A Promise for Miriam by Vannetta Chapman Page A

the tree. She needed to go to the bathroom, but it was almost completely dark. She kept her hand on her pocket, on top of the buttoned flap, on top of the place where Stanley was safely sleeping. At first she had been a little angry at him. It was his fault they were here to begin with. At least that’s what she told herself, but she knew it wasn’t true.
    She should have left him in the box. She should never have taken him outside. And once outside, she should have zipped up her pocket.
    It was a miracle she’d even caught him.
    But now what? Once she’d chased him through the snow, past the buildings and into the woods, once she’d caught him and realized she was lost, she had found shelter under the circle of trees. Her grandpa had taught her to do that. “If you’re ever lost, don’t keep running around in circles. Sit still and wait for us to come find you.”
    She’d been younger then, really only a baby—barely six. But she remembered pappi Mose making her promise. What she didn’t remember was ever being this cold, and she’d never been lost before. She peeked out from under the tree branches again.
    How would her dad see her scarf wrapped around the tree’s branch? She could barely see it. And the snow was piling up higher and higher. When she became thirsty, she tried putting some of the snow in her mouth. It worked a little at first, but now she needed to use the bathroom awfully bad and she was hungry as well as cold.
    All of those things kept her from thinking about how scared she was. She’d never been afraid of the dark before, but then she’d never been outside alone in the middle of a blizzard. Crawling back under the tree branches, she sat down with her legs crossed. Unbuttoning her coat pocket enough to slip her hand in, she ran her fingers over Stanley.
    She needed to be brave—for Stanley.
    And for her father.
    The last thing she wanted was to be crying when he found her.
    So instead, she lay down, and pulled her knees up to her chin. Maybe if she went to sleep for a few minutes, when she woke up she’d be warmer.

Chapter 15
    G abe couldn’t believe the amount of buggies lined around his barn and pasture fence. He might not be able to see the fence through the blizzard, but there was no mistaking the buggies. As each man arrived, Miriam’s youngest brother, Simon, took charge of stabling the horse after directing the man to Gabe.
    He didn’t want to think about where Simon was putting the horses, because the barn certainly wouldn’t hold them all.
    Joshua had insisted that Gabe stay at the house and coordinate the efforts. Gabe had argued with Miriam’s father about that, and it wasn’t in his nature to contradict his elders. It went against his nature to sit still. He wanted to be out walking the fields, looking for his daughter.
    “I understand, Gabe. I do, but that’s the reason you need to be here. No one knows this spread like you do. If there are any questions, you’re the one who can answer them. And when we find Grace, you need to be here to greet her.” That last reason had stolen any other argument he might have offered.
    So he’d taken Grace’s drawing pad, made a rough sketch of the place, and begun marking off sections as teams went out into the storm.
    His kitchen hardly resembled anything he recognized, there were so many women about. Actually, it was only Miriam and two others, but with all the activity the place seemed as busy as a hive.
    When he was sure there couldn’t be anyone else coming, another buggy would arrive outside the window. A man would hop out and hand the reins to Simon, who would be standing there almost before the horse had stopped. Miriam or one of her friends would be at the back door as the man knocked the snow off his shoes, and then someone Gabe didn’t know, someone he couldn’t even remember from Sunday, would be assuring him that everything would be all right, that they would find his Grace, and that he was ready to go