Winter Is Not Forever Read Online Free PDF Page B

worse.”
    Arthritis! Worse! How come I’d never noticed it before? “How long—how long has he been this way?” I found myself asking.
    “He’s had arthritis some for years,” Grandpa responded. “But he has his good days and his bad days. Folks say the weather. It’s steadily getting worse, though. It’s really into his hands bad now. Used to just be in his knees and his back.”
    There wasn’t much that I could say, so I let Grandpa go. “See you in the morning,” I muttered and turned to my bedroom.
    I lay awake a long time that night—thinking of more than our new Sarah Jane. I thought a great deal about Uncle Charlie. It scared me, this arthritis. Already it had made him into an old man. It had happened so gradually that I had missed it.
    But not now. Now it was obvious. Uncle Charlie was not a complainer, but it was easy to see that even small tasks were hard for him to accomplish. And how could he ever farm?
    I fought for sleep, both to escape my uneasy thoughts and because I knew I would need it. Grandpa had said that we would leave for town just as soon as we could finish up the chores the next morning, and I knew without asking that Grandpa would start those chores a little earlier than usual.
    Even so, it was a long time until I could lay aside my excitement—and my worry—and let sleep claim me.

C HAPTER 5

    Graduation
    I T TOOK SEVERAL DAYS for things to fall back into a normal routine. Grandpa and Uncle Charlie visited the parsonage with far more frequency than usual. I think they were a little afraid that young Sarah Jane might grow up when they weren’t looking. Anyway, they came in often to check on her.
    Sarah Jane greatly changed the procedures of the household. Aunt Lou didn’t seem to get as much baking done as she used to, and both Uncle Nat and I found ourselves helping around the house more. That baby was either hungry or wet every five minutes.
    She was a good little tyke, though. Lou kept telling Uncle Nat and me over and over what a good baby she was, and I was quite willing to take Aunt Lou’s word for it. She certainly did a great deal of sleeping. Whenever I brought one of my friends in for a peek at her, she was either sleeping or eating, it seemed to me, and neither one worked too well for showing her off.
    She very quickly lost her redness and her wrinkles, and soon she had a soft, pinkish look and a little round head capped with dark downy hair. She opened her eyes more, too; often she would lie in my arms and look at my face as if she knew just who I was and how I fit into her life. I loved it when she looked at me that way; if no one was close enough to hear, I’d talk to her and tell her things about myself so that she really would know me. We all adored her—after all, we all loved Lou, and had waited for this special baby for a long time.
    I expected that now it would be even harder to study, and in some ways it was. But suddenly it became very important for me to get good grades as I left the school system and went out into the world. I wouldn’t have admitted it to a soul, but I didn’t want Sarah to ever have reason to be ashamed of me. So I pitched into those textbooks like I’d never done in my whole life—and it worked, too. I ended up with the best set of marks I had ever gotten.
    Willie dropped by now and then. Sometimes we studied together, and we played with Sarah, but mostly we just took a break from our books and talked. One Thursday afternoon he tapped on my window, and I could tell just by looking that he was really excited about something. I pushed back my Advanced Speller and opened the window.
    “Is Sarah sleepin’?” Willie asked.
    I nodded.
    “Then come out.” Willie didn’t want to take any chances on his excitement waking the baby.
    I eased the window back down quietly and headed for the back door.
    “What is it?” I asked as soon as I was clear of the kitchen.
    “Mary,” beamed Willie. “She became a Christian.”
    Now I knew why