Sarah's Promise by Leisha Kelly Page A

miserable. Unable to wait for her mother any longer, she’d come out with a blanket wrapped around her. Now she just stood there and cried. She had a bad case of the pox, I could tell. And she was so cold her lips looked blue.
    God, help them.
    I stirred the coals and found a few more glowing embers than I expected. There was part of a catalog next to the fireplace on top of a basket of pinecones. I tore off several catalog pages, scrunched them in my hand, and set them on the coals along with some of the cones. Blowing real hard, I finally got a flame that licked and started to spread. I put the little pieces of bark and kindling I’d stripped off on top of that, then some other wood, small stuff first. Pretty soon the fire was crackling and roaring, and I had the big boy help me make a bed of blankets for the little ones close in front of it, and then scoot his mama’s chair close beside them.
    The other two children couldn’t have been more than about one and three. They had pretty bad cases of the chicken pox too, but I noticed that none of the children had the cough I was hearing in their mother now. She was worn down sick with it settling in her chest some, and I was concerned because that kind of thing not taken care of can turn into full-blown pneumony.
    “Thank you,” she said. “We’re so grateful for the small relief.”
    “Too small so far,” I told her. “That fire won’t last long without more wood to keep adding. Will you all be all right in here if I go and split some more?”
    She nodded. “Yes. Yes, thank you.”
    Once again, little Bennie followed me, but I wanted him to gain some benefit of the fire’s warmth too, so I sent him back in with the first armload split and told him to stay inside in case any of the others needed anything. “Your mother hadn’t oughta be up,” I told him. “Fetch anything she needs an’ put another log on the fire if it gets low.”
    I split enough more to make all the armload I could carry and was about to head back to the house with it when that cow let out an awful mournful sort of bellow. And I’d heard that kind of complaint before. I went to take a look, and sure enough, she was bulging with milk and awfully uncomfortable. Apparently, the lady hadn’t wanted to mention that and seem to be begging for more help, but it’d do them and the cow a lot more good to have the milking done as not. So I took more wood inside and asked where to find the milk pail.
    The lady’s eyes flickered with a kind of fresh hope. “You don’t have to do that, sir. I was going to. And Bennie was going to try again at the milking too. It’s just so awful hard for him to get very far with his little hands not used to it.”
    “Won’t take me long, ma’am,” I said with a sigh. “I’ve done it plenty of times before.”
    As I milked, I wondered if they had food in the house. None of the children had complained of being hungry, but maybe they were too sick to care, or well-trained enough not to beg and complain in front of strangers. It was awful heavy to me to be taking all this time, knowing I was already a whole day late calling and Sarah might be waiting at the station right now. But I couldn’t leave this family in a shape like this. I knew she’d understand that. If things had gone on with the house so cold as it was, those little ones or even their mother might have taken the hypothermia. They might have died.
    I was glad to bring the warm milk in to them and suggest that they all oughta have a cup. The woman, who said her name was Vera Platten, insisted that I have some too. So I did, just a little, not wanting to take more than a swallow from them. Mrs. Platten cried about my help, feeling bad to need it and grateful I’d give it freely. She told me twice that she wished she could pay me, but I told her to forget it, that I couldn’t accept anything from them for this.
    I split a third armload of wood and brought it in, wondering how much they’d need to