A Lantern in the Window by Bobby Hutchinson Page A

them
jealously.
    It felt to Annie as though the ghost
woman of that first marriage even shared the bed now, lying between
herself and Noah.
    With one silent gesture, he’d made it
clear that the wall he maintained around himself and his deepest
feelings was firmly in place, and that although his body might
succumb to Annie, his heart would belong always to
Molly.
    Was this, too, something that she’d
get used to as time passed? As the slow, dark minutes of that night
dragged into hours, and the beginnings of a new day drew closer,
she could only pray that it might be so.

Chapter Six
     
    It snowed again the following day, and
it wasn’t until early May that the mud began to dry and the first
faint tinge of green appeared on the prairie.
    Noah had gone to mend fences right
after breakfast one sunny morning, and Annie, still unable to bake
a loaf of bread that resembled anything but a rock, made up her
mind once and for all that they’d just have to learn to live on
biscuits forevermore.
    She’d just taken a batch of popovers
from the oven when Jake’s frantic barking announced
visitors.
    "Hello, neighbor.” Gladys Hopkins
greeted Annie with a warm handshake and a wide smile, handing her a
loaf of fresh bread as high as a haystack and a jar of dark red
preserves.
    "Set the dough last night, baked it
first thing. That’s some wild strawberry jam to go with. This
here's my daughter Rose. She’s been just dying to meet your little
sister. She’s been at me every day to come over, but we had to wait
for the weather. Now where is that sister of yours? Feeling better
than when she first arrived, I hope?”
    "Bets is very well, thanks, Gladys.
Pleased to meet you. Rose.” Annie smiled at the plump little girl
whose golden hair hung in careful ringlets down her
back.
    Annie was uncomfortably aware that
neither Rose nor Gladys knew as yet that her sister was
deaf.
    "Bets is having a game of checkers
with Mr. Ferguson. I’ll get her.” Annie, feeling flustered and more
than a little apprehensive, hurried into Zachary’s bedroom and
signed to her sister and the old man that they had company. Neither
was particularly pleased at the news—Betsy’s face became anxious at
the ordeal of meeting strangers, and Zachary scowled and slumped
dejectedly into the pillows at this interruption.
    Bets and Zachary had become the best
of companions in the past weeks. By now there was a powerful bond
between the young girl whose ears didn’t work and the old man who’d
lost the ability to speak.
    Taking Bets’s hand, Annie led her out
and introduced her, adding an explanation of Bets’s handicap as
matter-of-factly as she could.
    "She’s—she’s deef and dumb?” Gladys’s
eyes seemed almost to be popping out of her head as she studied
Bets. "I never had the foggiest idea she was deef and
dumb.”
    "Deaf,” Annie corrected firmly. "But
she’s certainly not dumb. Bets talks, but she does it with her
hands. She’ll be glad to show Rose how.”
    Rose was half hidden behind her
mother's skirts, peering out at Bets as though expecting her to
suddenly foam at the mouth or grow horns.
    The violent hammering of Zachary’s
cane on the floor made them all jump, and Annie realized how seldom
he’d banged it recently.
    Bets felt the vibration, picked up her
skirt, and flew in to see what he wanted. Annie knew the girl was
relieved to escape the scrutiny of the Hopkins women.
    Gladys whispered, "Ain’t you scared
he'll hammer her with that thing?”
    Annie laughed and shook her head.
"Those two are thick as thieves,” she assured Gladys. "See, Bets
has taught Mr. Ferguson to sign, and it's made the world of
difference to him. He can let us know what he wants now, and he’s
much happier. Bets is awfully fond of him. He’s like a grandpa to
her. Come and sit and have some coffee, won’t you?”
    Annie sliced Gladys’s bread, envious
of the yeasty loaf. She put out some of her own popovers and set
the butter crock and the preserves on