Our Daily Bread Read Online Free PDF Page B

a woman in here alone and you need to be careful.” Mabel folded her arms over her substantial bosom. “I don’t know why you even keep this place. You sure don’t need the money.”
    â€œI appreciate your concern, Mabel. I’ll be sure to be vigilant.” She sighed. “Remember when we used to leave all our doors unlocked?”
    â€œTimes change. You just can’t be too careful. It’s dangerous times before the end.”
    â€œI refuse to live my life in a prison of fear,” said Dorothy.
    â€œFine. Don’t say I didn’t warn you. Just lock your doors, will you?” She flapped her umbrella again and as she left, said over her shoulder, “It’s going to get worse before it gets better. You heard what Reverend Hickland said at church, Dot. You can’t ignore the signs.”
    â€œYou and I will just have to differ on this point, I’m afraid.”
    â€œI was so happy when you came to church.” Her voice was petulant now, disappointed as a child. “I’m very fond of you. I don’t want to see you left behind.”
    â€œIt was lovely of you to ask me. Really it was. And I do appreciate it. You’ve all done wonders with the new church.”
    â€œI hope you’ll come back this Sunday.”
    â€œHope springs eternal, but I fear I must insist on being left behind.” Dorothy couldn’t entirely repress a grin.
    â€œI don’t know why I bother. I really don’t.”
    â€œNeither do I, dear.”
    â€œI’ll pray for you,” said Mabel as she left.
    â€œWe can all use more prayers,” said Dorothy to the closed door.
    Dorothy’s coffee was cold now. She might as well make herself a grilled cheese sandwich, she thought, and headed back to the little kitchen, grumbling under her breath. Mabel McQuaid. Surely people should be made to understand that most everything was none of their business.
    She wished William was still with her. He had always listened so well. But William was gone, wasn’t he? When he died, she’d felt the grief and loss of her companion, her confidant—indeed her very heart—fiercely and fully, and for the first six months she couldn’t bear being in the store, and so she kept it closed. Then she began to go in three days a week, and sometime around month eight she found herself humming along to a song on the radio, which made her cry a little, but she knew she would be all right. She also knew she would live the rest of her life alone, and the thought, rather than being disturbing, was deeply comforting. She still felt William was with her, in some way, as though he were simply in the next room. A stack of good books, good coffee and her little store were all she needed. Dorothy would be snug and content in her shop, surrounded by bits of people’s history, the discarded things she had rescued and restored. Burnished wood, sparkling glass, gleaming porcelain, the smell of polish and beeswax candles.
    And so this afternoon passed—grilled cheese and coffee and
Silas
Marner.
Around four, the wind rattled the door and she looked up again, frowning, but it was no one. Just the little Evans girl, Ivy, walking in the determined way she had, head down into the wind, gait longer than seemed possible, given the length of her legs. She looked over her shoulder once, quickly, and Dorothy was struck by her unhappy expression. The voices of other children skittered on the wind, but Dorothy couldn’t make out the words. Ah well, none of her business.

Chapter Four
    Do you then expect that your mother would be glad to see you—that she would spread her mantle over you and take you up to heaven? Oh, if she were told that you were at the gate, she would hasten down to say, “O my sinning child, you cannot enter heaven. Into this holy place, nothing can by any means enter that
“worketh abomination or maketh a lie.”
    You cannot—no, you