High Plains Hearts by Janet Spaeth Page A

too?” she ventured as a faint memory floated to the surface of her mind.
    Jake shrugged. “I suppose so. I just don’t get over there very much.”
    She didn’t respond.
    “Okay,” he said, “I haven’t been there for a long time. This Thanksgiving at Nativity was the first time I’ve set foot inside a church—any church—in probably fifteen years.”
    “You’re right—that is a long time,” she agreed.
    As much as she longed to scold him for not going to church, she didn’t. Perhaps if she kept quiet, he would lead himself back into the church. And, sure enough, he continued to talk.
    “I liked what I saw of Nativity,” he said, filling the unbearable silence, “and Reverend Barnes seems like a very inspiring person. What are your services like?”
    She told him about the structure of a traditional Sunday service at Nativity and gave him a brief overview of the congregational belief.
    “I don’t know,” he said. “I’ll have to think about it.”
    “Come to church with me,” she offered. “We’d all be delighted to have you join us for worship.”
    “Thanks. Maybe someday I’ll take you up on that.” He rubbed Cora’s nose.
    “I was raised in Nativity,” she said, quietly remembering Sunday schools with dedicated teachers who painstakingly taught her the Ten Commandments, the Lord’s Prayer, and, yes, the Apostles’ Creed.
    “We—Grandma, Grandpa, and I—would dress in our finery every Sunday morning and walk the half block to Nativity. Grandma carried her white leather Bible, Grandpa his great black one, and I’d proudly tote my pink one with my name on the front. My grandparents got that for me the Christmas I turned five.”
    “May I see it?” he asked, his question catching her by surprise.
    “Honestly, no. I don’t have it anymore.” She raised her eyes as she spoke.
    He leaned back, clearly shocked by her revelation. “Why not? I’d think someone as religious as you are and as admiring of your grandparents would hold on to that Bible until you died.”
    “I gave it away.”
    “You what?”
    “A woman and her two children came into our church one very cold, very wintry day about two years ago. Their home had burned to the ground, with all their belongings in it. Poor woman. She was a widow whose husband had been shot during a convenience-store robbery, and she was trying so hard to hold it together for those dear children.”
    She smiled a bit at the memory. “Reverend Barnes made her a little apartment downstairs at Nativity—actually, the dining area where we served Thanksgiving dinner—until she could put her life back together.”
    “And the Bible …?” Jake asked.
    “The little girl sat by me on Sundays and called it the pretty pink book. She liked to look through it during the service and study the pictures. Her favorite was the one of Jesus surrounded by the children.”
    “So you gave it to her.”
    “Sure. Why not?”
    He shook his head in amazement. “It still astounds me. Couldn’t you have given her another Bible, maybe a new one? That would have worked as well.”
    “No, Jake, it wouldn’t have. I wasn’t just giving her a book. I was giving her more than that. See, the mother had decided to go into church service, and this was my way of supporting them when I wasn’t there to give them a hug or read them a story.” The more she tried to explain it, the muddier it sounded to her. “I was giving her my love, my confidence in her, my support.”
    “It’s wonderful,” he said. “I think that Bible has gone deeply into places no other book, no other copy of that book, could go. I’m sure it went directly into their hearts and souls and took up residence. And,” he added softly, “the greatest compliment they could give you would be to give the Bible away again, right?”
    “I occasionally have twinges of nostalgia about that sweet old Bible. But now I carry Grandma’s when I make my weekly pilgrimage to church, and Grandpa’s is in the