A Wedding Quilt for Ella Read Online Free PDF

don’t quit your wild imaginations soon, you’ll be in for a big disappointment.”
    He laughed beside her in the darkness, and she knew he wasn’t persuaded. And she loved him even more for it.
    Behind her Ella heard the bedroom door opened, and Mamm appeared. “Are you okay?” she asked.
    “Yah,” she said. “I loved him, Mamm. I loved him so very much.”
    “I know.” Mamm wrapped her arms around her daughter for a long time. Then she released her hug and left quietly Ella resumed her pacing and remembering and then the questions. How could God do this to me? How could He place such a love in my heart and then allow it to be torn out with such brute force? How could such a God be trusted again?
    Yet she could not go on with such thoughts. It was forbidden. Surely it was her lack of understanding Da Hah’s ways. Was that not the real problem? Yet how could one understand with such pain throbbing in the heart, with such agony tearing at the soul, and with tears pouring out like water from a fountain?
    Ella walked the floor and tore open the curtains, nearly bringing them down off the hooks on the wall. I will ask my questions. I will ask why. Let the heavens say what they wish. Let faith lock the door, but I will walk through it anyway.
    Her eyes searched the heavens, studied the stars—those very stars she and Aden had shared. Do they know the answer? She waited but was greeted only with silence, with mockery, as if they laughed at her distress and promised her nothing with their stony silence. She was truly alone and forsaken in life.

Five
     
    T he next morning Daett softly called to the younger girls from the bottom of the stairs. Clara and Dora both stirred in their beds. Clara reluctantly swung her feet to the floor, and Dora lit the kerosene lamp, its shadows dancing wildly on the walls. Clara reached for her dress, which was beside the bed, and dressed quickly.
    “We’re one person short this morning,” Dora whispered. “Ella will not be with us.”
    “I know,” Clara grunted. “I thought of that last night.” How would all the morning work be handled? Much of last evening had been spent in stunned silence in the living room. When bedtime came, the children had been bidden goodnight with strict instructions to be quiet and not bother Ella.
    But as they crept past Ella’s door, the children could all hear Ella’s muffled sobs. How strange and confusing it all was. The world had simply turned upside down. Death had always been a distant thing, seen only when they walked past wooden boxes at funerals. Now it had arrived in their home and to their Ella, of all people, sweet self-sacrificing Ella.
    Daett had led the family in a Scripture reading before they went to bed. His hands held the huge family Bible as he spoke the words in somber tones, “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.”
    He had read in English. That just made things all the stranger. The Scriptures were never read in English. Never. Clara had stared at her dad, but he simply closed the big Bible and said, “Everyone, off to bed. We all have a hard day ahead of us tomorrow.” And they had tiptoed upstairs and climbed into their bedrooms.
    The new day loomed before them all. Dora took the kerosene lamp and quietly stepped into the hall with Clara behind her. As they went by Ella’s door, it opened suddenly, and there was Ella, still in her dress from last night, looking worn. Her face was red and puffy, and her eyes looked sad and lonely. The light from the kerosene lamp in Dora’s hand splashed shadows on Ella’s face.
    “Is it time to chore?” Ella asked in a bare whisper.
    “You’re