Love's New Beginning (a Love Comes Softly fanfiction)

Missus Claridge

Clark was working on a fence, keeping an eye on Missie, who was digging in the dirt just a little way off, when one of the neighbor boys, a member of the large Graham clan, came riding up.

"Iffen ya please, Pa says to come if ya can first thing tomorrow. Feller was thrown off his horse, Pa says we got to bury 'im." The boy cleared his throat.

"'Course."

"Ma says she'll be happy to watch Missie for ya." The boy smiled at Missie, giving her a little wave.

"Thank ya."

And he was gone, off to collect more neighbors for the burial. Poor fella, Clark thought. Sounded like a stranger, from the way young Tommy had told it. Passing through, likely. A sad day for his family.

He didn't know how sad until he arrived the next day with his shovel and saw the broken-down wagon, clearly on its last legs, and noticed the tear-stained face of a woman peeping out through the cover. His heart ached for her, knowing what pain she must be feeling. His own loss was all too fresh, and yet he and Ellen had been able to build a home; they'd had Missie. He had a life worth living left to him. This poor woman was left alone with not much to her name, he judged, looking at the condition of the wagon.

Clark and Ben Graham and a couple other neighbors dug the grave. Wagons arrived as they were doing so, folks coming to pay their respects to this man who had been a stranger in their midst.

All the while he'd been digging, Clark had heard the muffled sobs coming from inside the wagon, his heart throbbing in sympathy with every choked gasp. They must have loved each other very much, he thought. He knew how that felt.

When the little bride appeared from inside the wagon, though, she had pulled herself together as best she could. She faced the strangers who had come to her aid with dignity, although if you looked closely you could see how dazed and lost she was. Clark admired her for the attempt. There was a strength in her that should see her through the worst of it. Poor thing, if she only wasn't so alone in the world.

He looked around the little gravesite as the visiting preacher spoke the words, estimating which neighbor might be most likely to offer this Missus Claridge a home until she could get back on her feet. Wanda Marshall stepped up to speak to her, but the Marshalls lived in one room; Ma Graham enfolded her in her motherly arms, but the Grahams' house was full. Everyone's house was full, it seemed. Large families, small houses, many mouths to feed ...

As he watched her climb forlornly back into the wagon, which would be hot and stuffy in the heat of the day but was all she had, an idea came to him. An idea he rejected almost violently—how could he have another woman in his home, touching Ellen's things, rearranging her kitchen, taking her place in Missie's mind and heart? He couldn't.

Looking up through the trees, he realized that he was being an offered an answer to his prayer, a way to fill not only Missie's needs but to also provide succor to a fellow creature in a kind of pain that he understood only too well. How could he walk away from this sorrowing woman, when what she needed so badly was exactly what he had to provide? He couldn't.

But oh, how hard it was, despite the sympathy he felt for her, to walk up to that wagon, knowing what he must say.

Missus Claridge had come out while he was thinking, and was leaning against the broken wagon wheel, looking off into the distance, lost and alone. Seeing her there made it some easier for him to speak.