A Hope for Hannah Read Online Free PDF Page B

be just fine, but I suppose you need help cleaning up?”
    “No. I’m already done.” Hannah said, wiping a tear.
    “So you need a cooker, and I’m canning myself.” Betty got back to business.
    “Oh,” Hannah was quick to say, “I didn’t know. I can ask Elizabeth. Maybe I can borrow hers.”
    “That’s farther in the other direction,” Betty said. “I couldn’t let you do that. Now, wait a minute. I believe my old cooker is still in the basement.”
    “Your old one?” The horror crept into Hannah’s voice.
    Betty laughed again. “Don’t worry. This one won’t blow. It’s been faithful for all these years. The only reason I got a new one was so I’d have two at the same time. Today, though, I’m only using the one.”
    “Are you sure?” Hannah wasn’t entirely convinced.
    “You can’t blow two in one day,” Betty assured her.
    To which Hannah said, her voice sarcastic, “Ha. To me anything could happen right now. At least it feels that way. There was a grizzly at our place last night. Mr. Brunson came down this morning. The grizzly got his pig.”
    “My, my, you are having your troubles. Bears aren’t such a big thing around here, though, especially on the main roads. They usually don’t bother people, but it does happen. This is Montana, after all. You’ll get used to it. If it bothers you too much, the game warden will probably have the bear moved.”
    “That’s what Jake and Mr. Brunson want to look into.”
    “See there? It’ll be okay. Now the cooker. Just give me a minute, and I’ll dig it out of the basement.”
    Hannah waited by the buggy, and Betty soon came back as promised and placed the cooker behind the buggy seat.
    “I’ll bring the cooker back as soon as I can,” Hannah said as she climbed into the buggy. Mosey wearily lifted his head to look back at her as if checking to see if he needed to move again.
    “Don’t worry,” Betty said. “Keep it till you’re done. I’ll only need one for the rest of the season.”
    “Maybe Jake can buy me a new one.”
    “That might be a good idea,” Betty said with a chuckle and stepped back as Hannah convinced Mosey to move with a shake of the lines.
    On the way home, Hannah wondered if she should have told her aunt about the baby. But no, she couldn’t bear the thought of telling Betty before she told her own mother. If it ever got back to her mother, knowing she wasn’t the first to know might hurt her feelings.

     
    Jake found Hannah in tears that evening when he came into the house swinging his lunch pail in his hand. Hannah was still at work in the kitchen, lifting the last of the canned corn from Betty’s used cooker. As she told Jake about her day and showed him the damaged ceiling and cabinet doors, he expressed surprise that she had also managed to prepare a small casserole for their supper.
    “You shouldn’t have made supper with all that going on,” he told her.
    “Then what would we have eaten? You have to eat. I can’t let you starve. What kind of wife would I be?”
    “Still a very good one,” he assured her. “Now, what needs to be done around here? It looks like you’ve cleaned up already. Let me take the cooker out and dump the water.”
    “It can go down the drain,” Hannah said. “The corn husks still need to be picked up. They’re in the yard, and now it’s almost dark. It can wait.”
    “No, I can still do it,” he said as he lifted the warm cooker from the stove and carefully poured the hot water down the drain.
    “Do you think I’m an awful cook?” she asked hesitantly. “I just blew up my kitchen.”
    “Of course not,” he said without even a pause. Hannah noticed and loved him for that statement. “Grandma Byler blew hers up years ago,” he continued, “and got some nasty burns. We can be real thankful nothing liked that happened to you. What if you had been in the kitchen?” She was certain his eyes were full of genuine concern. “It does happen. Grandma has been a