On the morning of the day her company finally arrived she had begun at seven, lugging wood two sticks at a time until the stove was hot and her woodbox full. God had favored her with a cool, cloudy day, the first in weeks. By nightfall there might be rain. The hip she'd broken in 1958 said so, anyway.
She baked her pies first, using the canned fillings from the shelves in her pantry and the fresh rhubarb and strawberries from the garden. The strawberries had just come on, praise God, and it was good to know they weren't going to go to waste. Just the act of cooking made her feel better, because cooking was life. A blueberry pie, two strawberry-rhubarb, and one apple. The smell of them filled the morning kitchen. She set them on the kitchen windowsills to cool as she had all her life.
She made the best batter she could, although it was hard going with no fresh eggs - there she'd been, right in the henhouse, and she had no one to blame but herself. Eggs or no, by early afternoon the small kitchen with its hilly floor and faded linoleum was filled with the smell of frying chicken. It had gotten pretty toasty inside and so she hobbled out to the porch to read her daily lesson, using her dog-eared last copy of The Upper Room to fan her face.
The chicken came out just as light and nice as you could want. One of those fellows could go out and pick her two dozen butter-and-sugar ears of corn, and they would have themselves a good sit-down feed outside.
After the chicken was put on paper towels, she went on out to the back porch with her guitar, sat down, and began to play. She sang all her favorite hymns, her high and quivering voice drifting into the still air.
Have we trials and temptations,
Are we cumbered with a load of care?
We must never be discouraged,
Take it to the Lord in prayer.
The music sounded so fine to her (even though her ear had failed to a degree where she could never be sure her old git was in tune) that she played another hymn, and another, and another.
She was settling down to "We Are Marching to Zion" when she heard the sound of an engine off to the north, coming down County Road toward her. She stopped singing but her fingers continued to twiddle absently on the strings as she cocked her head and listened. Coming, yes Lord, they found their way just fine, and now she could see the spume of dust the truck was throwing as it left the tar and came onto the dirt track that stopped in her dooryard. A great, welcoming excitement filled her and she was glad she had put on her for-best. She put her git between her knees and shaded her eyes, although there was still no sun.
Now the engine sound was much louder and in a moment, where the corn gave way for Cal Goodell's cattle wade -
Yes, she could see it, an old Chevrolet farm truck, moving slow. The cab was full; four people crammed in there by the looks (there was nothing wrong with her long vision, even at a hundred and eight), and three more in the truckbed, standing up and looking over the cab. She could see a thinnish blond man, a girl with red hair, and in the middle... yes, that was him, a boy who was just finishing up learning about being a man. Dark hair, narrow face, high forehead. He saw her sitting on her porch and began to wave frantically. A moment later the blond man copied him. The redheaded girl just looked. Mother Abagail raised her own hand and waved back.
"Praise God for bringin em through," she muttered hoarsely. Tears coursed warmly down her cheeks. "My Lord, I thank You so."
The pickup, rattling and jouncing, turned into the yard. The man behind the wheel was wearing a straw hat with a blue velvet band and a big feather tucked into it.
"Yeeeeee-haw! " he shouted, and waved. "Hi there, Mother! Nick said he thought you might be here and here you be! Yeeeeee-haw! " He laid on the horn. Sitting with him in the cab was a man of about fifty, a woman of the same age, and a little girl in a red corduroy jumper. The little girl waved shyly with one hand; the thumb of the other was corked securely in her mouth.
The young man with the eyepatch and the dark hair - Nick - jumped over the side of the truck even before it had stopped. He caught his balance and then walked slowly toward her. His face was solemn, but his eye was alight with joy. He stopped at the porch steps and then looked around wonderingly... at the yard, the house, the old tree with its tire swing. Most of all at her.
"Hello, Nick," she said. "I'm glad to see you. God bless."
He smiled, now beginning to shed his own tears. He came up the steps toward her and took her hands. She turned her wrinkled cheek toward him and he kissed it gently. Behind him, the truck had stopped and everyone got out. The man who had been driving was holding the girl in the red jumper, who had a cast on her right leg. Her arms were linked firmly around the driver's sunburned neck. Next to him stood the fiftyish woman, next to her the redhead and the blond boy with the beard. No, not a boy, Mother Abagail thought; he's feeble. Last in line stood the other man who had been riding in the cab. He was polishing the lenses of his steel-rimmed eyeglasses.
Nick was looking at her urgently, and she nodded.