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The house was silent except for the steady ticking of the mantel clock. Four soft chimes echoed through the darkness. Mary stirred. She reached across the bed. Empty. She opened her eyes and smiled to herself. "Jake." Pulling on her robe, she quietly walked down the hallway. A faint yellow glow spilled beneath the kitchen doorway. She stepped inside.
Jake sat alone at the dining table, shoulders bent, a pencil resting between his fingers. The table looked as though a small blizzard had blown through the room. Crumpled sheets of paper covered nearly every corner. One page had only two sentences. Another had a paragraph crossed out so heavily it was almost black. Several pencils lay scattered beside an empty coffee cup. Jake looked up and managed a tired smile. "I didn't mean to wake you."
Mary glanced toward the clock. "Jake Harmon...it's four o'clock."
"I know."
"You came in from the porch about eight." He nodded. "You were still writing when I went to bed."
"I reckon I was."
"And you've been here ever since?"
He rubbed his eyes. "I guess I have."
Mary pulled out the chair beside him. She picked up one crumpled page. "'Dear Jim...'" The rest had been scratched out. Another page. "'Dear Brother...'" Scratched out again. A third. "'I've been thinking about your letter...'" Crossed out.
She looked at him gently. "You've written half a forest."
Jake gave a weary chuckle. "Most of it deserved to stay trees."
Mary reached over and laid her hand upon his. "What's wrong?"
Jake stared at the pencil. "I know what needs saying." She waited. "I just don't know how to say it." For several moments neither spoke. Outside, the first meadowlarks had begun to sing into the darkness.
Looking again at what he just wrote, he shook his head, crumpled another page, and tossed it on the table. "I keep seeing him." Mary knew exactly who he meant. "He was seven when I left." His voice had become quiet. "Seven years old...walking behind a plow about as long as he was tall. Dad was up repairing the roof again." A faint smile crossed Jake's face. "Jim always wanted to help." Mary had heard the stories many times, but this morning they seemed different.
"I came home from the war," Jake continued, "and he was already nearly grown. He never complained. He simply worked."
Jake stared toward the window. "When Pa died...Jim just kept farming." "When Ma passed two years later..." His voice caught. "I was already out West. I gave him my share."
Mary squeezed his hand. "You never regretted it."
"Never. He earned every acre." Jake read part of Jim’s letter once more, "I thought everything would be all right." He shook his head. "Three years without rain. Martha sick. The children sick. Loans piling up. Sold the farm. The bank took most everything" He looked down at the final page and said, “But you know, Mary, the worst part isn't the farm."
Mary nodded. "I know."
Jake quietly read one sentence from Jim’s letter, “Maybe the Lord has forgotten us." The words hung in the room. "I've read that sentence a hundred times tonight." He swallowed. "I can't get past it."
Mary rested her head lightly against his shoulder. "Neither could I." For several moments the only sound was the ticking clock. Then Mary smiled. "Do you remember last night on the porch when we talked about Jim."
Jake smiled. "I remember."
"Well, I remember before that, several months ago now, on that wagon ride home from Sattlers’ barn dance,” she smiled, “before we got back to the ranch and before you surprised me and asked me to marry you..." she laughed again softly, "...you said you’d like to buy and own your ranch someday. That you had saved your money. I was heart-broken, wanted to cry, thought you were leaving the ranch… and me."
“You did? I didn’t know how to ask you to marry me. I’d start to ask and then start again. I just couldn’t find the right words. I worried you might say, ‘No,’ or… ‘I will never leave Caldwell and this ranch.’ I finally got up the nerve on the porch swing and just asked. Then you surprised me!” Laughing, he went on, “It’s funny now, how you seriously told me I’d need to ask your dad, and that scared me! Then I learned that Caldwell was your dad!”
“I was disappointed in the wagon ride, but I was thrilled when you asked me!” Smiling, she went on, “Dad and I often talked about my marrying you. We didn’t want anyone to marry me just to get a ranch. I knew we could stay here on this ranch and have our own home, and here we are,” smiling, she continued, “both of us still working together on this ranch.”
"And we decided last night that..." Jake finished the sentence "that maybe the Circle J that I wanted to buy for us wasn't meant for us."
Mary nodded. "Maybe it was meant for Jim." Jake looked at her. She continued quietly. "Not as charity. As hope. He knows farming."
"He loves farming."
"Well,” Mary squeezed Jake’s hand, he simply needs another beginning.”
Jake stared at the scribbled sheet before him. "I've been trying to preach him back to faith."
Mary smiled. "You don't need to."
He looked puzzled. "No?"
She shook her head. "Show him." Jake blinked. Mary continued, "Tell him Christ hasn't forgotten him. Then prove it."
Those simple words seemed to lift something from Jake's shoulders. He reached for a clean sheet of paper. This time he did not hesitate. His pencil moved steadily across the page. Mary watched quietly as line after line appeared. After several minutes Jake paused. "I think this will do."
Mary slowly read:
Jim, I cannot explain every hard providence the Lord allows, and I won't pretend I can. But I do know this. Christ has not forgotten you, Martha, or those little ones. If He closes one gate, He often opens another farther down the trail. Mary and I have been praying, and we would count it a blessing if you would come west. There is a ranch beside ours called the Circle J. We hope to buy it and let you farm it as your own home. Pay us only when you can, and if the Lord prospers you, one day it can truly become yours. Until then, remember this: you are not carrying this burden alone.
Mary quietly wiped away a tear. "I believe," she whispered, "your brother needs exactly those words."
Jake nodded. "I think..." He looked at the page. "...I finally quit trying to write what sounded right."
"You wrote what was true from your heart." Mary leaned over and kissed his cheek.
Outside, the eastern sky had begun turning gold. Jake folded the finished page, put it neatly into an envelope, and safely tucked it into his pocket.
He glanced toward the clock. "Mercy."
Mary laughed. "You've got thirty minutes before your cookhouse meeting."
Jake stood, stretched his stiff back, and smiled for the first time in hours. "I reckon I'd better go tell the hands what needs doing."
Mary picked up one of the crumpled pages from the floor. "What about these?"
Jake grinned. "They remind me of something."
"What's that?"
"They’ll make good kindling, and sometimes the Lord has to throw away a whole lot of our words... before He teaches us how to speak what’s needed."
Together they gathered the scattered papers as the morning sun slipped through the kitchen window, bringing with it not only a new day, but the first rays of hope for a family a thousand miles away in Pennsylvania.