Rebecca's Promise by Jerry S. Eicher

The Lord knows. I wished sometimes, especially in that buggy while riding beside him, that he wasn’t. Yet, in the end I always knew what a good man he was.”
    “Yes, I can see that he is,” was all Rebecca could think to say, thoughts of John flashing through her mind.
    “John’s right proper too, I suppose. You two are behaving yourselves?” Mattie questioned, looking her full in the face.
    “Yes, Mother!” Rebecca answered, a little exasperated. “Dad already asked me that this morning. What do you think I am?”
    “You are a
good
girl,” Mattie allowed. “It’s just that we’re all weak in the flesh. That’s a fact, now. We need to have someone watching over us at times. I thank God we did as well as we did. Our parents were concerned. I wondered sometimes why Mother didn’t ask more questions than she did. It’s such a hard time in life. I suppose that’s why I’m asking now.”
    “Yes, it is a hard time,” Rebecca said with emotion, content inknowing her mother wouldn’t fully understand exactly why she thought so.
    “It will all come to an end,” Mattie intoned. “Soon enough you are married. Then there’s nothing in the way. It is a right good time, it is. Even after all these years. It was well worth waiting for. Made even sweeter, I think, by the waiting. God must be honored in all His ways. Especially on this thing. It’s too powerful to get wrong.”
    “I know,” Rebecca said, cracking a third egg into one of the smaller bowls. “We will do our best. We want to walk in a way that is right and holy.”
    “That’s good to hear,” Mattie said. “We must always be on watch. One never knows when the devil might throw something in our way. Trips us right up.”
    “That’s for sure,” Rebecca replied, wrinkling her forehead.
    “Ah! It’s already hard then,” Mattie replied, sighing at her daughter’s reaction. “You will make it though. God will help you.” Then after a moment’s pause, she admitted, “You had me so worried.” And Mattie poured the last cup of flour into the large bowl.
    “I already told you. We are behaving ourselves,” Rebecca responded, irritation in her voice. “Are you ready to have the eggs beaten?”
    “Yes,” Mattie said. “It’s not that though. I was talking about something else. It’s when you were going to school in Milroy.”
    “To school?” Rebecca managed in what she hoped was a normal voice. A chill was creeping up her spine.
    “Ya. That Atlee fellow you used to spend so much time with,” her mother said.
    The chill increased.
What did she know about Atlee? Did Mother know how much she had liked him? She must have.
    “What about Atlee?” Rebecca asked, as casually as possible.
    Her mother gave her a strange look and said, “You should know. You were the one always walking home with him from school. It seemed innocent enough, you know. The schoolgirl crush we all have had. You were young though,” she quickly added.
    “So why were you worried?” Rebecca asked. She was ready to start beating the eggs but stopped to hear her mother’s response.
    “It was always you and Atlee this—you and Atlee that. You were even with him sometimes on Saturdays.” A look of worry crossed Mattie’s face, but she said nothing more except, “Beat those eggs. I need them right away. I’ll start melting the butter.”
    Rebecca nodded, laying her shoulder into whipping the eggs. As the racket of metal hitting metal filled the room, the yellow and white mixture quickly blended, and there was no more distinguishing between the two. Her mother, in the meantime, turned on the gas burner on the stove and dropped a bar of butter into the pan. It turned golden brown and slowly spread across the bottom.
    With the eggs whipped, Rebecca left the bowl on the kitchen table and switched places with her mother. Mattie dumped the eggs into the flour, stirred them gently, cleared her throat, and jumped back to the unfinished conversation. “I never did worry