Julia's Hope by Leisha Kelly Read Free Book Online

one?”
    With one hand over the leaves in my bowl and Sarah at my side, I ran to him and confirmed that he had indeed found our first morel among the rotting debris of an old oak. He was pretty proud. “Keep looking in this area,” I told the children. “There’s liable to be more where you find one.”
    I searched among muddy leaves and carpetweed to no avail. Robert circled me for awhile, and then we all walked downstream in our search, with Robert in the lead. He was soon shouting his complaint that he couldn’t get where he wanted to go for the bramble bushes across his way.
    I turned my eyes to where he stood and saw the band of thorny green and white stretched out to where the gurgling water made a sudden turn. I had to take a deep breath. So many bushes, dotting the woods to the south and east of us now. I could scarcely believe it. I took Sarah’s hand and walked closer, wanting to be sure. Delicate white flowers were sprinkled over every branch like a promise. Some of the petals had dropped away to reveal tiny berries, still green as grass and hard as stone. Blackberries.
    Sarah squeezed my hand, as if she could sense the impact the sight had on me. The sight of more blackberries than I could possibly count. Ripe in a couple of months or so. A treasure. A temptation. I wanted to throw down my bowl and run. It was too good here, and too stupid of me to think of staying. Someone else’s land! We were stealing! I turned around in the direction of the farmhouse, not wanting Sarah to see the tears in my eyes.
    “What’s the matter, Juli?” Sam was behind me, his gray-blue eyes filled with cares.
    I stopped dead in my tracks. I couldn’t be upset, not when they were all looking at me and waiting for the good I was always talking about. And I knew I had to show them. I had to make them see that we would make it, whether here or somewhere else, and that everything around us was a gift from God, no matter where we were standing.
    Sam just stared at me, waiting for me to answer, but I had nothing to say yet. Sarah broke our silence with an excited squeal and a tug on my arm.
    “Look, Mom! Right by your foot! You almost stepped on it!”
    Another beautiful morel mushroom, much bigger than the first. I leaned to pick it up, and Sam reached for my hand. “We could go into town today,” he said. “Maybe there’s a boardinghouse in town, if you just need to stop for awhile. I could ask for work—”
    “Mama,” Sarah interrupted. “Do these mushyrooms taste good as popcorn?”
    I looked up at Sam and then tried my best to smile for Sarah. “ I think so, sweetie. They’re one of my favorites.” As I spoke, I saw another spongy brown mushroom, as big as Sarah’s hand, not ten feet away.
    “There might be someone willing to take us in for a few nights without money,” Sam continued, “if we do some work for them. It’s worth asking about. We wouldn’t be breaking any laws that way.”
    I turned away from him and picked our third mushroom, and two more beside it. But they looked pretty meager in the bottom of my bowl with the handful of cress leaves. Sam wasn’t a hunter; he’d never been hunting in his life. And that was too bad, I found myself thinking. A rabbit would make a nice dinner for the kids, who were sure to be hungry even before noon today, considering our breakfast.
    “Juli.”
    I glanced his way, at the same time noticing the sudden flutter of my apron. The wind was picking up.
    “Did you hear what I said?”
    “Look at the sky,” I told him. “We’re in for more rain.”
    Clouds were moving in like a great gray blanket covering up the blue. Lord, don’t let it rain yet, I prayed. Not till I have a decent meal in my bowl! Then it can pour till the cows come home.
    We searched for more mushrooms till the sprinkles hit our backs. We had just started back toward the house when I spotted a couple of little wild rose bushes, just like we had on Grandpa’s farm. I had the kids help me strip