You did what?”
Brigit’s father turned and faced her, a faint frown creasing his forehead. “Didn’t I tell you?”
She studied his face. Was that slightly confused expression also slightly faked? “No, you didn’t tell me.”
“I’m sorry. I certainly meant to.” He sounded sincere, but a mischievous glint in his eyes gave him away.
She shook her head. What was she going to do with him? “When is he coming over?”
Mr. Streeter stepped out of the doorway before answering. “Tonight.”
Tonight?
Brigit took a mental survey of what was on hand. It was a very quick survey: they didn’t have much at all.
She slumped into the chair. There were some women in town who were quite adept at taking a chicken, a carrot, and a sprinkle of seasonings and coming up with something delicious. She wasn’t one of those women. If she couldn’t boil it, it didn’t get cooked.
Why had her father done this? He knew how limited her culinary skills were. If he were really trying to marry her off, he had chosen an odd way of advertising her assets.
There was no ignoring her predicament, though. Her father had really done it this time. With a sigh, she pulled herself out of her chair and checked to see what was possible for a dinner.
She grumbled to herself as she gathered together a pile of vegetables. It certainly wasn’t much, and it definitely wasn’t going to be fancy.
The Farnsworths weren’t going to be eating thick stew with carrots and potatoes cut into large chunks because Brigit didn’t have the patience to dice them into tiny cubes. No, they’d be served food with French names that she couldn’t pronounce on dishes that she didn’t dare touch for fear she’d break them.
Here she’d be serving stew on heavy mismatched plates with chips in the sides. The delicate china that had been her mother’s had long ago been discarded, the victim of her father’s inept washings.
Why hadn’t he asked her before he invited the minister to dinner?
She muttered as she chopped potatoes and sliced carrots. Griped as she cut up the chicken. Complained as she shoved wood into the cookstove and heated the small kitchen area to an unbearable temperature.
But even as she did so, part of her was rejoicing.
He was coming back!
She smiled at the unpeeled carrot she was holding. Had ever a vegetable looked so beautiful? How could its brilliant orange coloring develop like that underground? Had there ever been such a miracle as a carrot? She almost hated to scrape the skin off it, but into the pot it must go.
If only she had some of those seasonings she’d heard the women at church talk about. She’d never paid any attention to those discussions. Salt and pepper were all she and her father ever used.
The liquids began to burble in the pot. It would be awhile before it would be ready. She had time to turn Fulton out to graze one last time before evening. She didn’t like to have him out after sunset. The mosquitoes were getting fierce at dark, even this early in the season.
Her horse whinnied softly as she went toward his stall in the barn. He’d been with her so long that she’d almost forgotten a time when he hadn’t been there. Even so, his canter was still good and strong. She loved to watch him playfully fling his head or nibble the grass.
She couldn’t resist. Within minutes, she was up on his back, racing down the road toward the river and then back again. There was nothing like the wind on her face to clear her mind of her foolishness, she told herself.
After they’d come back to the farm and she’d brushed him down, she turned Fulton into the fenced area of the yard.
Brigit watched Fulton soak up the afternoon sun for a while, and then she realized with a start that it was almost time for Reverend Collins to arrive, and she was still as smelly and messy as she had been—even more so since she’d added peeling an onion to her day’s activities.
She tore inside and washed and combed and patted and brushed until she looked as good as she could, given the circumstances. She had just finished when her father lumbered through the door, calling to her.
“Brigit, are you—Oh no! What is that smell?”
She poked her head around the corner, a ready retort on her lips. “I smell just fine, thank you very much, thanks to—oh, that’s awful!”
She covered her nose and ran to the kitchen.
The pot with the stew in it had boiled dry, and the carrots and potatoes were now a hardened mass at the bottom. She gave them a tentative poke with the fork, but it was as bad as it appeared—and smelled.
“What are we going to do?” she wailed. “What are we going to do?”
Peter stood in front of the mirror and straightened his tie for the seventh time. It simply would not stay put. No, it insisted upon sliding over to the side, and that wouldn’t do at all.
Not when he was going to visit Brigit Streeter. He was smitten. There was no other word for how he felt. She lived life with a vigor he envied. Customs and conventions didn’t seem to hold her back.
He sighed. Customs and conventions were part of a minister’s life. He had known that from the very beginning. And they fit him very well.
Brigit Streeter, though, touched that part of his soul that longed for a closer relationship with the Lord, one that saw His face in every flower, His hand in every bird.
She had also touched his heart.
“So what are we going to do?” Brigit asked her father again.
He shook his head in disbelief. “I don’t know. I just don’t know.”
She opened the cupboard door and stared in at the nearly empty whitewashed shelves.
The stew was beyond salvaging, and there wasn’t enough of anything left to make dinner from on such short notice.
She sank to the spindle-legged chair in the small kitchen and buried her face in her hands. This was not good. She wanted to make a good impression on Reverend Collins, not continue to reinforce what he must surely think of her—that she was a tomboyish mess.
There was something inordinately unfair here. Here she was, stuck on the prairie with the saddest assortment of “suitable” men imaginable, and what happened when the most eligible bachelor this side of the Mississippi showed up—and was interested in her, to boot?
The pain in her soul was almost palpable. I want him to like me, she cried silently, moving as naturally to prayer as if it were breath. Dearest Lord, Thou art probably trying to teach me something here, but apparently I am a horribly slow student. What am I supposed to do? Please help me!
A knock sounded at the door, and she raised her head, startled. She hadn’t expected God to answer quite this quickly, and she dreaded His answer.
“Mary Rose, what a surprise!” Her father’s voice rang through the small house. “I wasn’t expecting to see you this evening.”
Brigit stuck her head around the corner and stopped mid-step when she saw what her best friend was holding out toward her father.
It was round and wrapped in a blue and white checked cloth, and it smelled heavenly.
Could it be that God had answered her prayer in the rotund form of Mary Rose Groves?
“Brigit, Mother sent this over. She said that you—”
Mr. Streeter took the dish out of her hands and gave it to his daughter. “Please tell your mother that we send our thanks. Now, Mary Rose, you must hurry home, isn’t that right?”
Mary Rose started to say something but stopped. “Oh, absolutely.”
When Mr. Streeter left the room with the dish in his hands, Mary Rose leaned over and whispered conspiratorially, “I think your father is playing matchmaker.”
Brigit groaned. “I am really in for it, then. He is relentless when he gets an idea in that balding head of his.”
Mary Rose winked behind her glasses. “Sometimes, Brigit, you have got to admit that he is right. Some matches are made in heaven.”
Birds twittered and a slight breeze rustled the leaves of the cottonwoods as Peter’s horse walked the road to the Streeter home. There couldn’t be a nicer afternoon, he thought. This was the Dakota Territory in its sunlit glory.
He spoke softly to the horse and slowed its pace until it stopped. He jumped from the horse and turned around in a complete circle, taking in his surroundings.
God had truly excelled in this land. The sky was an azure arch over his head, reminding him of the vision that far exceeded his own. A faint puff of white, a lone cloud on an astonishingly blue canvas, drifted across the sky. Peter’s heart immediately sought prayer.
Lord God of all beings, I thank Thee with all my soul for bringing me to this place of extraordinary beauty. I beg of Thee to let my ears be open to Thy way and my mouth speak only those words assigned by Thee.
He paused and listened to a meadowlark warble its prairie opera, watched a jack-rabbit bound across an open field.
The only thing missing was someone to love … someone to love him.
He sighed. There was no use in getting philosophical about that in the middle of a country road. Then he smiled and finished that thought … especially when love might possibly be waiting at the end of this very road.
He put his foot back into the stirrup and swung himself easily onto the saddle. He clicked to the horse and urged it into a trot. Time was wasting away.
As Peter drew closer to the Streeter home, a wagon passed him. Its driver waved, and he thought he recognized her as someone from the church, although he couldn’t remember her name. What a friendly place Archer Falls was!
He was looking forward to this. He really was. His stomach growled in anticipation of the wonderful dinner that was awaiting him.
He’d had enough of his burned stew to last a lifetime.
“He’s here.”
Brigit’s heart leaped up to flutter somewhere in her throat as, from the doorway, she watched Reverend Collins dismount from the horse. He spoke quietly to the animal and then greeted her father, who’d gone out to meet him.
They tended to the animal and returned to the house, and as they did so, she tried to calm herself. She probably had the wrong idea about his feelings for her. To him, perhaps she was simply another parishioner, someone to love only in a godly sense.
He smiled at her as he took off his hat before entering the house. His hair gleamed like coal in the late-afternoon sunlight, and his eyes were as dark as warmed chocolate.
“Miss Streeter, it’s very kind of you and your father to invite me to your house.”
She took his hand, trying very hard to remember to breathe. “The pleasure is ours, and please call me Brigit. Let me take your hat, and you go ahead and have a seat, and my father can show you around.”
His face lit in a smile. “I’m not sure I caught all that, but I’m delighted to be here with you.”
She knew she should let go of his hand, but she couldn’t release her grip. The message that flashed from his eyes told her that she hadn’t misread anything. How could her heart leap around like this? Why didn’t it stay in place in her chest where it belonged rather than jumping from place to place inside her?
At last she came back to her senses and dropped his hand. “I’m really glad you’re here, Reverend Collins.”
Somehow she managed to bumble her way through the next few minutes as they got themselves seated and ready to eat.
“Reverend Collins, would you do us the honor of praying over our food?” her father asked.
“It would be my pleasure.” He bowed his head and began to pray. “Blessed Lord, Father of all we have been, all we are, and all we will be, have grace upon us this day as we gather to eat the gifts of this fruitful land. Shower our time together this afternoon with joy and caring. We ask this in Thy holy name. Amen.”
“Tremendous words,” Mr. Streeter commented as he shook his napkin out into his lap.
Brigit beamed at her father and at Peter and at the casserole. Life had rarely been this good.
What they talked about was as simple as how pleasant the weather had been, how the wheat was coming up good and strong this year, how Archer Falls was growing into a real community.
And all the time, Brigit heard only bits and pieces of the conversation. She felt as if she were dreaming the entire event.
The men’s voices brought her back to reality.
“And that’s why I’ve decided to stay in Archer Falls,” he was saying. “I know I’ve only been here five weeks, but they’ve been a persuasive five weeks, enough to convince me to stay. I suspect the presiding elder will let me do so, that is, if the congregation will ask me to stay.”
He turned his winning smile on her and added, “I received a letter from him this week, saying he was satisfied with my work, so I am ever hopeful that he will agree to let me remain.”
“You have determined to stay?” her father asked, and there was an edge to his voice that surprised Brigit. It was almost an anxiety that she heard.
“Yes.” Reverend Collins looked at her, and his eyes spoke secrets that she’d only dreamed of.
Something was going to happen. The air almost sizzled with it, like the way the air was charged before a lightning storm, when the earth waits for the celestial fireworks yet to come.
“I’ve grown quite fond of the area,” he continued, “and the people.”
A nervous smile that she was unable to control twitched around her face. What was she supposed to do? Her romantic contacts had been limited—actually, there hadn’t been any—and she was in the dark about what she should do next.
This was the kind of thing that she and Mary Rose had talked about long into the night, and she was sure that Mary Rose had told her what she should do, but as usual, Brigit hadn’t paid any attention.
It hadn’t mattered then. The idea that she might some day want to attract and keep the attention of a young man had seemed so unlikely. Certainly none of the men in the community had caught her eye. How Mary Rose had ferreted out Gregory Lester was a miracle. The fellow lived across the river, and they’d met through the help of some far-flung distant relatives who were determined to see them married, preferably to each other.
Speaking of miracles, here was one sitting across from her, and he was clearly waiting for a response to something he’d just asked.
She tried to recover and not look flustered and undoubtedly failed at both.