Charity Read Free Page A

members of the Kaiser family one by one. Frederick was handsome and noted for a certain gracefulness. He did not have the heavily muscled frame of his brothers because he hadn’t worked from dawn till dusk with well equipment and horses. As far as Lena knew, he seldom even mucked out the barn. He drove his aunt and his mother around. Since they never could go anywhere together, that could be a full day’s work. It wouldn’t hurt either of them to walk. And now she was back to the two old sisters. They had tasted plenty of gall on account of that old man over the years. Lena’s mind went round and round.
    Any one of them could have done it, but which one would have? In Lena’s estimation, they were all crazy and wouldn’t have needed much of a reason. One thing she was sure of: they would, all of them, guilty and innocent alike, sit by and let the blame fall on Will.
    Lena had been walking and thinking for half an hour. The air warmed. Flies buzzed around her head. She waved them away. Why Gustie wanted to live way out here was a mystery to Lena. The house was nice enough, but this far out of Charity she wasn’t going to get electricity or indoor plumbing any time soon.
    The sight of Gustie’s small white house sitting there on unclaimed acreage made Lena feel lonely. She didn’t know how her friend stood it with no family, no neighbors. Lena had offered to help her find a place in town. She even invited Gustie to stay with herself and Will till she found something suitable of her own. But Gustie refused. “I like it out here,” she’d said, somewhat wistfully, Lena thought. “I like it very well.”
    “Well, you’ll find out,” Lena prophesied with a finger beating the air. “In the winter it won’t be so easy. You’ll be cooped up here all by yourself. You’re always welcome to stay with Will and me. Anytime it gets too much for you. Just make sure you have enough food put by. For yourself and the horse—now, both of you, I’m talking about. I’m going to check your pantry and barn myself come November and make sure. You folks who just come out here don’t know how bad or long a winter can be. Snow gets so deep you can’t open your door, let alone go someplace. And you get yourself a couple ropes and tie them to the house. Run one to the barn and one to your outhouse. Tie them good and tight. I’m not foolin’! Alfred Ficksdahl, Alvinia’s uncle, that old bachelor lived up north of the Paulson place...they found him in the spring with his drawers still down froze solid because he was a stubborn old fool and didn’t listen to his neighbors and string a rope to his toilet. January came along and they all said, Alfred...where’s your ropes? And he said if the weather hadn’t come by January, it wouldn’t be comin’. Well...it came all right. It came and he went.”
    Gustie got her ropes, Lena made sure her house and barn were provisioned for the worst that first winter, and her friend appeared to weather it just fine. No, there was nothing stiff-necked about Gustie. She took the advice given her and made the best of it. Lena worried about her out here all the same.
    Lena walked the slender wagon path that wound from the road up to the doorstep. A field mouse skittered across the path in front of her and disappeared into the low grass, which was kept scythed down neatly by Orville Ackerman, one of Gustie’s pupils. Gustie earned little money—less than some teachers in the Dakotas, Lena knew. The school year was divided into two terms of about two and a half months each in the fall and spring. She was paid twenty dollars each term. Between terms Gustie tutored a few youngsters whose parents cared enough to provide them with extra help. She was given this house to live in until a homesteader, willing to prove up the land it sat on, appeared to claim it. On their mothers’ baking days, the children brought her bread and cakes and pies. Milk, eggs, and butter were discreetly dropped off by farmers