Orchard of Hope by Ann H. Gabhart Page B

man a farm out here where no colored man has ever owned property before. And not only that, as much as I admire Myra Hearndon, she is an agitator. Alex himself says she chases after this what they call the freedom train. Fact is, she’s already seen the inside of a jail cell three or four times for taking part in those sit-ins or boycott marches down south. She’s even had the kids marching a time or two. I’m thinking it put a kind of strain on their marriage.”
    “He doesn’t do the freedom marches with her?”
    “I think he’s done give more than he wanted to give to that cause. Myra told Sally that Alex had a younger brother killed down in Mississippi or maybe it was Louisiana a couple years back. The boy was down there on one of those marches. Said the family never really found out exactly what happened, but the boy ended up dead. Anyhow, now all Alex wants is for folks to leave him alone and let him grow his apple trees. And his kids to be safe.” Mr. Harvey looked across the field to where Alex Hearndon had straightened up and stood waiting for them with his hands on his hips. “It seems a reasonable enough hope. I’ve been praying that it’s one he can see realized.”
    “I’ll add my prayers to yours,” David said.
    Mr. Harvey looked over at David and lowered his voice as they got closer to where Alex and Noah were waiting. “But we’ll just let them be unspoken for the time being, Brother David. I’m not sure Alex is open to the idea of prayer for him or about him right now.”
    “Everybody needs prayer.”
    “You won’t get no argument about that from me, Brother David, but let’s just take it slow with Alex and let him come around to our way of thinking on his own. With the good Lord’s help, that is.” Mr. Harvey turned his eyes back toward Alex Hearndon, let a big smile move across his face, and stepped faster across the last few feet that separated them.
    Alex Hearndon didn’t smile when Mr. Harvey introduced David to him, but he did take off his leather glove, brush his hand off on his blue jeans, and reach out to shake David’s hand. He had a working man’s hands, calloused and rough. His handshake was firm, but at the same time controlled as if he was aware of his strength. “Pleased to meet you, Reverend,” Alex said. “My boy told me you’d given him a job. He’ll work hard for you.”
    Still no smile as he glanced behind him at Noah, but there was a lightening in the man’s dark brown, nearly black eyes. It was easy enough to see the father’s pride for a son who might not yet be able to step up and fill his father’s shoes, but was growing into the job. It was also easy to see why Mr. Harvey had compared Alex Hearndon to Samson, even if the man’s hair was clipped off so close to his head you could see his scalp. He was tall and so muscular that he looked as if he might be able to pick up the jawbone of an ass and dispense with an army of Philistines. Now he pulled a blue bandanna out of his back pocket and wiped the sweat off his forehead as he waited for David to say whatever he had come all the way across the fields to say to him. Not a thread of his blue cotton shirt was dry.
    David met his eye squarely and didn’t let the man’s lack of a smile keep his own away. “I just wanted to come by and welcome you and your family to the community. We were pleased to have Mrs. Hearndon and the children in church this morning.”
    “They said they had a kind welcome from you and some others,” Alex said. “We expected as much if the other members there at your church are anything like Mr. Harvey and Miss Sally.” And finally there was something approaching a smile on the man’s face. Just a bare lifting of the sides of his mouth, but there when he looked over at Mr. Harvey.
    “Not all of our folks are as fine of a Christian example as Mr. Harvey and Miss Sally, but we’re working on it.”
    “Now, Brother David, Sally will bake you another pie without you buttering