Test of Faith

Sally Hamilton had been sleeping in their feather bed and was starting to wake up in their bedroom in the back of the white frame home when the alarm went off at 5:30 a.m. She was further aroused by their family bird dog, Chase, barking outside the kitchen door. She presumed he was barking at the squirrels and rabbits living in the adjacent garden where they made their morning appearance and were out early scouting for more acorns. Jake was not the only one planning for worsening weather ahead. By 6:00 a.m., Sally made her way to the kitchen.

Jake was watching dew-covered leaves fall while thinking about his yard raking planned for later that day. He hated leaves cluttering his meticulously cared-for lawn. Jake sat at the table, tapping his fingers on the red-and-white-checked vinyl tablecloth, still mentally planning his day. He was already sipping his second cup of strong black coffee.
At the stove, Sally began frying bacon and put some large homemade biscuits in the oven. “Thanks for getting the fires started, honey. It is cold this morning.”
“You’re welcome. I’m glad I got the last cord of wood stacked on the porch. We should have enough coal in the shed to last the next four weeks before we need another delivery from Bentley,” Jake replied.
There was a brief silence as Sally cracked eggs fresh from the chicken coop. Then she asked, “Jake, have you thought about what Homer is going to do with Barbara Sue when Loraine dies?
Sally and Jake had been keeping five-year-old Barbara Sue already for four and a half years, as her mother, Loraine, lay next door, across the orchard, dying with pulmonary tuberculosis. There was no cure, and most of those who knew Loraine wondered how much longer she could linger. Loraine had just returned from her eight-month stay at the Louisville Tuberculosis Sanatorium, where her illness had progressed. The doctors told Barbara Sue’s dad, Homer, that Loraine might live another six months. Barbara Sue had been removed at four months of age from the doomed mother’s home in the hope of preventing her from getting TB from her mother. When the weather was good, Barbara Sue had visited Loraine as she sat on the porch of her home. Barbara Sue, Loraine, and anyone else brave enough to visit wore facial respirator masks.
Barbara Sue was too young to fully understand, but she knew her mother was extremely sick and coughed frequently. She could see her mother’s gown wet with sweat requiring several changes during the day. Her mom continued to lose weight and get weaker, even in her voice.

As Sally poured the gravy into the skillet, she was remembering her and Jake’s only child, Ruth, who had lived for six months early in their twenty-five-year marriage. Now Sally was beyond childbearing age and had never been able to conceive after Ruth’s death.
At their lonely home, nestled between the tall mountains of upper Big Mud Creek, she realized she would never have her own young children playing in the yard as she and Jake had envisioned years before. Though Sally had prayed for another child, God had not granted her wishes. There had been multiple tear-shedding episodes when she was alone, being careful to never let Jake see her sadness.

Jake had been a little more indifferent but still tried to console his wife’s depression over having no children as the years passed. Now he was in his upper sixties. He had been having thoughts about their aging and living to their senior years with no one to help take care of them. Inevitably, their health would decline. Who would take care of their small farm? Who would take care of them if help were needed?
With winter coming on, Homer and Loraine had been struggling for almost four years. The worst part was that no truly effective treatment was available to stop the ravaging disease. The hope of a treatment was on the horizon, but it would not arrive in time to help Loraine.
Sally wondered whether Barbara Sue might just stay with her and Jake or move back with Homer and any future wife. Jake had not responded, pretending he didn’t hear Sally’s inquiry as he looked through the window covered with frozen condensation at a large flock of migrating purple martins congregating on a nearby tall red oak tree, as though taking a rest from their yearly southern flight.
The open-window fresh-air treatment at Louisville had not helped, and it continued even during cold days. Loraine knew she was dying; no one could overlook her thirty-five-pound weight loss and the fact that less than 10 percent of TB victims would survive with fully scarred lungs. She was perhaps lucky in one respect that she had not died with pneumonia already from all the fresh-air exposure. Now Loraine wanted to die in peace at home.
Before the onset of the disease, which she had contracted by breathing infected suspended droplets in the air at an unknown location, Loraine had been a beautiful young woman with long, shiny black hair down to her upper back, a charming smile, dark eyes, and a creamy, smooth complexion. She was five-foot-seven and, initially, 135 pounds. Her voice was soft. Now less than one hundred pounds, she looked wasted and hardly resembled her former healthy self. Already she had lived longer than most observers had thought she would. Loraine tried to smile and keep her spirits up.
Local ministers frequently came to visit her, offering solace with God’s biblical promises of a better life for those who truly believed in Him. Being honest, she expressed some doubt that her faith was strong enough to allow heavenly admission by God’s grace.