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Letter
#1 " A Child is God's Promise There Will Be A Tomorrow " ~ Friday, April 19th,
1946 . Dear Sir, . I hope You
don't mind my troubling You in the middle of the day, Father, but the doctor says I needed to be still and I ache too much
to lie down. It don't seem fitt'n to be a'bed in broad daylight, if'fn you know what I mean, Lord! Amos was so kind as could
be, and the children fussed over me so much you would have thought I was on the express train for glory land, sir! Pardon
my laughter, I don't mean to seem to make light of their love and concern, I'm just a little overwhelmed by so much attention.
It don't fitt'n neither. My place is to be taking care of them as You designed, but Pa's right. when I get better, I'll
have plenty of time to take up the slack! Meanwhile the fields need tending and I can hear the boys chasing the hennies, but
there isn't anything I can do about it right now, it's their way of letting off steam, and don't we both know it? They figure
if'fn I come to the back door and holler at them, then all is well. I may just go to the window. They can't see where the
sound comes from, but in another minute or two, Lord. My head is swimming right now. This here sickness grates on the morrow of my
bones, for a fact honest, though the news Molly Beatrice just shared with me in the kitchen after the doctor left, her planning
to be a first-time mama at twenty three when I already had half of my kids on the ground running brings me a pure and hopeful
joy I confess I crave! Though I dare not ponder on the secret things between a man and his wife, James having come home from
the War in the Pacific with only one arm and two stumps for legs! That he came home to us at all is such a miracle for all
that he seems to have expanded his touch beyond what he could physically aspire. I've always been proud of my oldest boy,
and have been able to depend on him to the last breath, no matter how difficult the cost, but that resolve has hardened to
a beetle like shell around him! It pains me, Lord! He's my own flesh and blood, the firstborn of me and Amos' youthful dreams,
but I swear, if I look at him off-guard and I see a stranger there, I smile at him and he moves his lips but it never reaches
his eyes. They're like a deep,dark pool at the bottom of a well and only You can go there to rescue him from the terrible
things he saw at war. I'm only his Ma. Only a woman. That means less than what it did to the idealistic boy who pledged his
love to Molly Bea at the family picnic down at The Meadows so short a time ago. I never understood how the Old Folks could
say forty years seemed like a day, but now I do, These eight years feel like eighty But that's all behind us now, ain't it,
Lord? A family, his graduation in September from Bible College? the hard part's behind us now! And what a relief, if I dare to
admit it, because I know neither child wanted to move back to the farm from the City. I didn't want too, that's for a fact
honest. And witht he baby coming and him still in Bible school and couldn't support them without quitting so near to
graduation, its a sign from You Father, ain't it? Oh, I know! Don't scold me great One, we ain't suppose to believe in signs
and omens, but we can believe what our eyes see in front of us, can't we? Especially hwen it leads to giving you the glory
and praise You are so worthy of, Lord God!
So much has already happened since the first day of January. For the first time since the Army returned him for being under-aged,
Richard has thrown his heart and soul back into his last months of school and pleasing his Pa. Amos agreed to sign the papers
in two years when he turns eighteen so he can go into the Army Air Force proper. I wish he didn't wish it so intense, but
he spent most of his life being taught to do the right thing, and it ain't like he doesn't know what he's getting into, already
having 'mustered' past 'Boot Camp' and such men's speak, Sir. Though I am shocked that he could see the harm what brung his
two older brothers, Tom passing away in his father's arms and James with only one good limb left to him after his ship was
sunk....I fear that sandy is the only one who'll keep the family homestead alive, now that Penny Acres has made it clear she's
happy where she is, and James, he's so changed on the inside he wouldn't survive if'fn we tried to shut him up with tractors
and harvest times! Please help him first, Father. It's medicine enough for me to see You are back in his life despite the
bitterness and rebellion he first come home with. Who wouldn't?
The oddest thing happened, thought, and I hesitate to bring it, except that You already knew it as it happened, before I even
did, if I had half a mind's thought to it, I expect. This being Good Friday and we was all in church and all, as a welcomed
change from the sameness of life on a farm; early to rise, early to bed, with the same chores waiting to be done over at first
light and all, but being a mother myself, I glanced down the pew past James and Molly Beatrice, past Richard and Sandy, mistaking
the tall girl standing beside him shy holding his hand for Penny Acres at that age, I tried to bring mymind back
to the solemn occasion what brought us into town while the sun was so cold and bright on the awakening land, when I felt seized
by a moment of eternity, as if Iwere the one suspended beside the Cross no longer needed, but it was Your
mother's face I saw! She didn't know the joy yet to come, but I knew! I found myself lifted away from the life we lived before
the suicide bombers struck Pearl Harbor, lifted away from the life we lived with ration books and black outs, looking past
the tears and sorrows to the next breathless moment about to be! What You must have felt in that instant after you spoke the
end end to your trial but before You stepped into the long journey home to your Father, Sir. The memeory of your past being
present but no longer able to hold You fromthe future stretching out untouched and boundless. I guess that's where we stand
as the farm settles down and we shake off the city pace from the soles of our shoes and our souls. I guess I was born to be
the wife of a farmer, even if'fn my children have a different path to trod. I can't think of any finer life than the one You've
granted me in your mercy with my dear, kind man!
I think I'll lie down after all and close my eyes for just a minute, Lord. I feel so much better having shared this with You! . Respectfully, .
Maude Amy Webb of Slumerbrook
Farm . ◊
Letter #2 " A Rare Sunday Indeed! "
~ Sunday, April 21st, 1946 . Dear Sir, . While it is most gratifying to be present in
the front pew on the last Sunday of the month as my son gave his first sermon, not even fully ordained or accredited as yet
- I could not see the faces of the people sitting in the small church behind me. I wonder if they marveled at his zeal for
You once his hands stopped trembling from stage fright for speaking in front of so many people for the first time. My mind
torn between the letter we received from the Missionary Clinic in Africa warning me that my Baby was never coming from her
work among the poor Blacks on that Continent and my shocking fear of seeing how much my shy oldest born was absorbed into
being the center of a forceful argument where no one could dare risk contradicting him in the midst of his heated statements. I felt Tom Dear lean his shoulder against me, in my imagination, rolling
his eyes at his older brother and I had to raise my lace handkerchief to my mouth to stifle a nervous giggle. I wondered if
James would have chose this way if his first youngest brother was alive to sit here and make faces at him? But am I just being
unkind to the man James has become because I don't like him near as much as I did the boy who worked beside his Pa or worked
in the office at Willis Sannyonson's lumber mill to help the war effort in the first days he come home from the War? I love
him, I must. I'm his mother. But he's found another means for bullying and I hate the thought I am powerless to do anything
but to leave him to Your gracious hands and bite my tongue. I guess going to Darkest Africa with Diane Sannyonson was no greater
leap than my leaving our farm and moving into the city, with my brother Tom's gracious help. The children seem to have grown
up so fast in those terrible years. It wasn't as though we knew when it was going to end, or how, although I admit the thought
of our not helping to win the War, especially after the Japs bombed Pearl Harbour, or how. And I had such freedom with the
first paycheck from Ponce's Hotel! I even shared a third of it with Tom, but when I was drawn back to the stink and the sameness
of the homestead after his tragic, and to me, unnecessary death, we found the paper bills slipped into an envelope in his
Bible, marked "For Sissy's marriage". And I suppose in remembering that, the silent depth that runs through the
men of our family, an in dear Amos, that I find comfort in knowing that time will hone the passion into compassion and he
will be the leader I always dreamed my children would be. For their lives will extend into the future, and their hands will
shape, a world already as foreign to me as any that I might expect if I landed on the moon an found it already populated!
After all, didn't you warn us by Your ancient wise men that even if we make our nests among th stars, You will see and know
our ways?
I fear that Penny Acres is too young. yes, she and Diane Sannyonson sailed to Africa without anyone of us but Diane's uncle
Willis, but she was always the bold one and my baby the follower. I admit to an uncomfortable amount of relief, simply between
you and me, Lord, that she won't be exposing herself to heaven only knows what germs in those dingy, ill-equipped mud huts
Diane craves in her blind ambition to use her uncle's money to become a doctor. The wife of a rich man who owns lands and
diamonds as easy as fields yield weeds is beyond my experience but I can see it as a better experience, even if she's exchanging
one bullying person for another. we cannot choose our children's lives anymore than we can choose their dreams. She's a strong
girl for one so young. She and Sharon McFadden became as thick as thieves as Nurse Sharon took care of her dying brother his
last days. I always thought she might be content to get her nursing degree and help out in the clinic at Shantytown? But...oh
dear, help me hide the sigh I almost allowed to escape. It's so quiet in here you could hear a pin drop! " Let us pray? " Forgive me Lord, I need to pay more attention
to the Service. Perhaps later we can talk again? If'fn You aren't too busy? . Respectfully, . Maude Amy Webb of Slumberbrook
Farm . ◊
Letter #3 " The Spelling
Word For The Day Is ... " ~ April 30th, 1946 . Dear Sir, .
While Amos Dear is pulling 'Nervous Nellie" into the automobile shed, I've asked to sit here for a minute on the porch
steps while I'm waiting for him. Yes, it would be more comfortable sitting on the chair, Sir, but I wouldn't be able
to see the stad from under there, or feel as though You could see my face, and after such a rare night out I want to be able
to share my joy with Thee, Jesus! It's funny, there was so muhunusual action to get ready this afternoon! That, in and of
itself, made my heart pound and flung the good sense plum so far out of my head that it must have landed in the yard of the
chicken coop, I do declare! Must'tae scared the chickens out of a month's growth! ... I guess You heard when my Baby Sandy
asked me to help him with his vocabular final's test next week? While he acceepted it with good grace, its pointing me toward
something I need to ask Your help with - while I can still feel, you know? Now, that's odd! ... I've stolen
my own joy? Why do you suppose I did that? I suppose I'm trying to look too far into the future with only what I know or suspet
now. I can only go so far ahead on my own strength, when I should be leaning on Yours! Oh! H4ere he
comes! I'll not be the cost of that there smile on his face. Oh, Lord! What did I ever do worthy of the love of this
dear, good man? God bless you, Sir, and good night. . Respectfully, . Maude Amy Webb of Slumberbrook Farm . ◊ Letter #4 " Peeping Chickens, Peeping Toms "
~ April 27th, 1946 . Dear Sir, . It's so seldom I am alone. I never realized that
before, you know Sir? My dear one is asleep on the picnic blanket beside me. I suppose You can hear him snoring all the way
up there! He's exhausted! I'm glad we've craved out this bit of time together - We wouldn't have dared when we were
younger, would we? Somehow the weight of the world has slipped off my shoulders with age, and I can't pretend to miss it.
Then the days stretched endlessly, like the horizon on a hot August day, but we are approaching Autumn, our babies are preparing
to move into lives of their own and we've gotten more accomplished than what lies ahead of us. I never thought age would be
a gift, Lord, but in some ways, having the time to see approaching winters makes the days more dear. The leaves moving a pattern across my
lap as I sit here made me look up. I usually feel You near, but just now as the naked sun struck my eyes it was like trying
to look into Your face, Dear Lord, you know what I mean? Such a sweet sense of peace swept in to restore yesterday's mishap
- I'm sure it was no more'n that, to look up and see them greedy eyes staring holes through me as I checked on the new clutch
hatching in the Incubator. But it does put me in mind of the summer of '39 when Pauline, me, and Heather Cox were matching
up quilt swatches when we looked up and saw the children returning on Ole Mule with two strangers. A bent, old
man and a boy too ready to smile. It's like trying to blame the War on Abe Fielder and the boy Jesse, and I know that ain't
so, for all the pain they brung us that terrible first year the War claimed my Tommy's life and most of James' limbs ... and
heart. I stumbled with fear, thinking it was a 'sign' that the war talk what ain't settled down might yet erupt, like a smoldering
ember in a fire that only looks put out. But how unjust am I being to thee, Lord, with my fear? ... But some terrible
sense of loss binds me with Tom. How changed he was in those last five months the Army Doctors sent him home to be with us
rather than to die with strangers. I know a mother shouldn't have favorites, and You know I did my best to hide it from the
other four, Sir, but Tom's gentleness drew me out while James' bossiness drove me away. And I have suffered greatly because
of it, and yet, I can now cherish him where the other children never think to see. When a tree limb moves and I remember the
young Boy Scouts clustered around 'the scarecrow man', listening to his words about Nature, and Life, as they grew up with
the War defining everything they or the adults could or couldn't do, how could I repent the end of rationing and black outs?
How could any sane person? But I hear a barn owl and it's like his voice calling 'howdy-do' to me from a great ways away and
I am suffused with joy knowing that he is now well and we will all be joined again before Your holy throne. "Suffused." Isn't
thata grand word? One nice thing about helping my youngest with his spelling bee words, I get to learn some of them for myself,
and that be a right pretty word without a doubt! Right now I am 'suffused' with joy and 'replete' with contentment. Please
share these precious few minutes with me, Father! . Respectfully, . Maude Amy Webb
of Slumberbrook Farm. . ◊
Letter #5 " A Day Spent Within " ~ Wednesday,
April 27th, 1946 . Dear Sir, . I had to sit down, out of breath.
Molly Bea is here, as kind and attentive as my daughter could be in my Baby's place but my heart is in the Gold Coast of Africa
cross the frigid waters as my sole remaining daughter walks down the aisle without her father or I in attendance the way we
were when youth married youth and she wed Arlo Cleaver. Can it have been such a short time ago? Can years become mere days?
She hasn't yet seen her twenty-first birthday yet, am I so old, Lord?
This is one of the three months when we don't have a family birthday - yet, but I keep checking on the calendar to make sure
I'm not forgetting anyone on their special day. Richard's sixteenth birthday is next month on the twenty-fourth. Sixteen"
He's an inch and a half shorter than Sandy, who's only thirteen in July. Amos and Pauline's were in January, like our anniversary
... How I miss her! I know Diane does, it allowed her and Penny Acres to be closer than any two blood sisters would dare,
but she's in the University over there and .. that sounds mean-hearted Lord. And I don't mean to be. The same things happen,
good or bad, as they would anywhere else, but I always dreamed of having her near the way I was able for mymother.
But then, Amanda was slight nd frail, while my living daughter and I must have followed the blood of my father, a trapper
and a vagabond. Perhaps Penny Acre comes by it naturally, and it does seem like the older man she's marrying today is truely
in ove with her and can give her a life with servants and prestigue dear Arlo could never have offered if'fn he'd lived past the
end of their first year of marriage. The wife of a Jewish man faces many challenges; look at the Cleavers, how they come to
be with us because no one in town would show them the hsopitality given to weelcomed travlers. But that's neither here nor
there. I wish I didn't get so melancholy when I hurt like this!
Mattalinga made herself a camp in the Meadow. James is quite put out by it! He's overseeing an addition addedto the Brother's
cabin so he know she's staying by the deep woods by the creek bed. He can't prove it, though she lives the simple life
of her ancestors, taking what she need from the land and living simply without electricity or 'manners' that we demanded of
him and his brothers growing up. Maybe we were being unkind whiteout meaning too when we chastened them for running around
the house 'like wild Indians' when they hoped and hollered and made such a commotion around the house when were young. For
she's never harmed us, and being shunned as a 'witch woman' by her own people, it ian't like she has many friends. She weeds
and rakes and hoes the way I can't pay a white man to do these days. Things have become so import these days, I'm
sorry to say. I guess because we had to do withoiut so during the war years, I find myself hoarding things too, lest we not
be able to get more when the supply runs out, but I try notto let myself indulge in it. Your holy word says not to store up
treasures here on earth where moth corrupts and theieves breaak ina nd steaal, but hving been forced to dowithout so much
that we take for granted now, it's a shadow hanging over my shoulder when I least expect it. I'm looking forward to geetint he Farmer's
JOurnal with the mail this afternoon! I submitted one of mother's recipies and got a whooping three dollars for it! But it
won't seem real until I see it in print. You know what I mean? I hope that ain't too prideful! ~
Whew! Just getting up to take the teapot off 'a the stove has winded me this morning! Molly Bea's been a good little nurse,
filling the eyedropper with medicine for me since thous pale hash-marks are difficult for me to see. But a part of me
rebels at being a burden to anyone, even when I know she's here for company her young husband's passion denies her in the
Meadow. It won't seem so lonely once'st the baby gets here. Even with two good arms James wouldn't have been any help with
... oh, LORD! Forgive me! I didn't mean that the way it sounded! I am too raw on the inside, I'd better get up and move around
or my thoughts alone will crush me! ~ Good evening Lord, and Howdy-do! I could not have
foreseen the lovely spring day You brought to us! Willis asked us to join him at the cattle auction. Oh and my, and the truth
be told, it was lovely, to leave the house behind, as dear as the homestead is to me. The lemonade was tart, the stenches
from the barn pungent - another of Sandy's fine words - and yet it arose a link to the past I found myself mourning earlier,
sir. I chatted with Margo Henning and Christa Milfoil, who had already gotten the Journal and was quite lavish with my praise.
But the rest part was when Nurse Sharon came by for dinner and we spent a quiet evening talking and singing by the fireplace.
I ached as my young men rose up of their accord around eight o'clock to say goodnight. School and chores wait with the coming
of light in the morning and who may know what dreams pierce a young man's heart as he lays upon his childhood bed knowing
how soon he will be called out if? As they kissed us goodnight to go to bed, struggling with the fact that their oldest brother
will soon be a daddy and their sister is in a foreign country, the wife of a wealthy man they never met, their faces seemed
more grave that I can ever remember. Richard, lean and dark, privately seeking to hone his firearm skills under his brother's
tutelage behind the cabin in the The Meadows which I'm not suppose to know about, waiting the brief months till he can flee
us and sign up with his Uncle Sam, no matter the cost he saw to his two older brothers, which he repeatedly dismisses as 'war'
when we are at 'peace' despite the threat against American soldiers who have as yet to come home from Korea. Alexander, tall
and stocky, and almost sandy blonde, leaning heavily on the Webb side of the family though his daddy's generation has the
darker brunette of his mother's line.
Richard's face showed a weariness of the mind, while Alexander is a son of the soil, in this too he is most like his father.
We never had hopes of keeping the others, any more than great-grandfather Woodrow Harkness could remain here when the lure
of the West called to him. James returned because he had no choice, but always held himself above the land. In this, I feaar
he is most like me. What dreams I had! How bitter the forced return once I'd finally made my break from the harsh demands
of weather and hours, only to return to discover that what my heart longed for the most could only arise with marriage to
a modest farmer, a man who'se formal schooling ended int he third grade to support his widowed mother and sickly baby sister.
How are any of us to know these things in advance?
Watch over my baby girl so far away ... Please grant her the peace in this se4cond union that You blessed her father and me!
I know this is a short prayer, but I ache to the morrow of my bones, and You already know what's in my heart, the good and
the bad of it, right. It just makes me feel good to share back the joy again! . Respectfully, . Maude Amy Webb of Slumberbrook Farm
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