Within the Candle's Glow Read Online Free PDF Page B

no
certain look
in my eye. She’s too young and shouldn’t have to walk home when I’m right there.”
    “Son, I’m older than your mother, by eleven years.”
    “I have my thoughts set on a girl more my age.”
    “Who, Sophie Wald? The girl with her nose in the clouds? She’s chased you for years. I feel, if you
was
interested—you’d have married her ‘fore now. Did you ask her to the picnic?”
    Samuel didn’t hear Jim’s reply. He hurried to the barn and got the tan puppy he claimed for Ella Dessa. He tucked it under his chin and petted its head and back. The contented pup snuggled in for a nap, unmindful a human cuddled it and not its mother.
    “Papa’s right.” His breath stirred the fuzzy coat. He touched his lips to the animal’s head and smiled. The scent of hay surrounded it. “I must have that look in my eye, ‘cause I feel a whole lot of something in my heart, and it isn’t
willing
to stay there much longer.”
    #
    That evening, Ella couldn’t shake her worries about Miles Kilbride. After the evening meal with Velma and the six children, she slipped to the loft and went to her private corner of the crowded space. Velma’s daughters, Carrie, Mae, and Rosemary shared the loft with her, while the boys, Scott and Remy, slept along one wall below the loft. There wasn’t much space for privacy within the confines of the old cabin, and Velma had the only real bed, wedged into a corner of the cabin’s one room, along with a tiny pallet for Adam.
    She sat with her legs crossed and opened a miniature wooden trunk she kept tucked under the tight slope of the roof. She drew out a handsome carved box and her mama’s precious worn Bible. Her fingers traced the rose chiseled into the cover of the box. She knew whose hands and artistic talent had created the unique and true-to-life design—a man named
Miles Kilbride
.
    Memories of her mama flashed like bright scenes in her mind as she unlatched the cedar-scented box and fingered the few items. Mama’s hairpins, six of them, carved out of oak and polished to silky smoothness, felt cool to her touch. Ella sometimes wore them. Most of the time, the fear of losing them caused her to store them in the box.
    She lifted a folded piece of yellowed paper, smoothed its creases,and laid it flat in her lap. The faded ink was still visible. She whispered words written to her mama before Ella’s own birth.
    “Dearest Meara, my friend, Logan, promised to deliver this missive to you this evening. I cannot slip away. I have the night watch over the new mining equipment. We leave in one week for North Carolina. Logan laughs at a teacher working in a questionable gold mine, but it is what I must do, right now.
    “With every fiber of my being, I yearn to have you as my wife. There will never be another woman who will fulfill what I am as a man. Tomorrow, I am coming to ask for your hand in marriage. Parson Wheedon said he could marry us on Saturday.
    “I will bring the hairpins to you. I have finished the carving on the box. It is my wedding gift to you, along with what is stored inside it. Keep it safe. It is our future.
    “I have to know you are my wife before I leave. It will be my last trip. I promise. I just need to fulfill my obligations with Barringer, the mine owner. I dislike the lack of restraint showed by all when just flakes of gold are discovered. I will not waste my life on the love of gold. God’s gift of art and teaching anoints my talents.
    “When I return, I will take what I have placed in your hand for safekeeping and buy a piece of land for us. There, I will build you a wonderful home and dig wild roses to plant around it. I will hide it from all eyes, so we can cling to one another. We’ll be concealed from the world. The scent of the roses will not surpass the way you take my breath away. I will go back to teaching, and you will lovingly nurture our children. Yours forever and ever, Miles Kilbride.”
    Over four years ago, after discovering the