Dear Mr. Rourke,Thad stood in the pines until the mule grew restless. He knew little about children, less about women, and had no idea how to comfort either. But he remembered a cold hand on his collar and a young man's voice saying, "Hold on. I have you."He turned the mule around, rode back down to the depot, and bought a sheet of writing paper. He could read slowly and write when he had to, though every letter cost him patience. He wrote to Hannah Whitmore that night with a stub of pencil, and it took three hours and four sheets of paper.The letter, as it went out, was 11 lines long: he told her who he was and what her husband had done for him; he said he had a good house with two rooms spare and stores enough for six people through the winter; he said it was a debt and not a kindness, and he would take it as a favor if she let him pay it. He signed it T. Rourke, then added: The roof is sound.Hannah read it twice on the porch of the homestead with a hand on the curve of her belly, and said a word she had not taught Lucy. He mentioned Lucy's letter in the second line; Lucy, on the step, studied her shoes.Hannah was 32, with dark hair pinned up in a hurry and gray eyes that missed very little. She had been raised to pay her own way, and she did not want a stranger's charity, however it was dressed. But the bank was calling the mortgage on the 1st of November. She had sold the plow, and the second horse, and her mother's clock, and she had $11 left. The baby was due at the end of January, and she had no one to call in the night.She sat down on the step beside her daughter and looked at the plains, brown to the horizon."For the winter," she said. "Until the baby is born and I am on my feet. Then I will find work in a town, and we will go."She wrote back on Saturday, the 29th, accepting: it was a stiff little note with "a temporary arrangement" in it twice, a sentence about earning her keep, and the date the baby was due.Thad read it at the depot window and said, "Hmm," out loud. The clerk looked up in alarm; he had never heard the sound before.He had less than two weeks. He mended the cabin roof, which was sound, just in case. He built a second bed from pine planks, with a straw tick thick enough to house a family of squirrels. He knocked out the little north window in the spare room and put in a larger one with real glass, which cost him $11 and a long argument at the depot.
My papa said you were the strongest man in the world. My mama is going to have a baby and she is trying to do everything alone. She says we are brave, but I hear her cry when she thinks I am asleep. Do you know any way to make her smile again?
Your friend, Lucy Whitmore.
(I am not asking for money.)
The Mountain Man Started Buying Baby Clothes — But Everyone Knew He Lived Alone
The Mountain Man Started Buying Baby Clothes — But Everyone Knew He Lived Alone
Chapter 3
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