her face was flaming now, but the tears were gone from her eyes when she looked up at him. "A baby needs a father."

A smile warmed Gordon's face. "That is God's design." He reached and captured her ungloved hand in his. She didn't pull away.