A Hope for Hannah Read Online Free PDF

happened. Instead, she gave way to feelings of a great weariness. Her legs didn’t want to work. She returned to the living room, ignored the mended shirts draped across the back of the couch, sat down, and burst into tears.

Five
     
    Hannah spent the rest of the morning cleaning the kitchen. The immensity of the task was soon evident—not just by the corn and glass pieces stuck to the walls but by the damage from the metal fragments.
    One of the upper cabinet doors was broken, and Jake would have to fix it. After she wiped the others off, she discovered that they were water-stained but seemed to be okay. She figured no one could fix the gash in the ceiling. It will remain there forever as a reminder for all the world to see, she thought despairingly, of the young woman who blew up her pressure cooker.
    As she washed the corn off the walls, she noticed it left little yellow stains behind. Because of that she decided to let it dry out first and then sweep it off the walls with her broom. Hannah glared at the old stove, the handiest thing to blame other than herself. She could find no damage whatsoever to its hardy exterior.
    “You’d live forever, you mean thing,” she told it.
    She didn’t know what to do about the last batch of corn. Hannah no longer had a pressure cooker to work with. To throw the corn away was simply out of the question, and so that left only one course of action.
    Too anxious to feel hunger, even though lunch time had arrived, she hitched their young driving horse, Mosey, to the buggy and left. Food was not important at the moment.
    The drive to Betty’s seemed to take forever. Hannah urged Mosey to move faster, but he protested by swishing his tail back and forth. She slapped the lines again. Mosey increased his speed momentarily and then lapsed back into a slow, steady gait. So this was how he got his name, she thought as she settled back in her seat.
    Finally Hannah saw the sign that read “Horseback Riding,” remembering it from her days when she ran her aunt’s riding stable. As Hannah tied Mosey to the hitching rail, Betty came out of the kitchen door, her work apron around her waist.
    “What’s brought you around at this time of day? My, it’s sure nice weather for this time of the year.”
    The sound of her aunt’s voice pushed Hannah where she didn’t want to go, and the tears threatened again. “I wondered if I could borrow your pressure cooker,” she managed.
    “Why, dear?” Betty asked as she searched Hannah’s face. “You have one yourself. Now don’t you tell me you’re wanting to use two cookers at the same time with that old stove of yours. You’re liable to blow the old thing up working it that hard. Didn’t your mom ever tell you that?”
    The blowing up remark brought the flood of tears. “I already blew up the cooker,” Hannah replied, choking out the words.
    “You blew up the cooker? Oh, my word!” Betty clucked. “Just blew it up? Why? Was the gauge stuck? Surely that’s what it was. Did you check it? You weren’t in the kitchen at the time, were you?”
    “No, I was in the living room. I don’t know what I did,” Hannah said. “I tapped the gauge like usual. It’s an old cooker, of course, but the needle bounced.”
    “Then no one can blame you. Not for a minute!” Betty said, consoling her niece.
    “Now I’ll be known as the girl who blew up her cooker,” Hannah cried. “Mom will think I’m completely careless.”
    “Now, now,” Betty said, still trying to comfort her, although there was now a slight chuckle in her voice.
    “It’s not funny,” Hannah said indignantly.
    “No, I suppose not,” Betty agreed. “But really, you ought to be thankful. You are a girl who can blow up her cooker and yet not have a single scratch or burn. Look on the bright side of things. You’re strong. You survived walking out on your own wedding. But now look at you. Married already and well settled in. You have nothing to worry about. Everything will