LITMIR.BIZ

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sister—barely able to care for herself, let alone an infant.

      From the ladder that led to the sleeping loft, a voice called down, a cry of sadness that held but faint hope of good news. “Is Mama all right, Mrs. Baker? Did the doctor get here yet?”

      “Come on down, Marianne,” Mrs. Baker called out softly. “The doctor is here and he brought us a wee bit of a present tonight.”

      The girl, for she was not yet a woman, backed down the ladder, garbed in a white flannel gown, her long hair caught up in a braid that lay over one shoulder, and her feet touched the wooden floor of the cabin as Mrs. Baker turned to her with the child in her arms.

      “Meet your brother, Marianne. Born just a bit ago, the last chore your poor mama managed to finish up before she died.”

      “Mama’s gone?” As though it were a foregone conclusion, the girl spoke the words with gravity, her eyes dry, as though she’d already shed tears enough for the occasion, and now faced the future that awaited her. Her arms moved to take the babe and her head bowed over the tiny boy, eyes wide, mouth open, hands flailing the air. From the looks of things, he was primed to blow.

      “I’ll bet he’s hungry,” Mrs. Baker said softly. “I’ve got a bottle around here somewhere I had to use for Joey years back. Let me look a bit and find it.”

      She bustled across the kitchen floor, opening the cupboard doors that hid the shelves of dishes and dry goods. Poking around amid the plates and cups, behind the bowls and pitchers, Mrs. Baker came up with a round bottle, topped with a rubber nipple—used but still in working order.

      “This oughta do it,” she said with satisfaction, turning to the sink to rinse and clean the small vessel. “I’ve got fresh milk in the pantry and it won’t take long to fix that baby up with his dinner.”

      Marianne watched the proceedings, ensconced in a wide rocking chair, holding her baby brother in arms that delivered warmth to the infant and love that would nourish his soul. She bent over the tiny head, her nostrils catching a whiff of the sweet baby scent he bore, and tears streamed down her cheeks as she thought of the woman who had borne him but minutes since.

      Her heart’s cry was for the woman she’d known as mother, the woman who had raised her and taught her the skills of a woman, who had been best friend and confidante to the young girl who had yet to find her own way in life. And whose path now seemed to contain a child, not of her own, but of her mother’s flesh and blood. A brother to love and care for.

      Mrs. Baker brought the bottle to her and Marianne settled down for the first time to the task of feeding her infant brother, acknowledging the swell of love that filled her as the tiny mouth sucked at the nipple with an eagerness that expressed his hunger. He seemed to be a survivor, she decided, and if there was any way she could help him to do that very thing, she would set her sights on his future and do all she could to make it one worthy of him.

      Joshua. She’d call him Joshua, for her mother had decreed that it be so, just days ago before the fever took hold and laid her low in a sickbed from which she would never rise. Papa had died the day before, but Mama had lived to deliver the child they had so longed for, had prayed for and were to finally see. The baby boy they had yearned for for so many years, with small graves in the orchard attesting to the failure of Mama to bear live children.

      Now they had a boy, Joshua, almost a Christmas baby, for it was but three weeks until that most wonderful of holidays. One that would mean little this year, with the outlying ranchers and farmers burying their dead in the wake of a typhoid epidemic. To think that such a tiny bundle would survive, when all about the countryside strong men had succumbed to the dreaded sickness.

      Marianne rocked and whispered soft words of comfort and love to her small brother that night, then changed his makeshift diaper and wrapped him in a bit of flannel that Mrs. Baker found in her trunk. He’d need new clothing, for the things sewn for him by his mother must be burned in the cabin, lest the epidemic be spread by their use.

      In the morning Marianne watched as the menfolk of the surrounding community burned her parents’ cabin, knowing that such a dreadful thing must be done in order to contain the germs within. Only her visit with Mrs. Baker over the past days had kept her from the disease. Helping her neighbor had been a godsend in more ways than one, for she would surely have been a victim herself had she not volunteered her services to aid the neighbor after a bad cold had put her to bed with a fever and a case of the quinsy, leaving her house without a cook and someone to mind her three-year-old.

      Mrs. Baker had a small son, but her other children were grown, most of them gone from home, and she had a wonderful husband who worked hard to support them. With spare rooms aplenty now that her young’uns were mostly grown, there was room for Marianne and the baby.

      Yet Marianne knew that she must soon be on her own, that she must make provision to take care of herself and little Joshua as soon as she could. And to that end, she made her plans.

       Chapter One

      The horse she’d borrowed from her neighbor was less than perfect, but sometime in the past her mother had dutifully told her something about beggars not being choosy about what they got, and Marianne smiled at the memory. The old mare was swaybacked, had but one gait beyond walking, and that jolting trot was less than comfortable to the young woman’s sore bottom. She’d been riding for long hours, appreciative of the loan of the horse, but weary to her soul as she considered the future lying before her.

      Mrs. Baker had written out instructions to her sister’s home in the small town of Walnut Grove, Missouri, and sent Marianne on her way, the baby, Joshua, wrapped tightly in flannel blankets and with a small supply of diapers and wrappers for the child. Enough to last until Marianne could find work and a place to live. Her sister was Sarah, a woman with four children, but surely with enough goodness of heart to help a young girl on her own, Mrs. Baker had said.

      December seemed to be an unforgiving sort of month, with snow on the ground and more in the air, causing dark clouds to hang heavily over the land, hiding the sun. Marianne had ridden for a day and most of a night already, stopping only to rest in an empty barn in the middle of a field. The house was gone, only stones and burned upright boards remaining to mark where once a family had lived.

      The barn had been warm—at least warmer than the windswept fields—and, huddled in a stack of moldy hay, Marianne had kept herself and her baby brother warm. The prospect of meeting Mrs. Baker’s sister, perhaps even today, kept her going, even as she ate the last of the biscuits and bits of cheese Mrs. Baker had sent along. The baby had drunk from his bottle, the milk not warmed but nourishing, and yet even that was coming to an end, for the bottle now held the last of the supply she’d carried with her.

      Ahead of her lay a small town, the main street lined with shops and buildings on both sides, houses lined up neatly as she approached, a sign beside the road designating it as Walnut Grove. Children ran to and fro, not caring that the snow threatened, calling out to each other, playing in the road. They all had homes to go to, Marianne suspected, warm coats to wear and mothers to tend to their needs.

      For the first time in a week, her loss seemed overwhelming. The planning and working to accomplish this trek had taken her mind from the perils she would face—a woman alone, a newborn child to care for and but enough cash to buy a meal or two.

      The map in her pocket was clear. If she would but turn her horse to a side street, down this alley and then turn right, she would arrive at the home of Sarah Nelson, Mrs. Baker’s sister. A kindly lady, she’d been told. And yet as she rode the mare close to the front porch, she heard a thundering roar from a man who erupted from the front door, fast on the heels of a young boy. Snatching up the child, the man delivered several hard swats of his palm against the boy’s backside and tossed him back into the house, then turned and looked at Marianne.

      “You lookin’ for somebody, lady? Or just enjoying the scenery?”

      Marianne froze atop the mare and shivered. “I was told that Sarah Nelson lives here,” she said quietly, to which the man snorted, then opened the door

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