A Man for Temperance (Wagon Wheel) by Gilbert Morris Read Free Book Online

had been thinking of Brennan as she loaded the basket. She had become absolutely sick of the man. He was filthy, refused to bathe, shaved only on occasion. Hedid his work but was sullen and critical of her, especially of her religion.
    “I’ll be glad when he’s gone,” she muttered. “He’s the most trifling man I ever saw in my life.”
    She moved inside the house, quickly folded the diapers, and went to the cradle where the baby lay sleeping. She reached out and gently touched the blond hair and then straightened up and moved across to the stove. She filled a deep bowl with broth and, plucking a spoon from a box, moved into the bedroom.
    Martha Dutton lay on the bed, her thin form outlined by the cover. Her eyes were sunk back in her head, and her lips seemed to have shriveled up.
    Her husband had died a week earlier, and she had been too sick to attend the funeral, a fact that grieved her greatly.
    “Well now, Martha, you’ve got to eat something.”
    “I’m not hungry, Temperance.”
    “You’ve got to keep your strength up.” Temperance put the bowl on a table beside the bed, sat down in a cane-bottom chair, and filled the spoon. Martha, however, turned her head away. “I can’t eat,” she whispered. Her voice was thin and reedy and seemed like an ethereal sound from somewhere outside herself.
    “Martha, you’ve got to eat.”
    “I’m going to die, Temperance.” Martha Dutton turned, and her face was like a death’s head. Pity ran through Temperance, for she remembered how pretty this woman had been before the cholera had struck her down. She and her husband had been one of the finest-looking couples in the area, and now Clyde was under the sod and Martha, in all probability, would be there soon.
    Tears ran down Martha’s face, and she whispered, “I couldn’t even go to Clyde’s funeral.”
    “You were too sick, Martha. Clyde would have understood. I think he does understand.”
    “You think people in heaven know what’s going on on Earth?”
    “I’m sure they do.” Actually Temperance was not certain of her theology, but she would say anything to give this dying woman some assurance.
    “Why does God let bad things like this happen? We weren’t bad people.”
    “Of course you weren’t.” Temperance had gone through this before with others who had had loss. She quoted several Scriptures and laid her hand on the woman’s brow. Martha’s face was like a tiny furnace, and as she leaned down and pulled a blanket over her, Temperance said, “You’ve got to sweat this fever out.”
    Martha Dutton lay still for what seemed like a long time. Her eyes were closed and her lips were moving. Temperance could not understand her, and she leaned forward. “I can’t hear you, Martha.”
    “My sister—Kate.”
    “What about Kate?”
    “She and her husband, Tom Blanchard, they—”
    The words trailed off, and Martha passed into a semiconscious state. Quickly Temperance got cool water and a cloth and began to bathe the sick woman’s face. “Can you tell me about Kate?”
    The water seemed to have revived Martha. She opened her eyes, and there was a haunted look in her expression. “Kate and her husband tried to talk me and Clyde out of coming toOregon, but Clyde wouldn’t listen. They don’t have any children of their own. They had two, but they lost them.”
    “Where do they live?”
    “In St. Joseph, Missouri.”
    Suddenly Martha reached up and grasped Temperance’s hand. “Please, Temperance, they’d take my Timmy for their own. Promise me you’ll take him!”
    Temperance Peabody did not make promises lightly. She took each one of them as a sacred vow, and for that instant she pictured the immense distance and the terrible difficulties that lay between Walla Walla in Oregon Territory and St. Joe, Missouri. She looked down and tried to think of some way to deny the woman, but Martha Dutton’s eyes begged her; and almost despite herself, Temperance took the woman’s hand in both