Heathersleigh Homecoming (16 page)

“Then I began to laugh!” Marjolaine went on, giggling as she spoke. “And I laughed with pure joy and happiness for several minutes because I realized I was truly
happy
that I was small—physically small, I mean. I would not have traded sizes with anyone. It was my stature that caused me to read in the way I did. It was my shortness that helped me see that bigness of heart and tallness of brain are so much more important. Had I not been tiny, I might never have discovered these things. You cannot imagine how much I now treasure the words ‘In my weakness I am strong.'”

“But that still doesn't tell Amanda how you began our literary evenings,” laughed Sister Hope.

Marjolaine's face fell playfully, and she tried to frown. “I do turn everything into a story, don't I? Shame on me! Then I shall try to finish quickly.

“I have continued to read all my life,” she went on. “Books are so very special to me. Every book I read, every character I meet, I grow and learn from. I love to meet new people in books. They make me think and learn. For you see, I am still trying to grow taller inside, with that part of me that thinks and imagines and dreams and loves. That part of me I hope will keep growing taller and taller to all eternity.

“Naturally I want to share my love for books and characters and growth and getting taller and the imagination of a hundred learned men with my friends. So when I came to the chalet, I asked Sister Hope if I could read a book aloud one evening a week. That was more than ten years ago. Now we do it twice a week, and sometimes in wintertime even more often. I think we have all learned to climb a little higher on our heart-mountains together. Books and stories
and characters help us look inside ourselves. They help us decide the kind of people we want to be, and how tall we want to become.”

She fell silent. Sister Regina now spoke up. “When I first made Malcolm's acquaintance,” she said, “about whom we have recently been reading, you cannot imagine the impact it had on me, just as little Michel Archenbaud did for Sister Marjolaine.”

“In what way?” Amanda asked.

“I wanted to be like him,” Regina replied.

“But he is a man.”

“So was Michel Archenbaud,” said Marjolaine. “But from him I learned about big hearts and tall brains.”

“I want to be like Malcolm in
character
,” Regina added.

“Men of character are equally good role models for women as are women of character,” said Marjolaine.

“Who else do we try to pattern our lives after than the Lord Jesus, the perfect man?” added Gretchen.

Again silence fell. A few yawns went around the room, indicating that the pleasant evening was nearly at its end and that cozy feather beds were calling out to their owners.

“Unless I am mistaken,” said Sister Hope, “the temperature has been falling as we've been sitting here.”

Gretchen leapt up from her chair and ran to the front door. She opened it to the night.

“It's snowing!” she exclaimed.

 25 
Orphaned Kid

Snow did indeed fall through the night, though still not in the huge quantities winter would eventually bring. When Amanda awoke and gazed out her window the following morning, a fresh blanket of three or four inches covered the landscape.

A giddy delight seized her. She jumped out of bed, dressed hurriedly, grabbed her coat, and ran downstairs. She saw no one around, although a fire in the stove was already heating up the kitchen.

Amanda ran outside into the cold morning. The sky was a pale blue. The clouds had passed with the night and the temperature was well below freezing. The sun had not yet made his appearance for the day. But the eastern horizon was bright and he was obviously on his way.

Amanda charged straight into the virgin white, heedless of the cold and her thin boots. She ran recklessly through it, kicking up fresh bursts of powder with her feet, laughing like a child. The spontaneous outburst of giggling enthusiasm, however, proved of short duration. She found both hands and feet frozen within a minute or two. Amanda turned and made a dash back for the house.

She ran inside shivering and laughing all at once.

“Brrr!” she cried. “It's freezing out there!”

“It certainly is,” Sister Marjolaine's voice answered. “Come into the kitchen—it's nice and warm.”

Amanda stomped her feet to shake off the snow, then hurried toward the stove, holding out her hands over it.

“You look like you could use some tea.”

“Y-y-yes,” stammered Amanda with quivering lips. “I don't know w-what I w-was thinking.”

“Snow always does that. You can't help yourself. You weren't even the first one out.”

“I wasn't? I saw nobody.”

“Didn't you notice the footprints across the snow?”

Amanda ran to the window. “You're right,” she cried, “and heading straight for the barn. Sister Galiana, no doubt.”

“There is a mama goat whose time is getting close,” now said Sister Hope, descending the stairs behind her. “If I know Sister Galiana, her first order of business this morning was to check on the mother-to-be.”

Gradually the other sisters came down in ones and twos until all but Sister Galiana were enjoying morning cups of tea and chocolate, while Sister Marjolaine finished setting the breakfast things on the table.

Galiana did not appear until well after the others had finished breakfast. She walked into the house carrying a tiny white kid in her arms, obviously newly born. She had a finger in its mouth, upon which it was sucking violently.

“Oh . . . it's so tiny and cute and cuddly!” erupted a chorus of feminine exclamations.

Galiana had tears in her eyes. At first the others thought they were from happiness. The sisters jumped up from the table and ran toward the door to cluster about and fondle the new arrival.

“And nearly frozen to death,” said Galiana. “Would someone please put a pan of milk on the stove and find one of our feeding bottles.”

Hands and feet scurried to the kitchen in response.

“You look frozen yourself. What happened?” asked Hope.

“I don't know,” replied Galiana. “When I got to the barn to check on this poor little baby's mother, she was gone. I can't imagine how she got out or why. But that loose latch we've been meaning to fix was the culprit. The door was open—”

Gretchen moaned. “Oh no—I'm sorry. It was on my list for today!”

“The goat must have gotten out just after the first of the snow,” Galiana went on. “I could barely see the footprints under the two inches that had fallen since. I searched high and low and just found this little kid about ten minutes ago, buried in the snow, her mother on top of her to give what was left of her body's warmth. I think I reached her just in time.”

“And the mother?” asked Hope.

“The mother is dead,” Galiana replied.

“Oh . . .” went around a few gasps.

“It's my fault for the latch!” Gretchen wailed, her eyes filling with tears.

“You can't blame yourself,” Sister Agatha said. “I have lived in these mountains all my life, and sometimes animals do foolish things.”

“But—”

“What's good for the sparrow is good for the goat,” added Agatha. “God is sovereign over the beasts, and not even latches or barns can change that . . . or sisters with more to do than they can keep up with.”

“I will try to remember. Thank you, Sister Agatha,” Gretchen said.

“The mother goat saved her own kid's life,” said Galiana. “So we must nurse this little one to health.”

“She will now depend on us,” said Hope, bringing a bottle with cold milk until that on the stove was warm. “We shall do our best to care for it and feed it,” she added, then gently stuck the nipple into the tiny mouth. Galiana pulled out her finger. “Of course we can never replace her parents,” Hope added, “but we will do our best.”

“Maybe you will even do better,” said Amanda innocently.

Sister Hope cast her a look of question. “What can you possibly mean?” she asked.

“You'll feed her and keep her warm and protect her, just like when you found me all alone and took me in.”

“You are hardly an orphan.”

“But you are all loving me in ways my own parents didn't,” Amanda replied. “So maybe it's for the best. I know I feel more love here than I did at home. Maybe the baby goat will too.”

Sister Hope spun around. Her face was red. Her eyes flashed with fire.

“Don't you ever consider us a replacement for the greatest gift God has given you!” she said sternly.

Amanda scarcely recognized Hope's voice.

“I only said—”

“I heard what you said well enough, Amanda! I will not—”

Suddenly Sister Hope caught herself. She paused abruptly.

Every sister's eye was riveted on their mentor and older sister with astonishment at the outburst. Hope glanced from one to the other, around the room, speechless, suddenly realizing what she had done. Then just as suddenly she turned and hurried from the room.

“What did I do?” said Amanda. “I meant to say something good.”

“You hit a little close to home,” said Gretchen. “Certain things are very precious to Sister Hope's heart, and parents are the most precious of all. It is the greatest shame she can feel to be told she is providing something for another that they ought instead to be getting from their mother and father.”

“I meant nothing by it.”

“Perhaps there was more in your words than you realize, Amanda. There have been those whom Sister Hope has asked to leave the chalet for just that reason. She wants one's time here to be healing in the right way, not a replacement for home.”

“But why would she send them away?” asked Amanda.

“She sent them back to their parents.”

“I have only seen her eyes flash like that once before in all the years I have known her,” said Marjolaine.

“What caused it?” asked Luane, who had never seen such an outburst during her brief stay at the chalet.

“We had a young lady with us,” answered Marjolaine, “probably in her early twenties. It appeared she was going to remain for some time. One day she said to Sister Hope, ‘My mother and I were not close. I could never feel as comfortable with her as I feel here. I don't even think my mother is a Christian. Would it be all right if I called you
Mother
while I am here?'”

“I remember the day well,” Gretchen nodded.

“How did she answer?” asked Luane.

“Her eyes and face lit into the closest thing to rage I have ever seen,” replied Marjolaine.

“Righteous indignation, I would call it,” Gretchen added.

“‘How dare you even think such a thing!' she cried at the unsuspecting girl,” Marjolaine continued. “‘You have been given the most precious gift in all the world, whether or not your mother is a Christian. I will not have you cast that gift in the swine-pit of your youthful blindness. I would
never
usurp that most priceless of all relationships in the world.'

“The girl stood stunned. Yet in a way it was her own fault, wouldn't you say, Sister Gretchen? We had all spoken to her many times about her attitude toward her mother. But her heart was closed. She simply wouldn't listen.”

“I take it,” Luane asked, “that she did not remain long?”

“‘I want you down the mountain and on a train home by tomorrow, young lady,' Sister Hope said to her after she had calmed down. ‘I want you to go home and beg your mother's forgiveness for your ungodly attitude toward her.'”

“What happened?” Amanda now asked.

“The young lady left. We never heard from her again,” Gretchen replied. “Not everyone appreciates Sister Hope's bluntness at times, or is able to see the love that prompts it.”

Ten minutes later Hope's soft footsteps could be heard descending the stairs. She came back into the room and approached Amanda. Her face and eyes were red with remorse and weeping.

“Amanda dear,” she said, taking Amanda in her arms. “I am
so
sorry! I should not have been so harsh. Please forgive me.”

She sat down at the table and poured herself a cup of tea.

“Do you remember when our conversation was diverted in other channels when we were walking back from Grindelwald?”

Amanda nodded.

“Perhaps now would be an appropriate time for me to tell you the rest of my own story. Certainly not to excuse my outburst—I would not do that. But what I have to say may at least in part explain it.”

The other sisters remained seated around the large table. Sister Galiana, still holding the kid, walked into the spacious room and took a seat in front of the fireplace. Sister Anika followed her and replaced the first bottle of milk with a new warm one, then returned to the table.

When everyone was situated comfortably, Sister Hope began.