That night Benny took one more look through his footlocker. Suddenly he noticed a slip of paper tucked into his winter boots. He pulled it out and opened it.
"The box is the key. Use it to unlock the door to the cat." At the end was a symbol Benny recognized as the Greek letter Omega. Jason and Joseph were both in the room when Benny found the note. Joseph watched every move Benny made when he found the note, though he tried clumsily not to show it. Jason read the note over Benny's shoulder. Like lightning, Jason leaped across the room and slammed Joseph down on the floor. He grabbed his throat and Joseph squawked. He was a much bigger boy than Jason, but he was not at all strong and could not get the furious boy off of him.
"You're the one who stole it!" Jason snarled. "I knew it all the time. We want it back right now!"
"Make him get off of me, or you'll be sorry!" Joseph squealed to Benny.
"Let him up, Jason," Benny ordered. "Joseph, I guess you don't want to be expelled, do you? I just want my cougar skin back. I don't want any trouble."
"You can't prove I had anything to do with that note or your -- cougar skin," Joseph said with an oath. "You can tell me now what's in the box. Then they'll let you know what they want next."
Benny and the Bank Robber 2: Doctor Dad
copyright Mary C. Findley 2011
Findley Family Video Smashwords Edition
Benny and the Bank Robber 2: Doctor Dad
copyright 2011 Findley Family Video Smashwords Edition
Scripture quotations are from the King James Version Bible, Public Domain.
No part of this publication may be reproduced in whole or in part, or stored in any retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission of the publisher. Exception is made for short excerpts used in reviews.
Findley Family Video Publications
"Speaking the truth in love."
This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance of characters to persons living or dead is coincidental.
Table of Contents
If you haven't read Benny and the Bank Robber ...
Chapter One – Something's Wrong
Chapter Two – My Best Man's Mother
Chapter Three -- "I Make All Things New!"
Chapter Six -- Plans and Trials
Chapter Seven -- Busy All the Time
Chapter Eight – Tanta Troubluska
Chapter Nine – Ben of All Trades
Chapter Eleven -- Neglected Business
Chapter Twelve – The Doctor's Assistant and the Schoolteacher
Chapter Thirteen -- Off to Brigham
Chapter Fourteen—Puzzle in a Box
Chapter Fifteen -- An Ultimatum
Chapter Sixteen– The Cartier Factor
Chapter Seventeen – A World of Silence and a Willing Apprentice
Chapter Eighteen -- A Simple Christmas
Chapter Nineteen --Bad Things, Blessings and Peace to All
If you haven't read Benny and the Bank Robber ...
Benny Richardson found the drunken hit-and run cart driver who killed his father in Philadelphia, but Benny's mother still said they must move to frontier Missouri. From active church services, classical concerts and university lectures, ten-year-old Benny began the bleak trip to a life on a frontier farm with his Uncle Tom and Aunt Caroline. Slow trains, slower barges and rain, filled Benny's days with misery and his heart with anger against God.
A mudslide smashed their barge and left Benny alone with his injured mother. Benny's first impulse was still to pray. Did God send fellow traveler John Clancy to get a doctor for Benny's mother? As grateful as Benny might be, the man was a mystery he couldn't begin to solve. A hidden bag of disguises, laughing ways that vanished in a heartbeat along with painted freckles and a disappearing Irish accent were bad enough. A hardened contempt for the Bible made Mr. Clancy exactly the kind of person Benny wanted to avoid. His mother needed surgery and a long recovery. She begged Mr. Clancy to take Benny to Missouri.
Benny started to discover more frightening things about Mr. Clancy. Suddenly became a prisoner of a card-playing, knife-throwing bank robber with a savage black stallion and a grudge of his own against God for letting his $10,000 in stolen gold sink in the Conemaugh River.
Jeremy Carlisle knew how to survive, on flatboats, at backwoods farms, in the woods where no one could help Benny escape. Finding the lost gold almost cost Jeremy his life, but he ignored Benny's insistence that God wanted Jeremy to live to accept Jesus Christ. Jeremy taunted Benny about how no one would believe the "bank robber" story. He also reminded Benny of how far away God seemed and how little the boy knew about His Word. By the time they crossed the Mississippi River his faith was failing fast. He liked and admired the bank robber, enjoying his wonderful songs and comic acting bits. Jeremy's invitation to keep traveling with him grew more and more tempting.
A "Cougar Evangelist" forced Jeremy and Benny to stop and listen to God's Word as they stayed with Doc Daniel, a solitary scholar with a deep knowledge of the Scriptures and infinite patience to care for physical and spiritual hurts. Jeremy finally found Christ and surrendered. A trial for kidnapping with Benny's mother as the star witness almost destroyed any hope Jeremy might have for the future. Benny reunited with his mother and his aunt and uncle and took up farm life with more peace and joy than he could have imagined, until the news of Jeremy's ten-year prison sentence set him to questioning God all over again.
Still, Benny found an unlikely new friend in Jason Owens, son of a Philadelphia brickmaker, and an astounding legacy of his dead father on a birthday never to be forgotten. A new school in Osage brought the new trial of a relentless bully. When Caleb Sutter, the violent son of a drunken thief, lost his family, Benny found God prompting him to ask his mother to adopt his persecutor. God had other plans for Caleb, to Benny's relief, and his life went on with an exciting horse race and a nagging surprise Jeremy would only hint about in his cryptic letter.
(But, there's much more to the story than this brief summary!)
Chapter One -- Something's Wrong
Benny Richardson followed his friend Jeremy out of the farmhouse where he and his mother lived with Benny's Uncle Tom and Aunt Caroline in southern Missouri near the town of Osage. They had just come home from Jefferson City, where they had met their friends Daniel Connors, Junior, and his wife Elizabeth. Dan, who was a lawyer in Virginia, had given them the biggest surprise of their lives.
Jeremy Carlisle, who had become a Christian after a series of adventures traveling with Benny, had been pardoned and released after serving only two years of his ten-year prison sentence in Philadelphia. Jeremy had confessed to stealing from the bank where he had worked. Benny and his mother had found Jeremy waiting at the rented house in Jefferson City where Dan and Elizabeth were staying, and now after a week they had brought him home to the farm with them.
Doc Daniel, Dan Connors' father, had made the trip back to Osaga with them also, but he had already left them to ride home, another twenty miles distant. They had finished unhitching the cart and unloading their bags and the supplies Uncle Tom had picked up in Jefferson City. Uncle Tom led the horses away to the pasture. Benny's mother and Aunt Caroline shooed them outside so they could start dinner preparations. Benny's best friend Jason Owens and his father Carl drove up at that moment. The wagon stopped dead in the barnyard. Father and son looked down at Benny and Jeremy. Jason's eyes got wider and wider under his mop of red hair. His freckles stood out as his face got whiter and whiter. Carl Owens quickly got down and came up to Jeremy, hand outstretched. He was shorter than Jeremy but he didn't hesitate to look him straight in the face.
"You must be the famous Jeremy Carlisle," he said. "Welcome. I'm Carl Owens. That's my son Jason. We heard everybody was back. The wife wanted me to send over a couple of pies and say welcome home."
"Thanks, Mr. Owens," Benny said. "Yep, this is Jeremy. Hi, Jason." He quickly carried the basket with the pies into the house and set them on the kitchen table.
When Benny came back outside, Jason had not moved from the wagon seat. He simply stared. His father walked around and said something to him. Jason tried to look somewhere else, but his eyes kept coming back to Jeremy's face. His father slapped him between the shoulderblades like he had when Jason had come to Benny's birthday party. Jason almost fell off the wagon seat, but it made no difference. He didn't even try to get down to talk to Benny. He just sat and stared at Jeremy's face.
Carl Owens made some small talk to Jeremy and Ben. When Uncle Tom returned he shook hands with him and chatted a little longer. Jason never moved or said a word. Benny knew he was going to get a licking when he got home. Carl Owens said his good-byes and they left. Uncle Tom went off to the barn pshawing and waving Benny away when he asked if there was anything Uncle Tom needed help with. Jeremy sank down on the porch and rested his forearms on his knees, covering his face up.
"Jeremy, Jason just needs to get used to it," Benny whispered. "Don't be mad."
"Mad!" Jeremy raised his head just a little. "I'm not mad, Ben. I just sort of forgot about it. But it's going to keep happening everywhere I go. How can I be a doctor or a preacher -- traveling, meeting people all the time ... "
"'Be not afraid of their faces,'" Benny quoted, "'for I have overcome them.'"
"It's more likely they'll be afraid of my face," Jeremy grunted.
"I found some other verses." Benny dug in his pocket and pulled out his father's Bible. "'His visage was so marred, more than any man, and his form more than the sons of man ... he was despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief, and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised and we esteemed him not.'"
"Ben ... Ben, why are you reading that? There isn't much comparison between the Lord Jesus Christ and me."
"Let me finish and I'll tell you. 'He was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon Him, and with His stripes we are healed.'
"Jeremy, I know you're not Jesus and you didn't die for my sins, but I can't stop thinking it was my fault the cougar attacked you. I think about how I was rebelling against going to Uncle Tom's, and how much trouble I caused because I couldn't accept God's will. And you got in the cougar's way and made him attack you instead of me."
Jeremy put an arm around Benny and hugged him tightly. "The Lord God of Heaven sent that cougar. He is perfect in wisdom. Maybe it came after both of us. But since we both know God forgives sins, we'd just better stop beating ourselves up over the consequences that don't go away."
Jeremy sprang up off the porch. He leaped over the pasture fence and ran across the field to where Black Switch grazed near the apple orchard. The horse perked up and watched him approach. He took a few dainty steps, trotted, then broke into a gallop.
Jeremy halted, but the stallion didn't even slow down. He piled into Jeremy and knocked him flat. Even then he surged forward, pushing Jeremy with his head, snorting, whinnying, dancing around him.
Jeremy rolled away, all the way back down the slope, with Black Switch cantering after him. At the bottom Switch lay down and had a good roll himself. Jeremy draped himself across the horse as he lay belly-up on the grass and laughed himself to exhaustion.
"I thought maybe he'd forget you," Benny panted as he ran up and dropped on the grass beside them. "Guess he didn't."
Black Switch snorted, waved his hooves, then rolled onto his feet. Jeremy still lay on the ground. Switch prodded him with his nose until he got up, then sidled up to him until his hands rested on the horse's back.
"He wants you to go for a ride," Benny prompted.
" I haven't been on a horse in two years," Jeremy murmured. He ran his hands over Black Switch's glossy coat. "I'd forgotten how beautiful you are, old man. The first time I saw this horse, Ben, I knew I had to have him. I changed my whole plan. I risked everything to get him. Yes, my beauty, I did, didn't I?"
Jeremy grabbed a hank of shoulder mane and swung up onto Switch bareback. The horse burst into a gallop and they were out of sight in a moment. Benny loped back across the pasture and found that Uncle Tom was suddenly agreeable to some help with the chores, after all.
"Uncle Tom, did you see how well Black Switch remembered Jeremy?" Benny laughed as he helped him transfer feedbags from where they had placed them just inside the barn door to the storage room. "He knows him even with a different face, and he loves him!"
"Bah!" growled Uncle Tom. "A horse knows somebody by his smell, not how he looks. And as for loving, well, a horse just needs grass' and brushin'. Lovin' a person, now that takes some work, and not everybody's ready to take on that work, no matter what they might feel like they want."
Benny finished helping Uncle Tom in silence, wondering what that outburst meant. Something funny had been going on all week, with whispered conferences between the adults. They had all been so happy to learn Jeremy was free, but something had happened that very first day, and although his mother, Jeremy, and all the Connors had continued to be cheerful around Benny there were many sad and even angry looks passing between people when Uncle Tom and Aunt Caroline were around. Benny had never seen either of them do anything but be kind and hospitable, except for Uncle Tom's occasional fits of gruffness now and then. Aunt Caroline, in fact, seemed more anxious to hug Benny and his mother than ever before. She was doing it really often, and seeming like she was trying not to cry. Benny's mother seemed to be trying not to cry, too, but whenever Benny asked what was wrong Jeremy or Dan or Doc Daniel would pull him away to the study to look at more maps of the way west.
Benny had been through enough times of trouble and heartache to know it when he saw it tumbling into his life yet again. He was sure nobody had died. Nobody had even been hurt, except that Dan Connors had pinched his fingers when the piano lid had crashed down on them while he played a rollicking song for Jeremy and Benny's mother the night after their arrival. Everyone had been crowded around the instrument enjoying the performance, Jeremy and his mother standing close together and blending their voices so nicely.
But all of a sudden Uncle Tom had banged on the piano and stalked away, which was what had made the lid drop on Dan's fingers. Uncle Tom had hardly even apologized, but Aunt Caroline had, over and over, nursing Dan's fingers with cold water and vinegar and trying not to cry again. Whatever it was, it had something to do with Uncle Tom, and, Benny had to admit, something to do with Jeremy.
When the barn chores were done, Benny saw that Jeremy had returned in time to give Black Switch his food and water and a good currying before supper.
"I noticed you had Switch bled," Jeremy said as they sat down to fried chicken and mashed potatoes. "Ma'am, this food is wonderful," he said to Aunt Caroline.
"Err ... he was ailing a bit," Uncle Tom admitted. "He's fine now, though."
"I can see that he is. I plan to pay you back for his keep. I can't tell you how grateful I am for your trouble."
"He's a good horse," Uncle Tom said, embarrassed. "I'm afraid you'll find he's ... developed a sweet tooth, though. Ben must have been sneaking it to him."
Benny hadn't told Jeremy about Switch's illness or Uncle Tom's "sugar therapy." He'd have to explain it later.
Jeremy was silent a few minutes. Benny could see that he was troubled once again by Uncle Tom and Aunt Caroline's efforts to keep their eyes away from his face.
"I found a cabin back over the hill past the orchard," Jeremy said finally. "Is that where you lived when you first came out, sir?"
"Ah, my bachelor digs," Uncle Tom chuckled. "It's rough, but it's solid."
"I was wondering if I might stay there while I'm visiting," Jeremy suggested. "Your house is crowded enough with family."
"Well, now, as a matter of fact, I was going to say we've been out to clean and fix it up. Stocked up some provisions -- flour, salt, a little bacon and beans. There's wood to split. You'd even have the lean-to to keep your horse nearby, if you like. There's a well, and everything you need." Uncle Tom and Aunt Caroline both looked very relieved.
"Sounds first-rate," Jeremy smiled. "I figure I can do my own cooking over there so I won't be in the way."
"You're -- you're welcome at our table anytime, Mr. Carlisle," Aunt Caroline stammered. "We don't mean to drive you out. Truly we don't. Thomas, tell him --!"
"Ma'am, there's no need." Jeremy pushed back from the table. "You folks have been kinder to me than anyone on Earth has ever been. I think I'll retire now."
Chapter Two – My Best Man's Mother
"Mother, I want to know what wedding Jeremy was talking about back in Jefferson City," Benny finally said to his mother about midmorning the next day, after the chores and breakfast and washing up were finished until lunch preparations began. Benny's mother had just put some dough at the back of the stove to rise. "I've been asking people all week, and they always found something else to talk about."
"Oh, yes, darling, let's take a walk and we will talk about that wedding." Benny's mother led him off across the meadow behind the house. They walked arm in arm in the spring sunshine. "I've never walked down this path," his mother said. "Isn't this a pretty little wood?"
Benny wondered why his mother was acting so funny. He wanted to ask again about this wedding. He'd already been waiting a whole week, though the time had gone by fast, with Jeremy free and back with them and so much to catch up on. The subject had come up in Benny's mind a few times but somehow both Jeremy and his mother had managed to change the subject and make Benny forget about it when he asked.
Like now, for example. His mother was too busy acting like a schoolgirl, skipping through the trees, picking flowers, crossing a stream on stepping-stones. Benny hadn't gone this far into the woods before in this direction, either. They stopped above a kind of gorge with a fast-flowing river below. A waterfall cascaded over the rocks and sprayed the trees.
"Oh, Benny, look how beautiful it is down there," his mother said. "I think we could climb down, don't you?" Before Benny could answer, his mother slipped and tumbled down the slope.
"Mother!" Benny cried. He couldn't even see where she had gone, and started to move forward.
"Benny, stop," His mother's voice ordered. "Stop. Listen to me." Benny leaned out a little. He saw the edge of his mother's dress trailing in the rushing stream. "Don't come down here," she said calmly. "I can't move, and there's no place for you to even stand. You'll have to get help. There must be another way to get down here. Go and find help."
"Mother, I can't leave you."
"Benny, I'm just barely hanging on. There's something wrong with my arm. You have to hurry."
Benny turned and ran. He had lost his sense of direction and realized he wasn't even heading back toward Uncle Tom's farm.
He stumbled through the trees and burst out on the hillside above Osage. Looking wildly around, he spotted a tall figure crossing the street.
"Caleb! Caleb Prentice!" Benny shouted. Caleb looked up and saw Benny. He started to turn away. "Caleb, please. My mother's in the river gorge over the hill," Benny breathed, chasing after Caleb and grabbing hold of him. Caleb shook him off.
"Get away from me, Richardson." Benny had feared and avoided Caleb ever since they had first met, when Caleb had tried to force Benny to pay to enter the schoolhouse. Caleb had caught Benny and beaten him badly once, a thing Benny had managed to keep hidden from almost everyone. He couldn't forget how much Caleb had always hated him, and Benny avoided him as much as he could, but he had no choice this time.
"Caleb. Listen to me. My mother will die if you don't help her. Is there another way to get down to the river?"
Caleb seemed to actually hear him at last. "Your mother? What's she doing in the gorge?"
"She fell off the path behind Uncle Tom's farm. Please, help me!"
"Come on," Caleb loped off across the slope. They came into the tree line almost a half-mile below where Benny thought he had left his mother. Benny was having trouble keeping up with Caleb. His long legs ate up the ground. Benny followed as best he could.
They splashed along the edge of the river and started upstream. It was shallow and rocky where they got in, but farther up it became almost like rapids.
"I see her." Caleb breathed.
"Where?" Benny strained to look. Caleb stepped out farther and almost lost his footing.
"There. She must've slipped down from where you left her. It was just below the waterfall, right?"
"How'd you know?"
"It's such a pretty spot. You'd want to get down, and think you could make it." Benny saw his mother huddled under an outcropping of rock, clinging with one hand to a dead tree below the waterfall.
"Mrs. Richardson!" Caleb pulled off the jacket he wore and threw it onto the bank. He shouted over the rush of water. "Mrs. Richardson!" Benny's mother turned her head and saw them.
"Listen to me," Caleb said calmly. He unfastened his belt and pulled it out. "I'll need yours too, " he told Benny. Benny quickly gave it to him. Caleb fastened them together. "Can you grab hold of this belt?" He asked Benny's mother, swinging it toward her.
"I'm sorry ... I've hurt my arm. If I let go, I'll fall."
Caleb felt his way forward a few steps. Benny followed. Caleb slipped the end of one of the belts around a stout young tree and made a slipknot with the other buckle.
"Here's what you have to do," he said, speaking to Benny without looking at him. "Grab hold of the belt and swing yourself over to that rock. It's going to be slick, so watch it. Get her up somehow, and try to pass her down to me. Use the belt as a safety line. Don't let go of it. The river will suck you down in two seconds. Here."
Caleb shrugged out of his shirt like lightning. "Tie this under her arms and onto the end of the belt. That should keep her from going in."
Benny waded forward. Caleb grabbed him by the shoulder as he slid and went under. Choking, Benny felt himself being set on his feet again. "No time to go swimming, Richardson. Get moving." Benny crept over to the rock where his mother lay. She made only a little whimpering noise when he passed the shirt under her arms. He had already tied one sleeve to the belt, and he knotted the other in place a moment later.
"Pray, mother," Benny whispered, and pulled her up. His feet almost went out from under him again, but he stayed up and swung his mother over to where Caleb stood poised in the fastest part of the stream. Benny could never have kept his feet and caught the full weight of his mother in that current. For once he was glad for Caleb's strength.
Caleb struggled to the little strip of bank, dragging Benny's mother. Her skirts were heavy with water and Caleb shivered in the icy spray. Benny stumbled after him and they unfastened the belts and set off downstream, supporting his mother between them. "Tell your mother to try a few less petticoats," Caleb grunted as they lurched and staggered along.
Doctor Shepherd opened his door to them and Benny thought he was going to fall down dead right in front of them.
"What's happened?" he asked feebly.
"My arm -- I can't move it," Benny's mother said weakly. They laid her on the couch in the doctor's sitting room. He took one look and then stared at the two boys.
"Her shoulder's been dislocated. It must be put back into place. I -- don't have the strength," he faltered.
"Caleb?" Benny asked. The older boy paled.
"No, no, it takes knowledge of how to do it, too." Dr. Shepherd shook his head.
"Maybe Jeremy could do it, Doctor Shepherd," Benny said. "You know -- the man Doc Daniel told you about. We brought him home with us. He's at my uncle's house."
"Perhaps. Perhaps he could. I'll need Sally Grimsby as well."
"Caleb, I have to go to my Uncle Tom's. Please, can you stay here with Dr. Shepherd in case he needs help before I get back?" Benny hurried out into the entryway, then realized that Caleb had followed him.
Benny stared up at him. Caleb was a head taller than Benny. Without his shirt Benny could see his heavily muscled arms and shoulders. Benny tried to go out the door but Caleb stopped him.
"You are pushing me 'way past what I ever thought I would take from you, Richardson," Caleb said. "I'm catching a ride to go to Ohio for school at three o'clock. I can't miss it." Benny looked at the stained, soggy clothing Caleb wore and realized it had been a fine traveling suit.
"Caleb, I'm sorry," Benny said. "I really am. I don't know what else to do. I'll hurry as fast as I can."
Benny took Dr. Shepherd's old horse and pushed the animal as fast as he dared. He sped off to the farm. Uncle Tom, Aunt Caroline, and Jeremy were shocked when Benny rode up on the doctor's old horse, soaked and exhausted.
"Jeremy, Doctor Shepherd needs help. You've got to come right away."
"Ben, where's your mother?"
"She's there. Hurry, Jeremy!"
"Show me the way, Ben," Jeremy urged when he had jumped on Black Switch and they had turned back toward Osage. "Can't that old nag go any faster?"
Benny was finally able to point out Dr. Shepherd's place to Jeremy. Black Switch tore out ahead. Benny stopped at the house of Mrs. Grimsby, the town midwife, and told her what had happened. When Benny finally got off at the doctor's horse, Caleb was hurrying down the front steps.
"Thank you, Caleb," Benny said. "You saved my mother's life." He held out a hand.
Caleb turned away, gripping his ruined clothes. "If it had been you, Richardson, I'd've let you drown. Get out of my way."
Jeremy was kneeling beside Benny's mother as she lay on Dr. Shepherd's sitting room couch wrapped in a blanket. Dr. Shepherd came out of his examining room. He looked so old and frail.
"Ben," Jeremy whispered. "What happened?"
"She fell," Benny said simply.
"Let's talk later," Dr. Shepherd said, rallying the little strength he had.
"What -- what's wrong --?"Jeremy persisted.
"Dislocation of the shoulder. Come, now, my boy. It shouldn't be that difficult."
"Doctor Shepherd, this lady -- I -- can't do this."
"Just as Daniel said. Too softhearted. Young man, a doctor can't always just give a dose of sugar and make everything all right. Sometimes you must cause pain to help. Make up your mind if you really mean to be a doctor."
"I'd do it -- I'd do it for anyone else -- but her --"
"There isn't any time for this," snapped Doctor Shepherd. "I had to tend my own wife as she lay dying. I couldn't make her well, and I caused her pain every day. Mrs. Richardson isn't going to die, and you can help her. Get on with it."
Jeremy took a deep breath. He knelt beside Benny's mother and picked a dead leaf gently out of her hair. She stirred and opened her eyes. "Mrs. Richardson, what have you done to yourself?" Jeremy asked.
"I've caused such a lot of trouble," she said. "Look at Benny. He'll have pneumonia."
"Dear lady, do you ever think about yourself at all? Where do you want to put her, Doctor Shepherd?"
"In my consulting room," the doctor gestured. Jeremy lifted Benny's mother from the couch and bore her into the next room. He placed her on the high table. Benny tried not to listen to her small cries of pain.
"Now what?" Jeremy asked.
"I've sent for Sally Grimsby," the doctor said. "There has to be a woman present. She must be undressed, of course."
Jeremy swallowed hard. Benny heard a sharp knock and let in Sally Grimsby. She followed Benny into the consulting room, looked around, and gaped in horror when she saw Jeremy's face. But when she saw Benny's mother, she suddenly became all business.
"Draw these curtains," she ordered, and then did it herself before anyone could react, grabbing the drapes that hung on a runner and could be pulled around the table. "All you men, eyes around."
Sally disappeared behind the curtain and they heard Benny's mother cry out.
"So sorry, dear heart," Sally soothed. "There's a lot more hurt to go through, I'm afraid. You try to be strong for your boy out there."
She poked her head out and glared at the men. "Who's to come in?" She demanded. "Doctor, I know you must. What about him?" She jerked her head at Jeremy.
"My -- uh -- my new assistant, Sally," the doctor explained.
"Such goings on!" Sally said. "Here." She opened the curtains partway. Benny's mother lay wrapped in a sheet, only her head and injured arm exposed. "Get on with it, then."
Benny saw the look on Jeremy's face and was sure he had never seen him so white. He stepped forward with the doctor without hesitating, though. Dr. Shepherd administered a dose of laudanum.
"That seems like a lot," Jeremy said.
"Second dose," Dr. Shepherd muttered. "I gave her some when they first brought her in," he explained. "She has an unusually strong will, though, and I don't think I can put her under completely. We shall have to try to distract her."
Jeremy put out a hand and touched Benny's mother on the shoulder. She moaned. He pulled his hand back, but glanced at the doctor and reached forward again.
"Abigail, sing with me," Jeremy said softly.
Benny's mother opened listless eyes. "What shall we sing?" she asked dreamily.
"I Sing the Mighty Power of God. All the verses."
Dr. Shepherd's directions were calm and quiet. Jeremy picked up Benny's mother's arm and braced himself, and Sally took up a position on the opposite side of the bed. Benny's mother began to sing and Jeremy joined in.
By the time it was over, Benny found himself weeping in Mrs. Grimsby's arms. He looked up and saw tears in the stout, hard-faced woman's eyes too. Sally pushed him gently away and drew the curtains shut as the three of them left the table.
"Sally will stay?" Jeremy asked the doctor. "I've got to go get her brother and sister-in-law. They don't even know what's happened."
"As long as I'm needed," the grim-faced woman said. "You're quite a fellow. Must be the one she's been sweet on so long. Couldn't figure an angel like that lovin' a convict. Specially lookin' like you. But I guess I see what she sees in you now."
Jeremy hugged Benny and they walked out to Black Switch. "We can't take that poor old fellow back," Jeremy said, patting the doctor's horse. "Put him away, Ben, and we'll ride double on Switch. I think he can handle it that far."
After the horse was taken care of, Jeremy socked Benny in the arm. "You didn't tell me it was your mother Dr. Shepherd needed help with," Jeremy exclaimed. "You saved your mother's life, boy," he said, rumpling Benny's still-mud-caked hair. "You know that, don't you?"
"It was Caleb Prentice," Benny said. "He knew the way to get her. He helped me all the way."
"Caleb," Jeremy laughed. Benny had shared the story of his struggles with the town bully in his letters to Jeremy in prison. "Who would've thought it? God does work in mysterious ways, doesn't he?"
Benny stopped in the act of getting on Black Switch.
"Jeremy, what did you mean about attending a wedding soon?" Benny asked. "Mother was finally going to tell me, but she didn't get a chance."
"Why, it's my wedding, Ben. Want to be my best man?" Jeremy grinned.
"Who are you gonna marry, Jeremy?"
"My best man's mother," replied Jeremy.
"You're going to marry mother?" Benny exclaimed. "And we can all go west together?"
"If that's all right with you."
Benny hugged Jeremy. "It's all right with me, sure!"
Chapter Three – "I Make All Things New"
Uncle Tom and Aunt Caroline had come into Osage with the wagon to bring Benny's mother home. They put her quickly to bed. She slept through the whole next day.
"Shouldn't we get Doc Shepherd over here to check on her?" Uncle Tom fretted.
"She's all right, Mr. Laughlin. Really she is," Jeremy assured him. "I know I'm not a doctor, but she just needs rest and time to recover. Dr. Shepherd will be by in a day or two, and we can get him here sooner if she changes. Come on, Ben. Let's get out from underfoot."
"So, you asked mother about getting married and she said yes?" Benny asked excitedly. Jeremy nodded, but he didn't seem all that happy now. They wandered around in the yard. "Well then, when are you and mother going to get married?" Benny asked. The front porch was becoming their regular "talking place," so they sat down on the steps together again.
"Ah, Ben, it seemed so easy in my nice, safe prison cell to fall in love with your beautiful mother, and the first time I saw her again to ask her to marry me. But your good Uncle Tom has given me a little advice on that subject which I can't ignore."
He glanced up at the porch door and saw that no one seemed likely to come out immediately. He removed a folded paper from his pocket.
"Tom apparently wasn't aware your mother would agree to marry me, and this morning he handed me this letter."
"'My sister is a sweet-natured, unselfish woman,'" Jeremy read aloud. "'She would give her whole heart to anything she made up her mind to do. She'd kill herself trying to do a thing before she'd give up.
"'Here's what you're offering my sister with marriage to you: A life of endless hard work, clearing land, building, digging a well; and she'll work right beside you.
"'Then you'll travel to preach or tend sick folks and she'll be alone for days or weeks. That's how Daniel Connors did it. He had a beautiful young wife once. She loved him, worked with him, waited for him, and buried four children alone because he couldn't even make it home to preach at their gravesides. He did manage to be around to bury her, though.
"'I believe men are supposed to protect women, especially if they love them. My Caroline stayed safe in Pennsylvania while I cleared our land and lived in a little shack of a cabin until I had a proper home and a producing farm to bring her to.
"'Abigail used to have comforts and security while she was growing up in our family. She struggled all through that marriage to a poor teacher. She had to clean other peoples' houses to make the rent on that tiny apartment they had. I had to learn from my nephew what they went through after Jonathan Richardson died. I swore she'd never want or suffer like that again.
"'I must stand opposed to this marriage, and I will do everything in my power to prevent it.'"
Jeremy took a deep breath after he had finished reading Uncle Tom's letter to Benny.
"He's right, of course. I haven't really got a thing to offer your mother. A prison record, a face to frighten children, no property, no money – and there's every hardship facing your mother and you that your uncle says here besides. I have nothing much to look forward to at all."
He jumped up and went to chop some more wood, although it seemed to Benny that they already had a month's supply. Benny got up to follow him, but then saw that his mother stood looking out the porch door, her arm in a sling.
"Does he miss having all that hard work to do like when he was in prison?" Benny asked. "Why does he keep chopping so much wood?"
"Sometimes when something's troubling you, the best way to get your mind off it is to sweat it away," Benny's mother sighed, coming out and sitting on the porch swing. Benny sat beside her.
"Mother, Uncle Tom doesn't want you to marry Jeremy," Benny said. "Are you going to marry him anyway? Jeremy said we could go west with him. Jeremy and I will make sure you don't have to work too hard. He read me that mean letter Uncle Tom wrote, and he was so sad."
"Darling, I think Uncle Tom really expected me to stay on the farm and let him take care of me for the rest of my life. We've had several talks. I've told him that only God knows what's best for me. He's made me stronger, I think, through all these hard times we've had. Perhaps I couldn't have survived the kind of life we'll have with Jeremy before.
His mother hesitated and took his hand, squeezing it tightly. "And in spite of the frightening times you had to go through before Jeremy became saved, don't you believe that God provided him, as strong and clever as he is, knowing how to survive and teaching you all those things about protecting yourself and camping in the woods? You're such a different boy, stronger and wiser, and most especially, we have both learned to love and depend on the Lord more, and we know His Word better.
"So I am convinced that God gave our Jeremy to us, and I do not mean to let him go. I will marry him, and I will help him become a doctor and a preacher of the Word, and a pioneer, and whatever else God may want."
Benny woke up early the next and looked out the loft window. He could see the small cabin across the field. Jeremy was already out chopping wood again. He hadn't come to the farmhouse for supper, though Benny had wanted to go get him. Uncle Tom had looked like a thunderstorm ready to burst out with lighting and an angry downpour, so he hadn't said anything. But he was done avoiding Jeremy just because it might make Uncle Tom drop something on somebody's fingers again.
Benny dressed quickly, climbed down the ladder, slipped out of the house, and was about to break into a run when his mother called to him from the kitchen door. She handed him a warm linen-wrapped bundle.
"Fresh biscuits and ham," she said. "Enough for both of you. Grab a bucket of milk from the dairy, and tell Jeremy I love him."
Jeremy was very happy to receive both the breakfast and the message. They sat down to pray and a heavy thumping on the door made them both jump.
"I've come to visit the free man!" thundered Doc Daniel. He almost filled the small room until he sat down and produced his own breakfast in a napkin.
"This place is much nicer than when Tom lived here," Doc Daniel said appreciatively. "That little woman back in the kitchen seems a bit fond of you, Jeremy. I thought you might not have noticed." Jeremy just grinned.
"I've had this thing knocking around my place a couple of years." Doc Daniel produced a flat leather bag attached to a belt. Benny realized that it was Jeremy's makeup and disguises kit.
"I won't have any use for this," Jeremy shrugged.
"Not so fast." Doc Daniel stopped him from tossing the bag under the small bed. "I also brought you a mirror. I see there's none here. That must've been Mrs. Laughlin's idea of kindness. But I have a thought to share with you."
Jeremy put his fingertips on the little metal mirror, the same one in which he had seen his scarred face for the first time in Doc Daniel's cabin. He did not pick it up, however.
"Ben has told me you're a wizard with your little bag of tricks there. What about trying to pretty up that face of yours?"
Jeremy turned away. "Now, stay with me," Doc Daniel urged. "Do you think you're the only one who's got something he'd rather not have people see? Look here."
He pulled off his black felt hat and lifted the hair on the left side of his head. Benny gasped. An ugly scar started at the top back part of his head and disappeared into his beard. The top half of his ear was completely missing.
There's more that the beard covers," Doc Daniel explained. He rearranged his hair and replaced his hat. "Let your beard grow, and the hair, just a bit, and see what you can do with some of your greasepaint. I think you'll find you can hide a lot of what's troubling you, just like I do."
"How did that happen?" Jeremy asked.
"A logger in Oregon who didn't like my style of preaching," Doc Daniel grinned. "Not many preachers have visitors to their services try to take an ax to them. It was lucky I had my needle and thread with me."
Benny finished all his chores, but Doc Daniel and Jeremy still hadn't come out of the little cabin. Benny didn't say anything about the experiment to his mother or his aunt and uncle. He wasn't sure it was going to work. But when Doc Daniel and Jeremy finally entered the farmhouse at lunchtime, Benny whistled in appreciation.
"You look wonderful!"
"I never would have believed it," said Aunt Caroline. Jeremy had applied a false beard and combed his hair around his face. He had carefully applied makeup until his scars were almost invisible.
"Quite a difference," nodded Uncle Tom. "That stuff won't hold up under a day's haying, though, which is what I'm off to do."
"Jeremy isn't going to be a farmer, Tom," Doc Daniel said. "He's going to be a doctor and a preacher of the Word. I think it'll stop some of the distraction -- some of the prejudice."
"Mother, don't you like Jeremy's new face?" Benny demanded. "You haven't said anything."
Benny's mother blushed but still didn't speak. "Mother, he looks almost as handsome as he used to," Benny persisted. "I know it's not real, but -- "
"Ben, let it rest," Jeremy interrupted. "I need to work on it some more -- it could be better. Let's go take care of Switch."
Benny started to follow Jeremy, then darted back to the kitchen for some sugar lumps.
"It was such a shock," he heard his mother say as he stopped outside the kitchen. "I didn't know what to say."
"He was looking for your approval more than anybody else's," Doc Daniel chided. "You must know how much his looks trouble him, especially when he loves a lady as lovely as you."
"I accepted his scars. I loved him for who he was. It wasn't necessary to hide behind that -- false face." Benny's mother shivered.
"Mrs. Richardson, Ben told me your Jeremy was once a very handsome man. It's no sin to paint a barn when it needs it."
"He should accept God's will. It is a testimony to the power of God. People could be convinced just by seeing what God has brought him through."
"Did you think this all through to convince yourself? Isn't it a kind of pride to wear medals of your old sins so people can compliment you on how forgiven you are? God doesn't remember our sins. He doesn't expect to see them lined up like trophies on a mantelpiece. I say let Jeremy bury that old face. Did you love those scars so much that you'd force him and yourself and everyone else to go on looking at them?"
Benny peeked around the corner and saw a tear trickle down his mother's cheek.
"No," she whispered. "I hated them as much as I loved him. I'm glad to even pretend they're gone. I'm glad to see him as handsome as I always imagined he must be."
"Then you'd better tell him so," Doc Daniel urged. "Mr. Jeremy's heart's very much of the tender sort, especially where the beautiful Mrs. Richardson's concerned."
Benny jumped into the kitchen at that moment and snatched some sugar out of the bowl on the table. He pushed it into his mother's hands and turned to run out.
"Jeremy needs that right away, mother!" Benny called over his shoulder. "I've got to help Uncle Tom."
Dan Connors had bought Jeremy a fine new suit of clothes and a "proper doctor's hat" which covered his last few scars. Doc Daniel found an old used buggy and helped Jeremy train Black Switch to pull it.
The stallion did not care for the task at all. But with the buggy painted a jaunty green and yellow and the handsome black horse in the harness, Doc Daniel pronounced Jeremy ready to go and become a doctor after two weeks at Uncle Tom's. Doc Daniel took Jeremy over to give him a proper introduction to Dr. Shepherd. They returned and announced that Jeremy would be going to live with the doctor in his big old house.
"I think it's time Benny and I stopped imposing on you, too," Benny's mother insisted to Uncle Tom. "I've talked to Mrs. Anderson about working as a housekeeper and cook at her place. Benny and I can live there. They have two big rooms set aside. Mrs. Anderson wrote me a note and said to come by on the fourth. That's today."
"Abigail, if you leave this house, don't come back," Uncle Tom said angrily.
"Thomas!" Aunt Caroline exclaimed.
"We'll just see how long your dreams will last before they fetch up against reality," Uncle Tom said.
"Abigail, I'm so sorry I caused this," Jeremy said to Benny's mother as they loaded their bags into the buggy behind Black Switch. "Why don't you just stay with Tom while I'm working for Dr. Shepherd?"
"The sooner we can earn the money we need, the sooner we'll go West," Benny's mother said firmly. "I can help if I'm working. Tom didn't pay me, you know." She smiled.
"I can get some work after school, too," Benny said eagerly. "If we live in town that'll work out great."
They were delayed by a stop to help some people whose wagon had broken a wheel. Jeremy stopped outside the Anderson's house in the late afternoon.
"There's no need to come in," Benny's mother said. "Doctor Shepherd will be anxious about you. You can bring our things by later."
"Say, Ben, isn't that your buddy Jason?" Jeremy asked as he helped his mother down.
"Hey, Ben!" Jason ran over from across the street and pounced on Benny. "Who's that man with your mother?"
"That's Jeremy."
Jason marched over and planted himself in front of Jeremy. Then he marched all around and stopped in front again.
"What happened to your face?" he demanded.
Benny's mother laughed. "Jeremy has been to a specialist," she explained. "He has a new face now."
"No kiddin'? Doctors can do that?"
"Remember how it says in the Bible, 'Behold, I make all things new'?" Jeremy grinned. He squatted down and looked Jason in the eye. "Touch it."
Jason hesitated, then reached out a hand. "It ain't real," he marveled. "But I like it."
"Thanks. This was one of my giants. He's not quite dead yet, but I think he's pretty well buried."
"My pa's not gonna believe it's you. He kept sayin', 'How's he gonna preach to folks lookin' like that? How's he gonna doctor folks lookin' like that?' Guess he don't know God can do anything, huh?"
"He can even make the dumb speak," Jeremy said slyly. Jason turned red. "I see you got your tongue back, Jason."
"I'm sorry – real sorry about how I acted."
Jeremy drove off in the green and yellow cart and Benny joined his mother again.
"Come on, darling. Mrs. Anderson will be wondering what happened to us." Benny's mother climbed the front steps of the Andersons' house and knocked on the door. No one answered. She knocked several more times.
"Hello, Abigail!" Mrs. Turner, the Andersons' next-door neighbor, appeared at her window. "My dear, the Andersons have been gone four days. They must be well on their way to New York by now."
"New York! I -- I don't understand. I had a letter from Mrs. Anderson..." Benny's mother dug in her purse while Mrs. Turner came out of her house and joined them. She took the letter from Benny's mother and glanced over it.
"Oh! That Lydia Anderson! Trust her to make such a muddle of a simple thing. They've shut up the house for the summer, Abigail. They've family in New York, and John is attending some sort of convention for his business. She wanted someone to come on August fourth, not June fourth."
"August!" Benny breathed. "Mother, what are we going to do?"
"Why, what's wrong?" Mrs. Turner asked. Haltingly Benny's mother explained that she could not go back to Uncle Tom's and why.
"Tom is the stubbornest man alive. Oh! Abigail! Oh, my dear! You've nowhere to go! That Lydia. Won't I give her a piece of my mind when I see her next? Come stay with us, Abigail. We'll make room."
Benny and his mother looked at the Turners' small house and Benny thought about their five children.
"Oh, thank you, but we should just ... Perhaps there are rooms to let in town somewhere?"
"Rooms? Humph! Not the Swenson's Boardinghouse for certain. Nothing but bedbugs and whiskey bottles. Let me think ... The Godfreys have a room, but it's much too small ... There's Rosa Salter. You know her, don't you? Plays the organ at the church. I think I just heard her say she wanted to take in boarders.
"Her place is run down -- It's just her and that dog. Used to have a lovely dress shop, and made such beautiful things. Everything just went to pot somehow when her husband died five years ago. Maybe it would do till you found something better."
"Mrs. Salter. Of course. Thank you, Mrs. Turner. Now if I can only find work..."
"That I'm afraid I can't help you with. You poor thing. I'm so sorry. If Clyde or I can do anything to help ..."
Benny and his mother found Mrs. Salter's house easily. It was large, very run-down, and built around a storefront shop. Benny thought about the woman that Jason Owens called "The Goosestepper." She marched around town with her large, cold-eyed dog, stiff and soldierly, and spoke to everybody in short, sharp sentences.
The dog began to bark, deep and warning, as they picked their way up the broken steps and knocked on the weathered front door. A thin, dark-haired older woman opened the door, her hand resting on the head of a big black and tan dog with pointed ears.
"Mrs. Salter, I'm Abigail Richardson, and this is my son Benjamin. I'm looking for rooms to rent."
"Nein. Children I do not vant. Noisy, destructive, especially boys." She started to slam the door.
"My son is not like that at all," Benny's mother exclaimed. "He is quiet and neat. He'll be no trouble to you, I promise."
"You promise much." Mrs. Salter opened the door again. "The name of Richardson I do not know."
"We've met at the church," Benny's mother said.
"Ah, die Nachtigal -- the lady who sings so sveetly. You are young. Vidow?"
"Yes. My husband died in Philadelphia about three years ago."
You come here alone to raise your son? Vhy?"
"I have a brother who owns a farm near Osage. Thomas Laughlin. I was living with him."
"Die Laughlins Ich kenne." She made the words sound so harsh, the way she emphasized the hard "ch" in the back of her throat. Later Benny learned that Ich kenne meant "I know" in German. "Vhy have you come here, then? Your brother, he has no more room for you?"
"I want to be near the man I love. I thought I had work with the Andersons, but I misunderstood. I need to find a place to stay, and employment."
"This man you love," snorted Mrs. Salter. "Vhy does he not marry you and make a home for you?"
"Mrs. Salter, I'm only asking to rent a room." Benny could see that his mother was growing angry at Mrs. Salter's blunt questioning, but he knew they had few choices about places to live. "If you're worried about payment, I have some money, and I'm sure I'll find work soon."
"Richardson. Now I remember. You do sewing. Fine sewing. Your vork I know."
Benny's mother had done some dressmaking work for the Andersons and a few other people in town.
"Mein Mann -my husband -- and I did fine sewing," Mrs. Salter murmured. "But he died ... Alone I could not do it. For help I did not ask. But perhaps you and your son -- who must be neat and quiet indeed, since no sound he has made all this long time -- perhaps you could help me. Together ve could vork to make the shop run again. For this I vill pay you, and for no rent you vill live in my house."
Benny and his mother looked at the broken display window, the peeling paint, and the faded sign dangling by half its chain.
"It would be a great deal of work, Mrs. Salter ..." faltered Benny's mother.
Jeremy and Black Switch spun around the corner just then. Jeremy leaped out of the buggy and ran up the walk. Benny and his mother came down to meet him.
"Abigail!" he exclaimed. "I got back to the Andersons' and you were gone. The house was empty and locked up tight. I couldn't imagine what had happened. Are you all right? Mrs. Turner told me you were here, but -- " He stopped and took a good look around. "There must be other places," he said in a low voice.
"So this is your young man?" Mrs. Salter marched down the steps with her dog close by. "He does not approve of mein haus?" She reached out a hand and touched Jeremy's suit. "A fine suit, a fine buggy, but Mrs. Richardson must vork for her own keep. Of course, he is schöen -- handsome, and that is vhy you love him. You can sneer at mein haus, Herr Fine Clothes, but I vonder if she makes a mistake to marry you."
"Don't talk about Jeremy like that!" Benny shouted. "He doesn't have any money, and he's got to learn to be a doctor. Mother, I don't want to live here. Let's go somewhere else."
"Thank you for your time, Mrs. Salter," Benny's mother said stiffly.
"Vait. Bitte." Mrs. Salter clutched at Benny's mother's arm. "I beg pardon. I am not used much to people. I speak too bluntly. Vhat I said before -- the vork -- the help -- I still need. Please ... "
Jeremy took a step forward and raised his hand to Mrs. Salter's face. The dog barked sharply, and she flinched.
"Du bist blind, Mutter," Jeremy murmured. Mrs. Salter trembled.
"For ten years," she nodded. "It vent slowly. No vun knew but mein Mann. He helped, he vorked harder, finally he did everything. But he died so suddenly. I vas too proud -- to tell anyone. Fritz helped me." She buried her fingers in the dog's fur.
"But Fritz couldn't tell you your house and shop are falling apart, Mutter Salter," Jeremy said. "Come. Look at this. Look with your hands."
He led her around and made her touch everything, even the broken window. At the end she sat on the porch steps and wept. Jeremy sat beside her and held her hand.
"Everything is gone. In my mind it vas beautiful, just as it vas ten years ago. I vas such a fool. Everyone has seen this, and if they did not guess the truth and pity me, they have sneered at my carelessness, to let everything go to ruin."
"One more thing to look at, Mutter." Jeremy took her hands and placed them on his face. Her fingers moved hesitantly at first, but then she found the false beard, the makeup, and the ragged scars beneath the surface and in his hairline.
"These scars -- how vas this done?"