When Love Calls Read Online Free PDF

roses and ridiculous.”
    “So we can take Momma’s roses?”
    Hannah drew in a long breath. The roses probably wouldn’t survive, and digging them up would take time they needed to finish packing, but surely they could squeeze in a few bushes.
    “Dig up three of them. No more. That way we can each have a bush in our own homes someday.”
    “Got it!” Beaming, Tessa headed for the door.
    The screen door banged shut, and Charlotte frowned. “You know we don’t need those flowers.”
    “ We don’t, but Tessa does.”
    Charlotte pushed the filled crate of dishes to the center of the table. “Maybe you’re right. This is hard on her.”
    “It’s hard on all of us.”
    Hannah laid her hand on a stack of books. She and her mother had read and discussed nearly every one, and each represented a treasured moment in time. But they couldn’t take all the tomes. Pots and pans they would need, and rosebushes they could squeeze in, but cases of books? Where would they possibly go in the little house?
    She picked up a volume of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s The Song of Hiawatha and traced the gold swirls on the moss-green hardbound cover. It transported her to the day her parents had given her the book—her sixteenth birthday. She opened the front page and found her mother’s familiar script.
    You’re a young woman now, and I pray daily that God is preparing a man for you like he prepared your father for me. Remember, nobility knows no race or station. Always judge a man by his heart and actions.
    She closed the book and slipped it beside the cake plate in Charlotte’s box. This little book she’d take.
    Charlotte picked up a different volume. “Aren’t you taking them all?”
    “No, we won’t have room.”
    “I’m sorry, Hannah. I know how much they mean to you.”
    Hannah caressed the pebbled surface of one of the larger tomes, then pulled her hand away. “I’m going to go hook up the wagon.” She lifted her cape from a peg by the back door. “Let’s be ready to load in an hour.”
    Outside, the April dawn had given way to morning. Her gaze swept the farm. Today she’d be saying goodbye to all of it. If only she could keep the image of the barn door, hanging cockeyed on its broken hinge, etched in her memory forever. And what about the spreading oak tree where Tessa had once broken her arm, or the cluster of daffodils sitting at the base of the windmill that made the perfect bouquet on their Easter table? How would she remember them?
    She swiped the chilled tears from her cheek with the back of her hand before tugging open the barn door. This was no time for nostalgia. She needed to focus on what needed to be done. Her sisters were counting on her.
    After she hitched the wagon to the sweet-tempered plow horses, she led them to the front of the house. Her sisters came outside to join her, and she explained they needed to put the largest items in first. “Let’s start with the chiffonier in your bedroom, Charlotte. If we take out the five drawers, it should be lighter to move.”
    “It’s still not going to be easy to get it down the stairs.” Tessa held the door for her sisters to enter.
    Hannah climbed the staircase. “Since when did difficulty stop any of us?”

    “Easy, now. One more step.” Hannah and her sisters lowered the dresser onto the floor at the bottom of the staircase. Pressing herhands to the small of her back, she sighed. At their current rate, they might be packed by Christmas. She glanced at the chiffonier. There had to be an easier way.
    “I’ve got an idea.” Hannah tapped her finger against her lips, then hiked up her skirt and climbed into the hollowed-out dresser. Once inside, she stood and lifted the dresser as if she were carrying a large box.
    “You look like you’re a turtle.” Charlotte hurried to open the door as Hannah waddled toward it beneath her shell.
    With the wagon backed up to the porch, all she had to do was walk directly into the bed of the wagon.