Shelter of Providence

Abraham Hammond called his son into the library. He’d been watching the pasture and noticing his William the Conqueror’s behavior.

“Elijah, I fear a storm is brewing. Bring in the stock and draft horses,” he said as his son entered the room.

“Yes, Father.”

Elijah turned and walked from the room, his shepherd dog on his heels. He grabbed his jacket and headed across the yard for the barn. Hopping over the gate, he saw the sky darkening to the west, portending rain. As the thunder started rolling outside, Elijah could see the storm advancing beyond the road. He went to check the stalls one more time before heading into the house.

***

Ethel Johnson pulled back on the reins of Charger, their horse. He was spirited, but he was also as skittish a horse as she’d ever seen. Thunder and lightning were the absolute worst. Even off in the distance, the rumbling thunder had set the horse off, and he’d begun to run out of control.

She had finally slowed him back down, but she feared they’d missed the turnoff for Gallipolis. Ethel and her sister Rachael were headed home after visiting relatives in Chillicothe. They had hoped to make the trek in one long day, but that was looking increasingly unlikely.

“A barn, over there,” Rachael said, spying it across the field.

“I don’t know, Rachael. Wouldn’t it be rude to barge in?”

“Probably less rude than them having to mend us when Charger flings us off the road as he bolts in fear.”

Ethel laughed. Her little sister was always headstrong. Better to seek forgiveness than permission seemed to be her mantra. “Fine,” she replied, pulling the reins and turning the horse up the narrow lane toward the house and barn.

“Let me off at the house and I’ll inquire about the use of the barn,” Rachael said as they closed the distance to the farmhouse.

Both young women felt the drops as they saw the flash, the explosion of thunder coming at almost the same time. The horse veered slightly to the right and made straight for the open door of the barn at a full gallop. A moment later, rain just beginning to pelt them, the shay swept through the door, skidding to a halt in the middle of the barn.

Rachael jumped from the two-wheeled carriage to try to calm the horse again, while her sister held back the reins, barely in control of the horse.

“Are you ok?” came a voice from behind her, a young man emerging from the shadows deeper in the barn. He was wiping his hands on a cloth he hastily shoved back in his pocket.

“Yes, thank the Lord. Please pardon our intrusion. The horse became skittish with the thunder,” Rachael said, her eyes adjusting to the light in the barn. Before her stood a young man close to her own age. He was trim and tall, a close-cropped beard and hair in a ponytail. It was obvious he’d been working in the barn.

“Truth be told, I nearly jumped from my own skin when that last bolt hit the ground. I wouldn’t be shocked if it hit the Franklin rod on the barn above us. You’re welcome here,” he said as he reached out to help untether to the horse from the small carriage.

“My sister and I appreciate your hospitality, kind sir,” Ethel said, climbing down from the light two-wheeled carriage. “We were headed back to Gallipolis from Chillicothe when the storm blew up.”

“My name is Elijah Hammond. You’re welcome to stay as long as you like,” he said, seeing the rain fall in sheets outside the barn. “Perhaps we can take a tarp and make out way to the house when the rain slacks. You might enjoy tea and cakes.”

“You are too kind, Mr. Hammond,” Rachael said, her gaze lingering on the young man’s eyes for a moment before she demurred and looked down. “I’m Rachael Johnson, and this is my sister Ethel.”

***

Ethel insisted on helping Sarah, Elijah’s mother, with the dishes after dinner had been completed, while Rachael went with Elijah to the barn to check on Charger. The younger sister had been entranced by the young man all through dinner and found herself wanting to tarry in the barn, alone with him, rather than going back into the house.

Propriety dictated otherwise, though, so she slipped her arm in his for the slow walk back as they continued their conversation. His parents had been terribly accommodating. They had offered up guest rooms for Rachael and Ethel, and Elijah had been quick to make sure all their other needs were met as they spent the night, making ready to leave in the morning.

“Miss Johnson,” Elijah said as they stood on the front porch, “I hope it isn’t impertinent to ask, but I feel as if Providence has cast us together. Might I be able to call upon you after you return to Gallipolis?”

“Mr. Hammond, I would be delighted. It would be my honor to return, in some small measure, the hospitality you have showered upon my sister and I,” she responded, before she leaned in and gently brushed her lips against his cheek.

***

A couple weeks later, Elijah found himself standing at the front door of the Johnson home in Gallipolis. It was a proud home, standing on First Avenue, overlooking the Ohio River. Rachael’s father was a well-known merchant in the river town.

“Mr. Hammond,” Ethel said, answering the door, “how delightful to see you again. I assume you are here to call on my sister?”

“Yes, ma’am, Miss Johnson. Is she about?”

“Do come in. I’m sure our parents would love to meet you. She’s at the library but will be home any time.”

She ushered him into the house and led him to the sitting room. As he walked into the formal space, he was met by Rachael and Ethel’s father. He took the younger man’s hand and swallowed it up in his own. William Johnson was an imposing man. He was the size of a door, nearly as tall and just as wide, with a personality to match, loud, boisterous and comfortable.

“Welcome, my boy,” he said, his voice a booming baritone. “I’ve heard how generous you and your family were to my daughters. Thank you.”

“Yes, sir. We were just being neighborly.”

Rachael slipped into the room behind Elijah, out of his sight, but well within the sight of her father.

“So, am I to understand you are calling upon my little Rachael?” William asked.

Elijah explained how he wanted to court her. He’d been entranced by both her beauty and her intellect. She stood behind him, beaming with joy at the praise from the young man with whom she had been equally enamored. Her father graced her with a wink and his easy smile.

He couldn’t have known, but there had been several young men of prominent families, not only locally, but also up and down the river… even as far away as Cincinnati… that had sought to woo her. None had captured her interest. But from the first moment she saw Elijah, as he stepped from the shadows of the barn, into the light, she knew that she wanted to know more about him. Sitting with him and talking by candlelight in his family home, spending half the night talking about philosophy and literature, she had decided that he could be the man she wanted to marry.

***

“I had a long talk with your father the last time I visited,” Elijah said. He had made several visited to Gallipolis, and she had made a couple to his family farm over the preceding year. “I don’t have the means some of your other suitors have, Rachael.”

“Elijah Hammond, do you think I care?” she replied. The two were sitting on a bench he had built, a lantern hanging nearby in the doorway of the barn. She pulled his arm over her shoulders and leaned into him. “You haven’t been out of my heart or my mind since the moment we met. I knew in an instant that you were different.”

“Last month, I asked your father if I could have your hand,” Elijah said, slipping onto the floor of the old barn, kneeling in front of her. Her took her hands in his, “and he told me that I could if you would have me.”

Rachael started to feel herself tearing up. She hadn’t realized how much she had wanted to hear him say what he was getting ready to say.

“Rachael,” he looked into her eyes, searching her soul, “will you do me the honor of being my bride?”

Rachael launched from the bench, landing on top of him, her body stretched out along his. She kissed him passionately, a kiss that she thought would only happen after their marriage, but she couldn’t hold it back. “Elijah Hammond, I can’t wait to be your wife,” she said, rolling off him, then pulling him over onto her so that they could kiss again.

A few minutes later Elijah lifted her to her feet, then dropped to his knee in front of her again. He slipped a ring from his watch pocket and slid it onto her finger. Her smile radiated joy as he swept her up in his arms. Outside, there was a blinding flash and the crack of thunder.

“Did you remember that it was exactly a year ago today when my sister and I burst into your barn?”

“I sure did. It near broke me to wait this long to ask you to be my wife. But I’m glad I did,” he finished as the rain started to pour down outside the barn.

“Can we do it here?” she asked.

“We aren’t married yet, Miss Johnson,” Elijah said, his eyes lighting up mirthfully.

“Mr. Hammond,” she replied, laughing and swatting his arm, “I meant get married, of course.” Her smile softened. “I feel such a connection here, in this beautiful barn. It’s where we first met, and it’s where I started falling in love with you. As I look around, I see solidity that will last far longer than you and I. It’s almost as if it were created with magic.”

“What will your mother and father say to that?”

Rachael smiled. It was a smile that he’d enjoyed over their year of courtship, but also one he’d learned to respect. She was as tough a person as he’d ever encountered. “The Almighty was born in a stable, I don’t see why we can’t get married in this barn.”

“I shall never deny that look,” he replied.

***

Two months later, as the sun set, casting a beam of light through the door and upon them on the hastily constructed altar in the main room of the barn, they said their vows to each other in front of their assembled guests. Rachael’s parents had initially resisted the barn as the venue for their wedding. Her father wanted it to be a grand ceremony to which he could invite those with whom he wished to do business. Her mother wanted it to be traditional. His parents had initially fought the idea as well, but all finally accepted it, knowing they had little choice.

Elijah and Rachael would remain together over fifty years, death finally causing them to be temporarily apart. They each passed quietly in the night, only a few days apart. After her husband’s passing, Rachael set her affairs in order and made sure their children knew her wishes.

“Mourn not our passing,” Rachael Hammond told her three adult children, “but celebrate our passion. Elijah and I have had a wonderful life together. Now, I shall join him in a new pasture.”

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Next in the series is "Waiting For Cake."