LITMIR.BIZ

       Chapter Two

      Their secret friendship continued throughout the rest of the school year, and while their interest in each other must have been evident to their classmates, Beth’s family didn’t learn about it. They sat together on the bus occasionally, although they tried to be casual about it. Sometimes when he walked past her seat, Clark would drop a folded note into her lap. By spring she had accumulated many of them. Beth hid the notes in a shoe box beneath her bed. She wouldn’t throw Clark’s messages away, but if she didn’t hide them, either her mother or grandmother was sure to find them.

      Beth got out of bed and walked around the cold motel room, her eyes misting when she thought of those notes. She still had them in her possession, but she didn’t need to read them anymore—the words of most of them were etched on her heart. As the sound of running water in the rooms beside hers signaled that morning had come, she remembered one of the messages he had given her “You’re looking mighty pretty this morning. The sun is shining on your hair, making it the color of autumn leaves. I dreamed about you last night, Bethie.”

      On the day before the schools closed for the Christmas holidays that year, Clark had slipped a note to her when they passed in the hallway.

      His message was brief: “Try to come to the tree stand on Christmas Eve. I’ll be there around noon.”

      Christmas had no particular significance for Beth’s family, although some of her half siblings and their families usually came for the day. Beth had worked hard for two days helping her mother prepare for the meal, and Mrs. Warner had no objection when her daughter stated her intention of hiking for a few hours.

      Beth suspected that Clark would bring her a present, and she wanted to buy something for him, but since her parents were sacrificing to pay her school expenses, she wouldn’t use any of their scarce money to buy a gift for a Randolph. Before she left the house, she slipped one of her school pictures into her pocket

      The weather was mild for December, and Beth was panting hard and sweating profusely before she reached the tree house, where Clark was already waiting at the base of the tree. His brown eyes brightened when he saw her, and he pulled her into his arms—a liberty he hadn’t taken before.

      “Merry Christmas, Bethie,” he whispered, and lowered his head to kiss her lips tenderly.

      Breathless, Beth whispered, “It’s my first kiss.”

      “Mine, too. You’re the first girl I’ve ever wanted to kiss,” Clark said, and he bent over and kissed her again.

      “See what I’ve been doing while I waited.” He pointed to the trunk of a beech tree, where he had carved a large heart to enclose his initials and hers. “C.R. loves B.W.,” he read proudly.

      In an effort to slow the acceleration of her heartbeat, Beth said sternly, “I hope none of my family sees that.”

      Clark laughed. “Not likely that they will. It’s cold and windy up on the platform. Let’s walk around the mountain and find a spot in the sun.”

      Hand in hand, they wandered into the deeper woods, and Beth said, “I feel terrible sneaking around to meet you this way. There have been a few times I’ve been tempted to tell Mom, but I’m afraid she’ll tell Daddy, and that would be the end of our friendship.”

      Clark squeezed the hand he held. “I’ve been praying for a way for us to be together always without keeping it a secret.”

      Beth grew tense as she always did when Clark mentioned the future.

      “Do you ever think of leaving here?” she asked.

      Clark stopped in midstride and turned to her in surprise. “‘Leaving’? You don’t mean—leave Kentucky?”

      She nodded. “I want to go someplace else to live as soon as I graduate from high school. I don’t suppose I’ll have enough money to go to college, but I’m going to take secretarial courses during my last two years in school, and I should be able to find a job. I thought I could save some money and try to go to college at night.”

      “What do you have against Kentucky?”

      “I don’t want to live as my parents have. And I can’t see that my life will ever improve if I don’t move away.”

      They sat down at the entrance to a small cave where the sun shone directly on them. “It seems we have different ideas about what the future holds for us,” Clark said, disappointment evident in his voice.

      Beth was sorry to have hurt Clark’s feelings, but she had to be honest with him. “I thought I should tell you.”

      Clark drew a package from his pocket “This may not be the kind of gift you want, but even if we don’t agree on the future, I know that you’ll never be truly content unless you follow the way of life presented in this book. If you want to serve other people, the path starts here.”

      Unsuspecting, Beth opened the package and found a Bible. Trying to stifle her disappointment, she murmured, “Thank you,” wondering why he thought she would want a Bible.

      Beth had attended church with her grandmother a few times, so she had some basic knowledge about what the Bible was, but she’d never read it for herself, and it felt like a heavy weight lying in her hand and on her heart. Perhaps sensing this, Clark said, “I hope you’ll read it, and a good place to start would be the New Testament. A new way of life will open to you when you read these words.”

      “I don’t know, Clark,” Beth said hesitantly.

      “You do believe in God, don’t you?”

      “I haven’t thought about it a lot.”

      “Promise me you’ll read it.”

      He took the Bible from her hands and opened it “Why not start with the Christmas story?” He turned to the second chapter of Luke. “‘And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus, that all the world should be taxed.’”

      The reverence in his voice and the intent expression on his face disturbed Beth, and she quickly took the Bible from his hand.

      “All right, I’ll read it, but I have to go home now. I

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