Once Upon a Summer Read online

  Once Upon

  a Summer

  SEASONS OF THE HEART #1

  JANETTE

  OKE

  Once Upon

  a Summer

  Once Upon a Summer

  Copyright © 1981

  Janette Oke

  Cover design by Dan Pitts

  Cover photography © Andrea Ruester/Corbis

  Scripture quotations are taken from the King James Version of the Bible.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.

  Published by Bethany House Publishers

  11400 Hampshire Avenue South

  Bloomington, Minnesota 55438

  Bethany House Publishers is a division of

  Baker Publishing Group, Grand Rapids, Michigan.

  Printed in the United States of America

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Oke, Janette, 1935–

  Once upon a summer / Janette Oke.

  p. cm. — (Seasons of the heart ; no. 1)

  ISBN 978-0-7642-0800-3 (pbk.)

  I. Title.

  PR9199.3.O38O5 2010

  813'.54—dc22

  2010004148

  Dedicated with love to

  Fred and Amy (Ruggles) Steeves,

  my dear parents,

  who have given me

  unmeasured love and support.

  JANETTEOKE was born in Champion, Alberta, to a Canadian prairie farmer and his wife, and she grew up in a large family full of laughter and love. She is a graduate of Mountain View Bible College in Alberta, where she met her husband, Edward, and they were married in May of 1957. After pastoring churches in Indiana and Canada, the Okes spent some years in Calgary, where Edward served in several positions on college faculties while Janette continued her writing. She has written forty-eight novels for adults and another sixteen for children, and her book sales total nearly thirty million copies.

  The Okes have three sons and one daughter, all married, and are enjoying their fifteen grandchildren. Edward and Janette are active in their local church and make their home near Didsbury, Alberta.

  CONTENTS

  Chapter 1 Josh

  Chapter 2 Changes

  Chapter 3 About Lou

  Chapter 4 Correction

  Chapter 5 Uneasy Again

  Chapter 6 Sunday Dinner

  Chapter 7 Hiram

  Chapter 8 Surprises

  Chapter 9 Family

  Chapter 10 The Fishin’ Hole

  Chapter 11 Number Two

  Chapter 12 Fall Days

  Chapter 13 Threshin’

  Chapter 14 Patches

  Chapter 15 Hurtin’

  Chapter 16 Love in Action

  Chapter 17 Pixie

  Chapter 18 The Corn Roast

  Chapter 19 The Announcement

  Chapter 20 Something Unexpected

  Chapter 21 Parson Nathaniel Crawford

  Chapter 22 Rumors

  Chapter 23 Guest Night

  Chapter 24 Prairie Fire

  Chapter 25 Next Mornin’

  Chapter 26 The Lord’s Day and the Lord’s Man

  Chapter 27 Another Sunday

  Chapter 28 Postscript

  CHAPTER 1

  Josh

  I COULD HARDLY WAIT to finish my chores that mornin’. I needed to sneak off to my favorite log along the crik bank and find myself some thinkin’ time. Too many things had been happening too fast; I was worried that my whole world was about to change. I didn’t want it changed. I liked things jest the way they were, but if I was to keep ’em that way, it was going to take some figurin’ out.

  I toted the pail of milk to the house and ran back to the barn to let Bossie back out to pasture to run with the range cows. She just mosied along, so I tried to hurry her along a bit, but she didn’t pay much notice. Finally she went through the gate; I slapped her brown-and-white rump and hurried to lift the bars in place. Bossie jest stood there, seeming undecided as to where to go now that the choice was hers.

  Me, I knew where I was headin’. I took off down the south trail, between the summer’s green leafy things, like a rabbit with a hawk at its back.

  The crik was still high, it being the middle of summer, but the spot that I called mine was a quiet place. Funny how one feels it quiet, even though there isn’t a still moment down by the crik. One bird song followed another, and all sorts of bugs buzzed continually. Occasionally a frog would croak from the shallows or a fish would jump in the deeper waters. That kind of noise didn’t bother me, though. I still found the spot restful, mostly ’cause there weren’t any human voices biddin’ ya to do this or git that.

  I sorta regarded this spot as my own private fish hole; I hadn’t even shared it with my best friend, Avery Garrett. Avery wasn’t much for fishin’ anyway, so he didn’t miss the information. Today I never even thought to stop to grab my pole—I was that keen on gettin’ off alone.

  Even before I finally sat down on my log, I had rolled my overall legs up to near my knees and let my feet slip into the cool crik water. I pushed my feet down deep, stretchin’ my toes through the thin layer of coarse sand so I could wiggle them around in the mud beneath. Too late I saw that my overalls hadn’t been rolled up high enough and were soaking up crik water. I pulled at them, but being wet they didn’t slide up too well. I’d get spoken to about that unless the sun got the dryin’ job done before I got home. I sat there, wigglin’ my toes and trying to decide jest what angle to come at my problems from.

  Seemed to me that everything had gone along jest great until yesterday. Yesterday had started out okay, too. Grandpa needed to go to town, and he called to me right after I’d finished my chores.

  “Boy.” He most always called me Boy rather than Joshua, or even Josh, like other folks did. “Boy, ya be carin’ fer a trip to town with me?”

  I didn’t even answer—jest grinned—‘cause I knew that Grandpa already knew the answer anyway. I went to town every chance I got.

  “Be ready in ten minutes,” Grandpa said and went out for the team.

  Wasn’t much work to get ready. I washed my face and hands again, slicked down my hair and checked my overalls for dirt. They looked all right to me, so I scampered for the barn, hoping to get in on the hitchin’ up of the horses.

  The trip to town was quiet. Grandpa and I both enjoyed silence. Besides, there really wasn’t that much that needed sayin’—and why talk jest to make a sound? Grandpa broke the quiet spell.

  “Gettin’ a little dry.”

  I looked at the ditches and could see brown spots where shortly before everything had been green and growin’. I nodded.

  We went on into town and Grandpa stopped the team at the front of Kirk’s General Store. I hopped down and hitched the team to the rail while Grandpa sort of gathered himself together for what needed to be done.

  Soon we were inside the store and after exchangin’ “howdys”and small-town talk with Mr. Kirk and some customers, Grandpa and I set about our business. Grandpa’s was easy enough. He was to purchase the supplies needed back at the farm. I had a tougher job. Before I’d left, Uncle Charlie had, as usual, slipped me a nickel on the sly; now I had to decide how to spend it. I moved along the counter to get a better look at what Mr. Kirk had to offer. Mrs. Kirk was toward the back talkin’ to someone over the telephone. Only a few folks in town had telephones; I never could get used to watching someone talkin’ into a box. She finally quit and walked over to me.

  “Mornin’, Daniel. Nice day again, isn
’t it? Fear it’s gonna be a bit hot afore it’s over, though.”

  Without even waiting for a reply, she said to Grandpa, “Wanted to be sure that ya got this letter that came fer ya.”

  Mrs. Kirk ran our local post office from a back corner of the general store. She was a pleasant woman, and her concern for people was jest that—concern rather than idle curiosity.

  Grandpa took the letter, his face lighting up as he did so. We didn’t get much mail out our way.

  “From my pa,” he volunteered, giving Mrs. Kirk his rather lopsided grin. “Thank ya, ma’am.” He stuffed the letter into his shirt pocket.

  I forgot about the letter and went back to the business of spending my nickel. It seemed it was next-to-no-time when Grandpa was gathering his purchases and askin’ me if I was about ready to go. I still hadn’t made up my mind.

  I finally settled on a chocolate ice-cream cone, then went to help Grandpa with the packages. I wasn’t much good to him, havin’ one hand occupied, but I did the best I could.

  He backed the team out and we headed for home, me makin’ every lick count—that ice cream plum disappears in summer weather. When we were clear of the town, Grandpa handed the reins to me.

  “I’m kinda anxious to see what my pa be sayin’,” he explained as he pulled the letter from his shirt pocket. He read in silence and I stole a glance at him now and then. I wanted to find out how a letter written jest to you would make a body feel. This one didn’t seem to be pleasin’ my grandpa much. Finally he folded it slowly and tucked it into the envelope, then turned to me.

  “Yer great-granny jest passed away, Boy.”

  Funny that at that moment he connected her with me instead of himself. He reached for the reins again in an absent-minded way. If he’d really been thinkin’, he would have let me keep drivin’—he most often did on the way back from town.

  I watched him out of the corner of my eye. I was sorry to hear about Great-granny, but I couldn’t claim to sorrow. I had never met her and had heard very little about her. Suddenly it hit me that it was different for Grandpa. That faraway old lady who had jest died was his ma. I felt a lump come up in my throat then—a kind of feelin’ fer Grandpa—but I didn’t know how to tell him how I felt.

  Grandpa was deep in thought. He didn’t even seem to be aware of the reins that lay slack in his hands. I was sure that I could have reached over and taken them back and he never would have noticed. I didn’t though. I jest sat there quiet-like and let the thoughts go through his mind. I could imagine right then that Grandpa was rememberin’ Great-granny as he had seen her last. Many times he’d told me that when he was fifteen, he’d decided that he wanted to get away from the city. So he had packed up the few things that were rightly his, bid good-bye to his folks and struck out for the West. Great-granny had cried as she watched him go, but she hadn’t tried to stop him. Grandpa had been west for many years, had a farm, a wife and a family, when he invited Uncle Charlie, his older and only brother, to join him. Uncle Charlie was a bachelor and Grandpa needed the extra hands fer the crops and hayin’. Uncle Charlie had been only too glad to leave his job as a hardware-store clerk and travel west to join Grandpa.

  Every year or so the two of them would sit and talk about hopping a train and payin’ a visit “back home,” but they never did git around to doin’ it. Now Great-granny was gone and Great-grandpa was left on his own—an old man.

  I wondered what other thoughts were scurryin’ through my grandpa’s mind. A movement beside me made me lift my head. Grandpa reached over and placed his hand on my knee. I was surprised to see tears in his eyes. His voice was a bit husky as he spoke.

  “Boy,” he said, “you and me have another thing in common now—the hurt of havin’ no ma.”

  He gave my knee a squeeze. As the words that he’d jest said sank in, I swallowed hard.

  He started talkin’ then. I had rarely heard my Grandpa talk so much at one time—unless it was a neighbor-visit or a discussion with Uncle Charlie.

  “Funny how many memories come stealin’ back fresh as if they’d jest happened. Haven’t thought on them fer years, but they’re still there fer jest sech a time.”

  He was silent a moment, deep in thought.

  “Yer great-granny weren’t much of a woman far as size goes, but what she lacked in stature she made up for in spunk.” He chuckled. It seemed strange to hear him laugh and see tears layin’ on his tanned and weathered cheeks.

  “I was ’bout five at the time. There was an old tree in a vacant lot near our house, and it was my favorite climbin’ tree. I was up there livin’ in my own world of make-believe when the neighborhood dogs came around and started playin’ around the tree. I didn’t pay ’em any mind until I was hot and thirsty and decided I’d had enough play. I started to crawl down, but a big black mutt I’d never seen before spotted me and wouldn’t let me out of that tree.

  “I yelled and bawled until I was hoarse, but I was too far away to be heard at the house. Mama—” when that one word slipped out so easily I knew that Grandpa was truly back relivin’ the boyhood experience again—“she waited my dinner fer me and fussed that I was late again. But as time went on and I still didn’t come, her worry drove her out lookin’ fer me.

  “When she caught sight of the tree, she spied the mutt –standin’ guard at that tree and figured out jest what was goin’ on. She grabbed a baseball bat lyin’ in a neighbor’s yard and came a-marchin’ down. I can see her yet—that little bit of a woman with her club fairly blazin’, she was so mad! Well, that mutt soon learned that he was no match fer my mama. Never did see that dog again.”

  Grandpa chuckled again.

  “Funny how a woman can be bold as an army when there’s a need fer it, and yet so gentle. Yer great-granny was one of the kindest, gentlest people I ever knew. Jest the touch of her hand brushed the fever from ya. And when she gathered ya into her arms in her old rockin’ chair after she had washed ya all up fer bed, and held ya close against her, and rocked back and forth hummin’ an old hymn and kissin’ yer hair . . .”

  Grandpa stopped and swallowed and another tear slid down his cheek.

  “Shucks,” he said, “I knew that I was too old fer that, but as long as the neighbor kids didn’t catch me at it . . . Funny how loved I felt.”

  “Then one day I knew that I was jest too big to be hugged and rocked anymore—but I missed it, and I think Mama did, too. I often caught that longin’ look in her eye. She’d reach fer me, and I thought that she was goin’ to pull me into her lap again. Then instead, her hand would scoot to my head and she’d tousle my hair and scold me fer my dirty feet or torn overalls.”

  Grandpa had forgotten all about the team that he was supposed to be drivin’, and the horses were takin’ every advantage given them. No horse could have gone any slower and still have been puttin’ one foot in front of the other. Old Bell, who always insisted on havin’ her own way, drew as far to her side of the road—which happened to be the wrong side—as she dared. Every now and then she would reach down and steal a mouthful of grass without really stoppin’ to graze. Nellie didn’t particularly seem to mind goin’ slowly either.

  I watched the horses and glanced back at Grandpa, wondering jest how long he was going to put up with the situation. I think he had even forgotten me.

  He stopped talkin’ but I could tell by the different expressions on his face that his mind was still mullin’ over old memories. Many of them had been happy memories, but they brought sadness now that they were never to be again.

  Suddenly Grandpa roused himself and turned to me.

  “Memories are beautiful things, Boy. When the person that ya loved is gone, when the happy time is over, then ya’ve still got yer memories. Thank God fer this special gift of His that lets ya sorta live yer experiences again and again. S’pose there ain’t no price one would settle on fer the worth of memories.”

  A new thought washed over me, makin’ me feel all at once cheated, frustrated, and angry. I was sure tha
t Grandpa was right. I had never thought about memories much before; but deep down inside me there would sometimes awaken a some-thin’ that seemed groping, looking, reaching out for feelings or answers that were beyond me. It seemed to me now that Grandpa had somehow put his finger on it for me. He had said when he read his letter that he and I shared the loss of our mothers. That was true. But even as he said it I knew somehow there was a difference. As I heard him talk, it suddenly hit me what the difference was; it was the memories—or for me, the lack of them. Grandpa could go on and on about things he recalled from his childhood: his mother’s face, her smile, her smell, her touch. Me, all I had was a great big blank spot—only a name—“You had a mother, Boy, her name was Agatha. Pretty name, Agatha.”

  Sometimes I laid awake at night tryin’ to put a face to that name, but I never could. When I was younger I’d watch the faces of ladies, and when I found one that I liked, I’d pretend that was the way my mother’s face had looked. One time I went for almost two years pretendin’ about the banker’s wife in town; then I realized how foolish I was and made myself stop playin’ the silly game. And now Grandpa sat there thankin’ God for memories.

  A sick feelin’ began to knot up my stomach and I felt a little angry with God. Why did He think it fair to take my parents when I was only a baby and not even leave me with memories like other folks? Wasn’t it bad enough to be a kid without a mom to hug him or a pa to go fishin’ with him?

  I didn’t dare look at Grandpa. I was afraid that he’d look right through me and see the ugly feelings inside. I looked instead at the horses. Old Bell grabbed another mouthful of grass, but this time she made the mistake of stoppin’ to snatch a second bite from the same clump. Nellie sort of jerked the harness because she was still movin’—if you could call it that. Anyway, the whole thing brought Grandpa out of his remembering, and his attention swung back to the horses. He could hardly believe his eyes. He’d never allowed a team such liberties. His hands yanked the slack from the reins, and Bell felt a smack on her round gray rump, which startled her so that she dropped her last mouthful of grass. Soon the team was back on its proper side of the road and hustling along at a trot.