The Richest Heart

Chapter 52

A couple of days passed. On Sunday, Shawn made the long journey to church. A few welcoming smiles greeted him with unexpected cheer. Smiling back, he sat down on the farthest end of the last pew; the one that Dorothy and Ed Perkins were sitting on. He saw Mr. Holland's wrinkly face smile brightly as the old man saw him.

"Folks," the preacher began. "I've got somethin' to say before we get started this mornin'. I'm speakin' up for someone who can't speak for himself." Shawn sat nervously, staring at the floor as he heard Mr. Holland tell his life story in the ears of the people. As he was introduced as William Alden's son, the congregation gasped in shock and then stared at the young man in amazement.

"Can it be?" Mrs. Bufford muttered, her face turning white as she remembered the awful ghost story she had been believing. For an instant, she almost felt afraid of the man, but her fear couldn't last long. Despite all of the tales she had heard, Shawn was alive and well. Glancing around the room, he recognized many of the faces. He had seen them all when he was a child, and now they were staring back with the same smiles they had given him then.

Now that they knew who he really was, they didn't feel like he was an outsider. He belonged there.

After church, the people gathered around Shawn with welcoming handshakes and endless apologies for the misunderstandings they had had about him. Suspicion and idle tales had turned their hearts against an innocent man, and now they could see their fault.

"I should have recognized you a mile away!" Mrs. Bufford said, giving the young man an unexpected, tight squeeze. "You have William's eyes! I always kept hope that you were alive! No matter what other people said, somehow I was just sure!" A few of the bystanders looked doubtful as they heard her words, but Shawn only smiled, accepting each kind word with joy.

At last the crowd began to move on, and one by one, the people rolled away in their buggies. Shawn moved toward the door, eager to finally be alone and collect his thoughts, but before he got outside, he heard the preacher's voice.

"It can't be too comfortable to sleep out in the woods, Shawn. Why don't you come down to the house and stay a while with me and Mable?" Shawn thanked him wholeheartedly, but with great respect he explained that he had a fine shelter in the tool shed, and being closer to home gave him more time to plan and build. Then, he told Mr. Holland goodbye and hurried on his way.

The shadows of the forest fell gently across Shawn's face as he made his way up into the hills. He looked around with a strange feeling between joy and sorrow. This was his home. There were so many memories in that place. He had been very young, but still he could remember walking up that lane to the old house he had loved. Today though, as he reached the top of the hill, he stopped and stared sadly at a bare foundation, and a land that looked almost desolate. His eyes looked up at the half charred tree that still stood by the side of the ruined house. There, his old night shirt still hung, stiff from years of weather. He shut his eyes, almost wishing he could stop the awful memories that were flooding his mind. But still he found himself reliving them in his mind's eye.

From scorching heat to the icy wind, he had scrambled out of his window. Tears had blinded Shawn's eyes, and as a small boy, his mind had been full of confused thoughts. He hadn't known what to do, but the raging fire had been chasing him like a monster, and he had felt desperate to get away. His shirt had caught on the branches just as he was trying to escape. Fear had gripped his heart with a sudden feeling of doom. He had wriggled and squirmed until the shirt tore and he had pulled away from it.

He had no time to lose. As quickly as he had been able to, he had climbed out of the tree. Flames had already touched the top of its limbs. It had begun to look like a giant torch.