Hidden Places

  Books by

  Lynn Austin

  FROM BETHANY HOUSE PUBLISHERS

  All She Ever Wanted

  Eve’s Daughters

  Hidden Places

  A Proper Pursuit

  Though Waters Roar

  Until We Reach Home

  Wings of Refuge

  A Woman’s Place

  REFINER’S FIRE

  Candle in the Darkness

  Fire by Night

  A Light to My Path

  CHRONICLES OF THE KINGS

  Gods and Kings

  Song of Redemption

  The Strength of His Hand

  Faith of My Fathers

  Among the Gods

  www.lynnaustin.org

  Hidden Places

  Copyright © 2001

  Lynn Austin

  Cover design by Lookout Design, Inc.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.

  Published by Bethany House Publishers

  11400 Hampshire Avenue South

  Bloomington, Minnesota 55438

  Bethany House Publishers is a division of Baker Publishing Group, Grand Rapids, Michigan.

  Printed in the United States of America

  ISBN 978-0-7642-2197-2

  * * *

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Austin, Lynn N.

  Hidden places / by Lynn N. Austin.

  p. cm.

  ISBN 0-7642-2197-3 (pbk.)

  1. Depressions—Fiction. 2. Orchards—Fiction 3. Widows— Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3551.U839 H54 2001

  813'.54—dc21 2001002252

  * * *

  With heartfelt thanks to my

  faithful fellow writers:

  Florence Anglin, Joy Bocanegra,

  Cleo Lampos, and Jane Rubietta

  and to

  Charlotte and GeorgeGatchell

  Gatchell Apple Farm, St. Joseph, MI

  and to

  Tom and Laurel McGrath

  for introducing me to Winky

  LYNN AUSTIN has authored several works of fiction, including Eve’s Daughters,winner of the Silver Angel Award, and the CHRONICLES OF THE KING series. In addition to writing, Lynn is a popular speaker at conferences, retreats, and various church and school events. She and her husband have three children and make their home in Illinois.

  ‘‘In the life of each of us...

  there is a place,

  remote and islanded,

  and given to endless regret

  or secret happiness.’’

  —Sarah Orne Jewett

  Contents

  PROLOGUE

  Part I

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Part II

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Part III

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  Part IV

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Part V

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Part VI

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Part VII

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Part VIII

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Part IX

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  EPILOGUE

  PROLOGUE

  Wyatt Orchards

  November 1930

  They say everybody has a guardian angel watching out for them, but I’d never needed one half as badly as I did after Frank Wyatt died. Frank was my father-in-law, the last remaining Wyatt man in the whole clan.

  My husband’s Aunt Betty put the idea of a guardian angel into my head. She said she’d pray for one to come and help me out. The last time I’d given any thought to angels was years earlier in a Sunday school class in one of the many whistle-stop towns my daddy and I passed through in our travels. Daddy always made sure I went to church if we happened upon one on a Sunday morning. That Sunday I was in a Methodist church somewhere in Missouri when the little old white-haired Sunday school teacher said we should always entertain strangers because you never knew if one of them just might be an angel. That’s the way she put it— ‘‘entertain’’ them. She made me think I had to juggle balls or do a high-wire act for them, and I wondered what on earth that little old teacher could possibly do that was entertaining, as bent and wrinkled as she was.

  So after we laid Frank Wyatt to rest in the family plot beside his wife and two sons, I began hoping God would answer Aunt Betty’s prayers soon and that an angel really would show up to help me out. I’d worry about entertaining him once he got here.

  ‘‘What are you going to do now, Eliza?’’

  That’s what everybody kept asking me after the funeral, and I hardly knew what to say. What they were really asking was ‘‘How’s a scrawny young thing like you, with three little kids to raise, ever going to run a big outfit like Wyatt Orchards?’’ Especially since I never even stepped one foot on a farm until ten years ago. Of course, they didn’t know about my past—no one in Deer Springs knew, not even my poor dead husband, Sam. I was too ashamed to tell anybody. But people wondered how I was going to manage, just the same. My neighbor, Alvin Greer, was one of them.

  ‘‘What’re you planning to do, Mrs. Wyatt, now that Frank is dead?’’

  I filled his coffee cup and handed it to him without answering. Couldn’t he see that I’d buried my father-in-law scarcely an hour ago and that my house was still filled with all the neighbors who had come to pay their last respects and that I didn’t even have time to think? I guess not, because Mr. Greer wouldn’t let up.

  ‘‘Do you have someone in mind to take over Wyatt Orchards for you, come springtime?’’ he asked.

  I filled another cup and offered it to Reverend Dill, who stood in the serving line behind Mr. Greer. I tried not to let my hands shake too much. I’d learned a long time ago that if you don’t answer right away, most people get antsy and begin filling up the silence themselves, usually by offering you a piece of their own advice. This time Reverend Dill spoke up first.

  ‘‘Do you have family close by we could send for, Mrs. Wyatt? I don’t believe I ever heard tell where your people are from, exactly.’’

  ‘‘You take cream in that, Reverend?’’ I asked, offering him the pitcher and ignoring his question.

  He shook his head. ‘‘No, thanks. I take mine black. You’re not from Deer Springs originally, are you?’’

  ‘‘No. I’m not.’’ I made myself busy with straightening a pile of teaspoons and checking to see if the sugar bowl needed filling. It was none of his business who my people were or where I came from. This rambling farmhouse with the well-worn furniture and faded wallpaper was my home now and had been for ten years. My three children and I had a right to live here—with or without Frank Wyatt and his son Sam.

  ‘‘Of course, there’s no chance you could ever sell this place with the country sunk in a depression like it is,’’ the reverend added. ‘‘The banks have no money to lend.’’

  ‘‘Well, she can’t run the orchard by herself!’’ Mr. Greer sounded huffy.

  I took a step back, trying to excuse myself by pretending the coffeepot needed refilling. Let the two of them argue about my future if it interested them so much. But my husband’s Aunt Betty blocked my escape. Her fingers clamped onto my arm like they were wired wi
th clothespin springs.

  ‘‘You’re ignoring those busybodies on purpose, aren’t you, Toots?’’ she whispered. ‘‘I do the same thing. If you act dumb, then people think you really are dumb, and they leave you alone.’’

  Aunt Betty reminded me of a pet parakeet. Her nose stuck out just like a parakeet’s beak and she darted all around like a happy little bird wherever she went. She was tiny and plump. Her fluffy gray head barely reached to my chin, and I was not much taller than a schoolgirl myself. Unlike all the drab old crows in town, Aunt Betty dressed in brightly colored clothing like some rare tropical bird, never caring what the occasion was. Today she wore a flowery summer shift, lacy white gloves, and a broad-brimmed straw hat, as if she were on her way to a Fourth of July picnic, not her brother-in-law’s funeral on a raw November day. I’ve seen her walking her one-eyed dog down the road wearing a bright pink bathrobe and slippers, and I’ve seen her roaming through the orchard in a man’s tweed suit and trousers, too. Sam had always called her ‘‘Aunt Batty’’ behind her back. ‘‘She has a few bats in her belfry,’’he would say, and he’d twirl his finger beside his head like the spring of a cuckoo clock. My father-in-law had given me strict orders to steer clear of her.

  ‘‘It’s nobody’s business but yours who you are and where your kin’s from,’’ Aunt Betty said as she finally unclasped her fingers from my arm. She had a huge straw purse slung over one arm, and she hummed ‘‘Joy to the World’’ as she picked her way around the dining room table, wrapping a chicken leg, two dill pickles, and a slab of spice cake in paper napkins and stuffing them inside her bag. ‘‘For later,’’ she explained with a grin. Grease and pickle juice stained the tips of her white gloves.

  Mr. Greer and Reverend Dill finally wandered away from the table, still arguing over what should be done with Wyatt Orchards. I breathed a sigh of relief and went back to serving folks.

  ‘‘Would you like some coffee, Aunt Betty?’’ I asked when she finished her tour around the table.

  ‘‘No thanks, Toots. It would just run out of my purse and onto your nice clean floor.’’ She laughed like a mischievous child, and I couldn’t help smiling. ‘‘By the way,’’ she added, ‘‘no one calls me Betty, don’t you know that? They haven’t for years. It’s Batty. My name was changed from Betty to Batty. People always get their names changed after they’ve seen God—Abram became Abra-ham, Sarai changed to Sarah, Jacob to Israel....’’ She paused to sniff a deviled egg before adding it to the collection in her purse. ‘‘I’ve seen God, too, you know. I knew it was Him by His eyes.’’ She clutched my arm again and leaned close to whisper, ‘‘God has very kind eyes.’’

  Now, I had always pictured God’s eyes as sort of tired-looking ever since I heard a Baptist preacher in Kentucky say that the eyes of the Lord ran to and fro throughout the whole earth. But I suppose they could be tired and kind at the same time.

  Aunt Batty stood on tiptoes to survey the roomful of people, then tilted her head toward my parlor where a group of church women stood in a huddle. ‘‘You know what those old hens over there are whispering about?’’ she asked. ‘‘They’re discussing how shocked they all are to see me at Frank’s funeral. He was my beau first, you know, before my sister, Lydia, married him. They think I’ve held a grudge all these years, but you know what? I had a guardian angel looking out for me. That’s how I escaped Frank Wyatt—a guardian angel.’’ She laughed again and dropped a baking powder biscuit into her bottomless purse. ‘‘You married my nephew Sam, didn’t you?’’

  A lump the size of a peach pit suddenly stuck in my throat. I had to swallow it down before I could answer. ‘‘Yes...but he’s dead, Aunt Batty. Sam died a year ago, remember?’’

  Her eyes filled with tears as she stared into space. ‘‘My sister, Lydia, had three boys—Matthew was the oldest, then Samuel, then young Willie. Poor little Willie died way back in 1910, wasn’t it? Or maybe it was 1911, my memory never was very good.’’ She parted the lacy dining room curtains with her gloved hand and pointed to my three children playing in the backyard. ‘‘Seems like only yesterday Lydia’s boys were running all around like those youngsters.’’

  Jimmy, Luke, and Becky Jean had been fidgeting so badly in their Sunday clothes that I’d finally turned them loose to play. I didn’t care if the church women whispered behind their hands about how improper it was for children to be running wild an hour after their granddaddy was laid to rest.

  ‘‘Those are my three young ones,’’ I said. ‘‘Mine and Sam’s.’’

  ‘‘Well, you look like a mere child yourself,’’ Batty said, ‘‘barely old enough to be a wife, let alone a widow. Poor Sammy. And now his father is gone, too? My, my...Iguess that makes me your closest kin here in Deer Springs.’’ She shook her head, and the black-mesh mourning veil which she had stuck to her straw hat with a piece of sticky tape came loose and fluttered to the floor. ‘‘Some folks say this house is jinxed or under a curse, you know. One tragedy after another, over the years. First little Willie died, then young Matthew left us like he did, then my sister died...But none of those were accidents. I don’t care what folks tell you, young lady.’’

  ‘‘Not...accidents?’’ I didn’t want to think about what else they could be.

  ‘‘No, sir! There’s a huge load of grief up in the attic of this house. Have you been up there lately? Probably a big pile of it down in the cellar, too.’’

  I watched my children playing tag beneath the clotheslines, and I wanted to tell Aunt Batty that the grief had long-since overflowed the attic and the basement. It was deep enough and wide enough to fill the entire barn.

  Aunt Batty squeezed my shoulder. ‘‘If you ever need any help shoveling it all out, you give me a call, all right? I live in the cottage down by the pond. What did they say your name was again?’’

  ‘‘Eliza Rose, ma’am. Eliza Rose Wyatt.’’

  Aunt Batty shook her head. ‘‘My! That’s too much grief for one house to bear.’’ Her purse bumped against my hip as she circled her arm around my waist. ‘‘What you need, Toots, is your own guardian angel to watch out for you. Help you out in your time of need. Tell you what—I’ll ask God to send you one the next time I see Him, all right?’’

  I thought of the words my daddy used to say when he tucked me into bed at night—‘‘May the Lord keep His angels ’round about you’’—and I had to swallow another big lump.

  ‘‘I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to ask for one, Aunt Batty,’’ I said.

  Wyatt Orchards

  Winter 1931

  ‘‘Do not forget to entertain strangers: for thereby some have

  entertained angels unawares.’’

  HEBREWS 13:2

  CHAPTER ONE

  February 1931

  Ihad just stepped out the kitchen door into the frozen February night when the stranger startled me half to death. I hadn’t heard any automobiles rattling down the long, deserted lane to my farmhouse, so when a shadow in the darkness suddenly turned into the large form of a man, he scared me so bad I dropped a coal scuttle full of ashes down the porch steps. I had to clutch my heart with both hands to keep it from jumping out of my rib cage.

  ‘‘Forgive me, ma’am. I never meant to frighten you,’’ the stranger said. Even in the dark I could tell he was truly sorry. He had his arm stretched out, like he would gladly catch me if I dropped dead of fright.

  ‘‘That’s okay,’’ I said. ‘‘I didn’t hear you drive up, is all.’’

  ‘‘I didn’t drive. I came on foot.’’ He lowered the burlap sack he carried and bent to scoop the spilled ashes back into the scuttle with his hands.

  ‘‘Careful, those cinders might still be warm.’’

  ‘‘Yes, ma’am. Feels good, though.’’ His hands were bare, and he wore no hat—only layers of ragged clothing against the numbing cold. His overgrown hair and bushy beard hid most of his face from view. But it was his odor, the strong smell of unwashed flesh and wood smoke, that told me plain as day that
the stranger was a hobo—one of the many thousands that roamed across America looking for work that winter. He must have tramped through the orchard from the railroad tracks, drawn by the light of my farmhouse windows.

  ‘‘Your house is marked,’’ old Abe Walker told me the last time I paid a visit to his general store in Deer Springs. ‘‘That’s what them tramps do, you know. Once they learn you’re a kindhearted Christian woman, they mark your house for the next fellow. You ought to chase them off, Eliza Rose. ’Tisn’t safe to have them hanging around, you being a widow and all.’’

  Abe Walker didn’t know that I’d grown up with kinkers and lot-loafers and roustabouts, so I was a pretty good judge of people. I knew who to invite inside and who to send packing.

  ‘‘May I have a word with your husband, ma’am?’’ the stranger asked, startling me a second time.

  ‘‘My...my husband?’’

  ‘‘Yes, ma’am. I was wondering if he had some odd jobs I could do in exchange for a meal.’’ The tramp had a gentle voice, softspoken, polite. I thought of all the endless chores that needed to be done around here—milk buckets to wash, kindling to split, coal to fetch, animals to feed, fences to mend—and I felt tired clear to my bones.

  ‘‘Why don’t you come inside and have a bite to eat,’’ I said. ‘‘It’s too cold to stand around out here. Just leave those ashes on the porch.’’ I turned and opened the kitchen door for him, but he didn’t move.